Recent discussions about manhood and womanhood commonly speak of “male and female natures,” and I have adopted this language in my own writings. However, this raises an area of disagreement concerning ontology. Even among those who affirm traditional Christian teaching on men and women,[1] some object to the language of differing “natures” because men and women must likewise share Christ’s human nature to be saved. Grounding their objection in history, they appeal to the Chalcedonian Definition (A.D. 451), which teaches that Christ’s humanity is equal in nature to all mankind. With respect to Christ’s nature, the Definition includes,
1. This is not only a source of difference between egalitarians and complementarians, but even between narrow and broad complementarians. See Zachary M. Garris, Masculine Christianity, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: Reformation Zion Publishing, 2001), 62–70; Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, “‘Equal in Being, Unequal in Role’: Exploring the Logic of Woman’s Subordination,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, eds. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005), 301–333; Steven B. Cowan, “The Metaphysics of Subordination: A Response to Rebecca Merrill Groothuis,” The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 14/1 (Spring 2009): 43–53.
consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood;
Thus, Christ is said to be “consubstantial” or “one substance” (ὁμοούσιον) with us according to his humanity. He is therefore of the same substance as all humans, irrespective of sex. Likewise, the Westminster Confession teaches that the Son of God took on “man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin.” It adds that the Son was “conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance” (WCF 8.2).
Therefore, Christ shares the “essential properties” of humanity, the same human substance as men and women. Through this sharing of our human nature, Christ can achieve salvation for both men and women by His priestly work (Heb. 2:14–18; 4:15; 5:9).
However, we must also account for the fact that Jesus is a man and not a woman. How are male and female natures the same, and how are they different? That’s what I will begin to answer by looking to the past. But first let’s look to the Bible.
Same Human Nature But Different
Both men and women are fully made in God’s image and thus fully share human nature. A woman is not different from a man in the same way a bird is different from a man. Men and women are both subsets of the category of human (Gen. 1:27). Yet a man is not a woman, and a woman is not a man.
Scripture firmly distinguishes between men and women. Woman is not a man but man’s “glory” (1 Cor. 11:7). Woman is not a man but was created “for” man (1 Cor. 11:9). This is part of “nature,” which teaches that woman should have longer hair than man (1 Cor. 11:14–15). Nature also teaches that man and woman may marry, while two women having relations is “contrary to nature” (Rom. 1:26). Woman is also a “weaker vessel” (1 Pet. 3:7) compared to man, and thus naturally different.
So, there must be a way to express that man and woman are different, including their different body structures and chromosomes (sexual dimorphism). Christ did not take on a woman’s body, yet he still saves women because he took on a human body with its essential properties. Some of the problem in communicating this relates to the philosophical language of “nature” and “substance.” Is such language sufficient to account for both the unity and differences between men and women?
In answering that question, we must first acknowledge that Scripture does not give us these philosophical terms, so we must do our best to faithfully convey biblical concepts here. The Greek word homousion (ὁμοούσιον, “consubstantial”) is not found in the Greek New Testament, though it accurately conveys the Bible’s teaching regarding Christ’s humanity. The New Testament uses the word homoiopathes in reference to humans sharing the “same nature” to demonstrate that they should worship God (Acts 14:15, NASB 1995) and to show that Elijah had “a nature like ours” and thus God hears our prayers (Jas. 5:17). However, the emphasis of this word is on “experiencing similarity in feelings or circumstances.”[2]
2. “ὁμοιοπαθής,” BDAG, 706. For those unaware, BDAG—named for the four initials that represent the authors responsible for this work: Walter Bauer, F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich—is the standard (English-language) Greek lexicon in use today.
In providing technical, philosophical language that seems to fit with Scripture, Michael Carlino and Kyle Claunch have recently argued that “being gendered as male or female is a property belonging to the essence of humanity.” Being a male or female cannot be changed, and there are not degrees of either but a sexual binary. Thus, gender is not an “accidental” property, but part of the particularization of the essential property of being human.[3] Therefore, all humans have the essential property of being either male or female.
3. Michael Carlino and Kyle Claunch, “Gender Essentialism in Anthropological, Covenantal, and Christological Perspective,” in Eikon 6.2 (Fall 2024): 32–33.
So if by saying “man and woman have different natures,” one means that the two sexes are different in essential properties of humanity, then we must reject this. But if by saying “man and woman have different natures,” we mean their bodies are different in a significant way that affects their duties and the way they relate to one another in all of life, then this can and should be affirmed. That is, men and women differently particularize the essential property of being male or female. Woman is fully human but is not a man. Man is fully human but is not a woman. Christ died for all humans, men and women. Yet there are things that men should do that women should not, and vice-versa (e.g., 1 Tim. 2:12). The language of the sexes having differing “natures” may be technically imprecise, but it does communicate that femaleness is different from maleness—which is why older theologians spoke this way.
While we are helped by articulating a precise, technical definition,[4] we are also helped by looking to the past. In what follows, I offer seven examples of stalwart Reformed theologians who use terms like “male and female nature.” At the end, we will consider the ongoing use of this language.
4. Michael Carlino and Kyle Claunch, “Gender Essentialism in Anthropological, Covenantal, and Christological Perspective,” in Eikon 6.2 (Fall 2024): 20–71.
