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Greetings!
Karl Barth wrote this on differentiation and duality in marriage:
In its basic form humanity is fellow-humanity. Everything else which is to be described as human nature and essence stands under this sign to the extent that it is human. If it is not fellow-human, if it is not in some way an approximation to being in the encounter of I and Thou, it is not human. But provision is made that man should not break loose from this human factor. He can forget it. He can misconstrue it. He can despise it. He can scorn and dishonour it. But he cannot slough it off or break free from it. Humanity is not an ideal which he can accept or discard, or a virtue which he can practise or not practise. Humanity is one of the determinations with which we have to do in theological anthropology. It is an inviolable constant of human existence as such. An anthropology which ignored or denied this basic form of humanity would be explicable in terms of the practical corruption and perversion of man. But it would fly in face of a fact which the practical corruption and perversion of man cannot alter, let alone a theoretical judgment based upon it and therefore false. Man is in fact fellow-human. He is in fact in the encounter of I and Thou. This is true even though he may contradict it both in theory and in practice; even though he may pretend to be man in isolation and produce anthropologies to match. In so doing he merely proves that he is contradicting himself, not that he can divest himself of this basic form of humanity. He has no choice to be fellow-human or something else. His being has this basic form.
That this is the case it is brought before us by the fact that we cannot say man without having to say male or female and also male and female. Man exists in this differentiation, in this duality. It is to be noted at once that this is the only structural differentiation in which he exists. The so-called races of mankind are only variations of one and the same structure, allowing at any time the practical intermingling of the one with the other and consisting only in fleeting transitions from the one to the other, so that they cannot be fixed and differentiated with any precision but only very approximately, and certainly cannot be compared with the distinct species and subspecies of the animal kingdom. In the distinction of man and woman, however, we have a structural differentiation of human existence. Man has this sexual differentiation in common with animals of all species and sub-species. This is the unavoidable sign and reminder that he exists in proximity to them and therefore within the context of creation as a whole; within and not above the boundary of the creature. . . .
Man remains what he is, and therefore a being which intends and seeks his true partner in woman and not in man, and woman remains what she is, and therefore a being whose true counterpart cannot be found in woman but only in man. And because fundamentally--even though it cannot attain any corresponding form externally, and the counterpart is either absent or unrecognised--human being is a being in encounter, even human being which is temporarily isolated will definitely bear and in some way reveal the character of this one particular distinction and connexion. . . .
There can be no question that man is to woman and woman to man supremely the other, the fellow-man, to see and to be seen by whom, to speak with and to listen to whom, to receive from and to render assistance to whom is necessarily a supreme human need and problem and fulfilment, so that whatever may take place between man and man and woman and woman is only as it were a preliminary and accompaniment for this true encounter between man and fellowman, for this true being in fellow-humanity. . . .
It is obvious that the encounter between man and woman is fully and properly achieved only where there is the special connexion of one man loving this woman and one woman loving this man in free choice and with a view to a full life-partnership; a connexion which is on both sides so clear and strong as to make their marriage both possible and necessary as a unique and definitive attachment. . . .
There is none who can escape this whole sphere. Man cannot escape his existence, and his existence as such stands under this determination. In the light of this we said at the very outset that man is fellow-human, that he is in the encounter of I and Thou, that humanity is not an ideal or virtue but an inviolable constant of human existence. In the fact of the duality of male and female, which cannot be resolved in a higher synthesis, we have this constant so clearly before us that we can only live it out, however well or badly. There can be no question of setting this fact aside, or overlooking it in practice. There is no being of man above the being of male and female.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2, pp. 285-286, 287, 288, 289.
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 Thank you for your interest in the historical theology of the church.Grace and Peace,
Dr. James C. Goodloe IV, Executive
Director
Foundation for Reformed Theology
4103 Monument Avenue
Richmond, Virginia 23230
Better Preaching, Teaching, and Pastoral Care
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