John Frame

Gender-Neutral Pronouns An Attack on “Being” | The Imago Dei

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • Moral standards…presuppose absolute moral standards, which in turn presuppose the existence of an absolute personality. In other words, they presuppose the existence of God. But what God?… Of all the major religious traditions, it is only biblical religion that affirms a God who is both personal and absolute. [Only biblical religion sees] that the idea of absolute personality is closely linked to the ideas of a Creator-creature distinction [as reflected in the imago Dei], divine sovereignty, and the Trinity. Compromise these and you compromise the personality of God. This precise pattern of thought is found only in the Bible and in traditions which are heavily influenced by the Bible. Is it then too much to say that morality presupposes the God of the Bible? I think not. — John Frame

I have been wanting to connect the reason I see gender-neutral pronouns like, they/them, ze/zim, sie/hir, are being used by the post-modern Left. The real — bottom line reason — is it dilutes evidences for God and every human’s “Imago Dei” Norman Geisler notes that “[t]he only ‘common ground’ with unbelievers is that they too are creatures in God’s image and live in God’s world.” Continuing he says,

  • But there are no common notions or methods; non-Christians approach the world differently from Christians, and they view it differently. We have a common world with unbelievers but no common worldview. The contact point with unbelievers is the imago Dei. But even here the “point of contact” is the “point of conflict,” for “if there is no head-on collision with the systems of the natural man there will be no point of contact with the sense of deity in the natural man.” Conflict is inevitable because of human depravity and sin.

I will emphasize our personal being in our language to bolster the point in this paragraph

Let me explain a bit more. Part of the Imago Dei in us all is that we get our “being” from it [“It” – the Ultimate Being]. In other words, an example I use is “can you refer to yourself in the womb of your mother without using personal pronouns? We have an “I” in our being. But that “I” has not always existed… it itself was brought into being by my, or your, parents. Who likewise had being, but “contingent ‘being,'” as they relied on others for their being.

I know, it is tough. But this “being” I am speaking of is argued well below, and is an excellent apologetic for God and the Christian worldview. Excerpted from my post, “Kalam Cosmological Argument ~ History and Argument“

PUT THUS:

We spoke of the universe as “the collection of beings in space and time.” Consider one such being: yourself. You exist, and you are, in part at least, material. This means that you are a finite, limited and changing being, you know that right now, as you read this book, you are dependent for your existence on beings outside you. Not your parents or grandparents. They may no longer be alive, but you exist now. And right now you depend on many things in order to exist–for example, on the air you breathe. To be dependent in this way is to be contingent. You exist if something else right now exists.

But not everything can be like this. For then everything would need to be given being, but there would be nothing capable of giving it. There would not exist what it takes for anything to exist. So there must be something that does not exist conditionally; something which does not exist only if something else exists; something which exists in itself. What it takes for this thing to exist could only be this thing itself. Unlike changing material reality, there would be no distance, so to speak, between what this thing is and that it is. Obviously the collection of beings changing in space and time cannot be such a thing. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist cannot be identical with the universe itself or with a part of the universe.

(From “Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God“)

An excellent short video explaining this all is this one,

Contingency Argument SPEED RUN!

In other words, our “being” has a Cause in His “Being.” Plato saw this dimly in his Theory of Forms:

Plato’s Theory of Forms is a philosophical concept that explains the nature of reality. The basic question goes something like this:

We can see trees, cats, circles and many other things in everyday life, and we can easily recognise each one as the thing it is supposed to be. But, if we look closer, we never really see anything like a “standard cat.” Every cat is different, and so is every tree and every drawn circle. Especially with geometric forms, they are never perfect. Every circle we can see in our world is either broken, distorted, pixelated, or in a myriad of other ways not “a perfect circle.” In fact, a perfect geometrical circle would need to be drawn with a line that does not have any thickness, and so would be invisible!

So how is it, Plato asks, that we are able to identify circles, trees and cats if have actually never seen a “standard” thing of each kind?

There are two worlds, Plato says: the world of physical objects and the world of Forms. The world of physical objects is the world we see around us, while the world of Forms is the world of abstract concepts and ideas. The Forms are perfect, unchanging, and eternal, while the physical objects we see around us are imperfect, changing, and temporary.

Norman Geisler explains this in differing ways with the following. And note, I have more in-depth reproductions of his arguments in the second half of this post — along with the PDF reproductions for download. But I am here desperately trying to dumb the argument down to make the broader point. Which is, the “pronouns” being foisted on us ARE AN ATTACK on the foundation of truth and reality, which is rooted in God’s “Being”, Image, transferred to us in a finite, now fallen way.

