In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Jimmy Akin to discuss the question of marriage in heaven. Akin addresses the caller’s concerns about masculinity and femininity, exploring the purpose of male and female sexes and the implications for Christian belief.
Transcript:
Caller: I’m not Catholic because there’s no marriage in heaven. And I feel like my God given, you know, masculinity is like, only makes sense and exclusive, like union with like femininity, like a woman and like God is a father and like not a mother. You know, I know he’s genderless, but like he, you know, his feminine side isn’t. I don’t know if he has a feminine side, but I just feel like I’m incomplete without femininity.
Caller: Okay, let me ask you a question, Luke. Are you a Christian at all or are you a non Christian?
Caller: I’m a Christian, yes.
Jimmy Akin: How do you. Well, this is a curiosity question for me. I’ll get to the substance of your question in a moment. But how do you square that? Because it’s in the Gospels that there’s no marriage in heaven. I mean, Jesus says that flat out in the Gospels. And, and so that’s something that Christians in general have believe. So does. How do you fellowship and participate in a Christian community if it teaches that? Because it would seem to me that would be a reason not to be a Christian rather than not to be a Catholic.
Caller: Yeah, I mean, like, I’m, like, I left the Catholic Church and like I, I looked at like other Christian denominations, but, you know, that’s, you know, I’m on the verge of kind of just, you know, leaving Christianity altogether, I would say.
Jimmy Akin: I see. Okay. Well, I’ll be happy to do my best to help with this question. So let me start with, Let me, let me pose a few questions here. So what’s the purpose of having, speaking in the broadest possible terms, what’s the purpose behind having the male and female sexes?
Caller: I would say to procreate.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah. Okay, good. I would agree. That’s the fundamental purpose. Now, there are other, other lesser purposes, but that’s the big one. And that’s why a very large number of organisms on Earth have different. Have two sexes. There are a few that, that only have one sex, but the vast majority, including even plants, which we normally think of as asexual plants, actually tend to have both sexes. And so we have a huge number of organisms with, with two sexes. And the primary purpose of that is procreation. So given that the primary purpose is procreation, are there any phases of the human life where we’re not procreating and therefore where the two sexes don’t need to be united? Can you think of any?
Caller: I would say when we’re young.
Jimmy Akin: When we’re young. Yeah, that’s right. We’re not procreating when we’re young. We’re not even able to. To procreate when we’re young. We still have our sex. We’re either male or female. But procreation is not for that phase of our existence. And so we don’t need to be united with a person of the opposite gender during that phase. Also, I’d point out not everybody needs to be united with a person of the opposite gender. This is something that Jesus talks about. St. Paul also talks about it, and human experience points that out too. Not everybody has a burning desire to be united maritally or sexually with a member of the opposite sex. So some people, you may feel it more strongly than some people. And that would be an argument for you personally? Well, yeah, you want to get married, but not everybody is in that same situation. And Christianity has place and Catholicism has places for that where, you know, some people, their gift is to be married, and that’s great, and they help procreate the species. And then other people, they have a different calling. They’re not called to be married. And there’s a place for them in the Catholic community too. So it’s a community and a faith that accommodates these different modes of life that people are called to. But going back to the fact that we, we don’t always, in all phases of our existence, need to procreate or even have the ability to procreate. And you correctly identified that. That’s the case for the beginning of our lives. Well, then let’s think about the next life. Because if our bodies have died, then are we going to be procreating in the afterlife?
Caller: I would say no.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, good. And Jesus agrees with that. So if we have these two sexes so that we can procreate when it’s appropriate for us to do so, but it’s not appropriate for us to procreate when we’re young. And if it’s not appropriate for us to procreate after this life, then it would make sense that marriage is something that is for this life, for adults in this life. And the fact that there’s no marriage in heaven actually makes sense. If we’re not going to be reproducing in heaven, then it would make sense for us not to have marriage in heaven. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be spiritually and emotionally united to people of the opposite sex. In fact, I would say, I mean, I’m a widower, and so I hope and pray that I’ll make it to heaven and see my wife in heaven. And I’m sure we’ll love each other even more intensely in heaven than we did on Earth. And so there can be spiritual intimacy and love and happiness and all those things in heaven. It’s just we’re not going to be in a sexual relationship at that point. Because we’re immortals and don’t need to procreate to keep the race going at that point. So those are some of the thoughts that occur to me initially. Also, I would say that there’s a caution that I should give about being guided by one’s feelings. Because feelings are subjective and they change over time. I make a policy of trying to sort of set my feelings aside when I’m looking at important questions like religion and not think, what would I want to be true? Or what would I find disappointing? But what do I actually have evidence for? And the evidence to me from the Gospels, which I also believe I have good evidence to trust, is that, well, we won’t be Marian in heaven. And that seems reasonable. And so I’ve sketched a framework that I think makes sense. It sounds like you find certainly elements of it reasonable, Luke. So I would. I would offer that for your reflection. Also, I have a book called A Daily Defense. In which I look at bunches of different objections. And since this is a concern that you’ve had, there may be additional material in the book that could be of assistance to you. And you’re here in the continental United States. So if you want to hang on the line, Luke, we’ll see about sending you a copy for free.