Voices from the Past
First, in commenting on 1 Timothy 2:12, theologian John Calvin (1509–64) said that woman “by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey,” and thus Paul “bids them be ‘quiet,’ that is, keep within their own rank.”[5] Likewise, in discussing the Fifth Commandment’s requirement for children to obey their parents, theologian Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) said, “Indeed the mother is inferior unto the father, as concerning the law of the subjection of wedlock: besides that, weaker also in nature and kind, so that she is not unworthily called the weaker vessel of the Apostle Peter.”[6] (By “inferior,” Musculus meant the wife is under her husband’s authority, not that she is of lesser worth than her husband. See the language of Westminster Larger Catechism 123–133.)
5. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, trans. William Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1856), 68.
6. Wolfgang Musculus, Common Places of Christian Religion (London, 1563), fol. 72 [English modernized].
The seminal reformed textbook Synopsis of a Purer Theology (1625) said that God created humans male and female (citing Gen. 1:27) but also added, “Yet they were unequal in nature and dignity [natura et dignitate tamen inaequales], as she was more feeble and lower—whence especially the woman is called the image and glory of the man, as man is in the image of God (1 Corinthians 11:7).”[7]
7. Walaeus, et al., Synopsis Purioris Theologiae: Synopsis of a Purer Theology, ed. Dolf te Velde, trans. Reimer A. Faber, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1:332–333. This section, “About Man Created in the Image of God” (Disputation 13), lists Antonius Thysius as president.
Later, Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) said nature teaches the “distinction” between men and women, and “no science or philosophy is needed to acquaint oneself with this. Man and woman differ in physical structure and physical strength, in psychological nature and psychological strength; thereby they naturally enjoy different rights and are called to different duties.”[8] Referring to woman’s place in the family, Bavinck said, “Her nature is designed for that, her orientation lies in that direction, there she best fulfills her calling and best reaches her destiny.”[9]
8. Bavinck, The Christian Family, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian’s Library Press, 2012), 25.
9. Ibid., 145
Similarly, Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) said, “When men and women dissatisfied with their respective natures attempt to eradicate the distinction that God had once established between men and women in terms of body and soul . . . They sense a personal inadequacy within themselves as women, and rebel against the ordinance of God, who determines in our very birth whether we will be male or female.”[10]
10. Abraham Kuyper, Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship, 3 vols. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press), 2:357.
Benjamin Morgan Palmer (1818–1902), the great preacher and theologian of New Orleans, said, “Woman is led to this submission by the instinct of her nature . . . Man is endowed with attributes which qualify him for his more obtrusive position. He is strong, forceful, massive, fond of adventure, full of dash and courage. The woman is not less equipped for her station by the qualities which distinguish her. She is endued with grace and beauty, to win rather than subdue . . . above all, crowned with that sense of dependence out of which submission springs as an instinct.”[11]
11. B. M. Palmer, The Family in its Civil and Churchly Aspects (Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1876), 55.
Finally, Henry Van Dyke, Sr. (1822–1891) a Presbyterian minister in New York, said, “The subordination of woman (not her inferiority) is written upon the constitution of her nature, in the history of her creation, and in all Christian theology.”[12] He added, “But the great disability of woman for the work of the ministry is directly connected with her physical constitution, with the fact that she can be a mother, and that motherhood with all its burdens and blessings is her divinely-appointed destiny. ‘I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully’ (1 Tim. 5:14). Any state of society, and any form of ecclesiastical polity, which forbids or discourages marriage is contrary to nature and to the Word of God.”[13]
12. Henry Van Dyke, “Shall Women Be Licensed to Preach?” The Homiletic Review 15/1 (Jan. 1888): 27.
13. Van Dyke, “Shall Women Be Licensed to Preach?”, 28.
Conclusion
As with all good theology, distinctions are necessary. Do men and women share the same nature? We must distinguish. We affirm that men and women fully share the same human substance with all the essential properties of humanity. Yet we also affirm that men and women differently particularize the essential human property of being male or female. Men and women have different bodily constitutions that are commonly referred to as the “male nature” and “female nature,” and the differing duties assigned to men and women are tied to these sexual distinctions. Woman is fully human, but she is not a man. Man is fully human, but he is not a woman. It is good to embrace the sexual nature God has given you, along with its accompanying duties.
In recent days, debates about manhood and womanhood are essential for defining sex, gender, marriage, and humanity itself. And thus, the language we employ is critical for properly distinguishing male and female. To that end, careful attention needs to be given to the technical differences between essence, nature, attributes, properties, and the like. Admittedly, using terms like “human nature” and “female nature” proceeds with some measure of equivocation. That said, when the Church had a far better understanding of manhood and womanhood, both in their natures and vocations, it is clear that the language of nature could be applied to humanity in general and men and women in particular.
And thus, in attempts to refine our language today, it would be a significant loss to treat the Reformed tradition’s language of male and female “natures” as confusing the essence of being human with the essential human property of being either male or female. Far better, as we seek to tighten our language in the present, we should look to the past to learn from our theological forebears. While we may be able to tighten our language today, we must not discard the teachers of the past who had a far better grasp on what it meant to be male and female.[14]