Based on Sufficient Reason

(See an excellent article at The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

P1) A contingent being exists.

  1. This contingent being is caused either (1) by itself, or (2) by another.
  2. If it were caused by itself, it would have to precede itself in existence, which is impossible.

P2) Therefore, this contingent being (2) is caused by another, i.e., depends on something else for its existence.

P3) That which causes (provides the sufficient reason for) the existence of any contingent being must be either (3) another contingent being, or (4) a non-contingent being (necessary) being.

  1. If 3, then this contingent cause must itself be caused by another, and so onto infinity.

P4) Therefore, that which causes (provides the sufficient reason for) the existence of any contingent being must be either (5) an infinite series of contingent beings, or (4) a necessary being.

P5) An infinite series of contingent beings (5) is incapable of yielding a sufficient reason for the existence of any being.

P6) Therefore, a necessary being (4) exists!

Based on the Principle of Existential Causality

  1. Some limited, changing being[s] exist.
  2. The present existence of every limited, changing being is caused by another.
  3. There cannot be an infinite regress of causes of being.
  4. Therefore, there is a first Cause of the present existence of these beings.
  5. This first Cause must be infinite, necessary, eternal, simple, unchangeable and one.
  6. This first uncaused Cause is identical with the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition

A mix of both

  1. Something exists (e.g., I do);
  2. I am a contingent being;
  3. Nothing cannot cause something;
  4. Only a Necessary Being can cause a contingent being;
  5. Therefore, I am caused to exist by a Necessary Being;
  6. But I am personal, rational, and moral kind of being (since I engage in these kinds of activities);
  7. Therefore this Necessary Being must be a personal, rational, and moral kind of being, since I am similar to him by the Principle of Analogy;
  8. But a Necessary Being cannot be contingent (i.e., not necessary) in its being which would be a contradiction;
  9. Therefore, this Necessary Being is personal, rational, and moral in a necessary way, not in a contingent way;
  10. This Necessary Being is also eternal, uncaused, unchanging, unlimited, and one, since a Necessary Being cannot come to be, be caused by another, undergo change, be limited by any possibility of what it could be (a Necessary Being has no possibility to be other than it is), or to be more than one Being (since there cannot be two infinite beings);
  11. Therefore, one necessary, eternal, uncaused, unlimited (=infinite), rational, personal, and moral being exists;
  12. Such a Being is appropriately called “God” in the theistic sense, because he possesses all the essential characteristics of a theistic God;
  13. Therefore, the theistic God exists.

IN OTHER WORDS, our being, the “I” that we experience the world through IS AN APOLOGETIC, EVIDENCE of God!

Our being has a logical argument from Thee Being.

Our being (ways in which something can exist or occur or to be presented, or stand) is rooted in a theistic argument that is much surer in it’s premises and explanations.

That aside, the Marxist [read here atheistic] attack on Western values and truth is rooted itself in negating the Judeo-Christian aspect of historical truth, or knowing Part of this argument is the enquiry into “what we can know.” Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution either state or assume this:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

[….]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

[….]

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States…”

This title of Supreme Judge of the world establishes God not only as the Creator of the world but also as the source of moral law. This statement is in opposition to the idea of Deism, which says that there exists a supreme being or creator who set the universe in motion but does not intervene in human affairs or the natural world. This statement suggests that those writing the declaration believed that the God of the Bible was the ultimate judge of good and evil.

The final mention of God in the Declaration of Independence labels God as the giver of Divine Providence.

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

This is a statement of trust in the divine’s oversight and actions that would result in declaring independence from Britain. These four mentions of God show that the founding fathers had a clear belief in moral truth which originated from a supreme being. In an article for Intercessors for America, Tyler O’Neil states, “The leaders who formed our country based their arguments for independence on the laws of God, and they trusted Him to guide America through its struggles. They looked to faith as a bulwark of freedom, not as its opposite.”

What Role Did Religious Beliefs Play in the Founding of the United States?

Many religious backgrounds made up those living in Colonial America at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Puritans, Anglicans, Quakers, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and Jewish congregations were all represented within the American Colonies.

It is well documented that 51 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention claimed to hold Christian beliefs. Even Benjamin Franklin, a proclaimed Deist, gave a call to prayer that contained several references to scripture on June 28th, 1787, when the Constitutional Convention was struggling to agree.

