Sex as vestigia trinitatis

Barth famously argues there is an I-Thou within humanity itself that manifests the inner reciprocity, the differentiation and union, that is the life of the Trinity: “that it is in the differentiation of man and woman, the relation of sex, that there is this repetition, is an indication of the creatureliness of man – for this is something which he has in common with the beasts. But this creaturely differentiation and relationship is show to be distinct and free, to reflect God’s image and to prove His special grace, by the fact that in this particular duality (i.e., to the exclusion of all others) he is alone among the beasts and in the rest of creation, and that it is in this form of life and this alone, as man and woman, that he will continually stand before God, and in the form of his fellow that he will continually stand before himself.”