“The Constitution doesn’t explicitly mention God but references frequently concepts central to Christianity like morals, reason, and free will,” says David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a Texas-based group dedicated to promoting America’s Christian heritage. …

(CHRISTIANITY)

In other words, attacking the foundation of knowledge and beings able to know moral truths and reality is at the heart of the pronoun issue. It is both an attack on our freedoms here in America, as well as an attack on our freedoms discovered via Western culture writ large.

WOMEN IN APOLOGETICS notes the foundation of “truth” in part of their post:

Truth

There seems to be little consensus where there was once clarity on what constituted male and female, boy and girl, man and woman, he and she. This is evidenced in the growing number of people who identify as transgender (those who experience gender dysphoria, a condition that describes the “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity”) or those who identify themselves using other nontraditional gender terms. As such, it is becoming somewhat common for people to state or list their preferred pronouns in conversation, on social media, before meetings, or in email signatures. For example, during the 2020 election season, several Democratic presidential candidates put their preferred pronouns on their social media profiles.

In contrast, the Christian worldview asserts that God created people to be either male or female. Genesis 1:27 reads, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” God did not intend for sex and gender (identity) to be separate from one another; they are synonymous. To adopt a different worldview on sex and gender would be to reject the truth. Nevertheless, the culture today is attempting (with some success, unfortunately) to convince Christians differently. 

To not call someone by their preferred pronouns, like,  xe/xir/xirs, ze/zir/zirs and fae/faer/faers, is liked to a “human rights violations.” In fact, those prouns are an attack on what it is to be human.

Our essence.

Our being.

Dennis Prager says it is a war on human order. Which is a war on God:

Genesis 3:5 has the serpent (the Devil) tempting Adam and Eve. Half-truths are the best the Serpent can come up with, but the commentary I love on this verse will follow. I will highlight some points in it. 3:5 reads: “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (CSB).

Here is the commentary:

The climax is a lie big enough to reinterpret life (this breadth is the power of a false system) and dynamic enough to redirect the flow of affection and ambition. To be as God,25 and to achieve it by outwitting him, is an intoxicating programme. God will henceforth be regarded, consciously or not, as rival and enemy. Against this human arrogance ‘the obedience of the one’ and his taking ‘the form of a servant’ show up in their true colours (Rom. 5:19; Phil. 2:7).

So the tempter pits his bare assertion against the word and works of God, presenting divine love as envy, service as servility, and a suicidal plunge as a leap into life, ‘All these things will I give thee …’; the pattern repeats in Christ’s temptations, and in ours.

— On knowing good and evil, see on 2:9 [see below].

25. Or, gods (AV). The word ’ĕlōhîm can be used generically to include the angelic orders; see on 1:26.

2:9

…. The knowledge of good and evil is perhaps best understood in this living context. In isolation it could mean a number of things, many of them with biblical support. The phrase can stand for moral or aesthetic discernment (e.g. 1 Kgs 3:9; Isa. 7:15); yet Adam and Eve are already treated as morally responsible (2:16, 17) and generally percipient (3:6) before they touch the tree. It could be a hebraism for ‘everything’ (i.e. man is not to covet omniscience); yet it can hardly mean this in 3:22. It has often been regarded as sexual awakening, in the light of 3:7; recently R. Gordis suggested that this tree thereby offers a rival immortality to that of the tree of life, in the procreation of a family and a posterity. This too is open to several objections, including the fact that 3:22a is incompatible with it (heaven is sexless in the Old as in the New Testament), and that God instituted marriage after forbidding the use of the tree that is said to symbolize it.

In the context, however, the emphasis falls on the prohibition rather than the properties of the tree. It is shown to us as forbidden. It is idle to ask what it might mean in itself; this was Eve’s error. As it stood, prohibited, it presented the alternative to discipleship: to be self-made, wresting one’s knowledge, satisfactions and values from the created world in defiance of the Creator (cf. 3:6). Even more instructive is the outcome of the experiment; see on 3:7. In all this the tree plays its part in the opportunity it offers, rather than the qualities it possesses; like a door whose name announces only what lies beyond it.

Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 1, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1967), 67–68, 73.

Yep. It is all a big lie. And the extreme gender confusion with it’s high rate of suicide is literally “a suicidal plunge as a leap into life.”

And the battle goes on…

And another point. Lets say you work at a Starbucks in West Hollywood, and you have 4-people who each have chosen a preferred pronoun[s]. For example, here are some of the choices:

  • So one person uses “xe, xem, xyr, xyers.”
  • Another uses “ne, nem, nir, nerself.” 
  • Yet another uses “ci, cer, cer, cirs.”
  • And lastly this person uses “ve, vis, ver, verself.”

How is one supposed to keep track of all that hogwash so as not to get fired? It is impossible for even these 4 to keep it straight. In Michigan they are making these felonies:

A new Michigan bill would make it a hate crime to cause someone to “feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.”

The Michigan Hate Crime Act, designated HB 4474 , passed in the state House on Tuesday and now goes before the Michigan Senate.  It will replace the existing Ethnic Intimidation Act and expand the categories of people protected by the law.

The new bill would include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” as classes protected against intimidation.

[….]

If passed, the hate speech legislation would make violators guilty of a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000.

(DAILY CALLER | see DAILY WIRE as well)

AMERICAN THINKER notes this religious attack implicitly at the beginning of their article:

God-fearing people recognize that the effort to demolish the two God-given genders is a shaking of the fist at the Almighty. After all, the first chapter of the Bible says: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). This paradigm empowers females who are created in the imago dei. They are different from males, but equal to them at the level of essence. Nature and biology confirm God’s binary design.

Unfortunately, we live in a post-Christian society. Sane arguments often fall on deaf ears. The secular elites who control education and the media have marginalized those who provide biblical explanations. Given this sad reality, might there be another way to end the compelled speech of pronoun lunacy in which people can decide by which pronouns they will be referred?

[….]

For example, if someone asked another person about me: “What do you think of Newt?” They would need to respond something like: “I hate Newt. He is a tyrant. He never does what you ask of her.” Note that “he” is used when Newt is the subject of the sentence, and “her” is used at the end when Newt is the object of the sentence. If they failed to honor my preferred pronouns and said, “…He never does whatever you ask of him…” this would be a violation. I would report this, and press charges, if possible.

Mary could likewise insist on her pronouns being “She” and “Him.” Those speaking or writing about Mary would have to write something like: “I appreciate Mary. She is a great friend. I have no better friend than him. She is a great listener.” Or she could insist on “He” and “Her” (as does Newt).

Can you imagine if as many people as possible insisted upon this practice? Might it cause the regime of verbal tyranny to collapse? Though we are in the process of butchering English with the improper use of “they,” the mind can factor in this mutation and get used to it. However, since native English speakers calculate pronoun case automatically and subconsciously, it would be nearly impossible to speak and write in a way that could satisfy those who insist on different gendering pronouns that are case-dependent.

Yep. It is impossible to satisfy such people. This thinking “wresting one’s knowledge, satisfactions and values from the created world in defiance of the Creator.”

SOME APOLOGISTS DISCUSS THE ISSUE:

Douglas Groothuis w/Melissa Dougherty

Today, I interviewed Dr. Groothuis about the craziness we see around us and what we can do about it. Dr. Groothuis holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and is a Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. He is the author of sixteen books and has also published over thirty academic articles in journals as well as dozens of pieces in publications.

Nancy Pearcey w/Babylon Bee’s Ethan Nicolle

Editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle welcome Professor Nancy Pearcey. She is professor of apologetics and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University and author of several books, most recently Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality. Prof. Pearcey’s books also include Total Truth, Finding Truth, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo and How Now Shall We Live? (co-authored with Chuck Colson). They talk about sexuality, gender, abortion, and Christianity’s high view of the human body.

Topics Discussed

  • Abortion… scientific human life vs modern Personhood Theory
  • Biological Sex vs Gender
  • The Christian’s high view of the material world and the human body due to belief in the incarnation of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the new heaven  and earth.
  • Trusting in a design vs individual revolt against nature and biological realities
  • Language as a front in the culture war
  • All of our actions endorse a worldview
  • What about people who identify as “gay Christians” or some other adjective placed before the word Christian?
  • Nudity in medieval Christian art

Unnamed People w/Melissa Dougherty

There’s a postmodern ideology that is plowing through our world that aims to dismantle all societal and moral norms. This ideology is responsible for how we have gotten to the point in society where language is rebranded and “sex” and “gender” are separate. Now, there are supposedly unlimited genders. If this isn’t disturbing enough, the logical conclusion of this ideology (which really functions like a religion) is that age should be flexible, too. Kids should have the freedom to choose what age they identify as… as sexual beings. This ideology says this is good, liberating, and empowering.

This is completely shocking. And absolute garbage that should be talked about and brought to light.