Wednesday, March 06, 2019

Homosexuality and inerrancy


It is quite true that the essence of human nature remains what it has always been, and the Bible has an explanation for that in terms of our being created by God but having somehow fallen out of fellowship with God. Whatever you think of the literal stories that are told about how that happened, it seems to explain a heck of a lot of human history better than virtually any other account I can think of. In fact, secular schemes often founder because they expect human nature to be better than it really is.

That said, some things do change in significant ways. One of them has to do with marriage customs. In Bible times, marriage for love was not normative, and, what is more important cultures in all countries, pagan or Hebrew, felt a strong need to reproduce. That was how you were cared for in you old age, this was how you maintained the tribe's defense. So people didn't make their gay relationships their marriage. It was, if anything, something you did for fun and games over and above your marriage, and you basically typically used slaves and young boys for those fun and games. The picture of homosexuality in the ancient world was an ugly one, if you read the account of it given in Sarah Ruden's Paul among the People. It wasn't gay people wanting to marry the one they loved, it was whether it was OK, if you were a male who has a wife, to get something else one the side from someone who was treated as a plaything, whether male or female.

Ruden perceives Paul's condemnation of homosexuality as falling under the rubric of justice. She writes:

"Paul's Roman audience knew what justice was, if only through missing it. They would have been surprised that justice applied to homosexuality, of all things. But many of them---slaves, freedmen, the poor, the young--would have understood in the next instance. Christ, the only Son of God, gave his body to save mankind. What greater contrast could there be to the tradition of using a weaker body for selfish pleasure or a power trip. Among Christians, there could be no quibbling about what to do: no one could have imagined homosexuality's being different that in it was; it would have to go. And tolerance for it did disappear from the church."

Ruden doesn't adjudicate the issue herself. But, she leaves the Christian gay defender an avenue to come back and say: Look, we can understand Paul as not being a blind homophobe for saying what he did about homosexual conduct. But the world has changed. We aren't like that. We don't want to exploit helpless victims. We are just same-sex attracted Christian people who want to replicate the institution Christian marriage with a same-sex partner. We in society today don't feel so obligated to reproduce, (and many married couples don't), and we can still practice parenthood through adoption. (Do married couples have an obligation to at least try to reproduce?) 

But it isn't quite that easy for the Christian gay defender. The counter-argument is that it's a difficult argument to make that homosexual acts are condemned in Scripture because of the practice is somehow done in an unjust manner. In many passages in Scripture the acts are cataloged as wrong in virtue of, well, their being homosexual acts. And while we might explain Paul's opposition to homosexuality in terms of his observation of how vile the practice was in his time, Christians hold that Paul had an Inspirer, the Holy Spirit, who as the Third Person of the Trinity, was surely aware not only of what homosexuality was like in the first century, but what it is like now in the 21st. If God had intended to only to condemn the injustice of ancient homosexual practice, He would have said so. 

So I think to accept the more liberal understanding of homosexuality along the lines suggested by the argument I sketched above, you have to reject the kind of strong doctrine of inerrancy, for example, provided in the Chicago Statement. Catholics, of course, are playing a different, but similar ball game, in that for Catholics the "inerrancy" is in the Magisterium, and Scripture for them is not considered quite so transparent.

Which goes back to whether we need an explanation for the condemnation of homosexuality. If we feel one is needed, then we might be able to provide one that leaves room for the possibility that gay Christians can, as good Christians, practice homosexuality. Conservative believers, however, can warn that given the sinful nature of man, we have to be careful of accepting interpretations of the Bible that allow us to do what we want to do. If we are not careful, we are going to end up interpreting everything out of Scripture that we don't want to obey.

Like C. S. Lewis, I have never had to deal with same-sex attraction. I respect both viewpoints on this issue. I think the more inclined you are toward an inerrantist model of Scripture, the harder it will be to find homosexual conduct acceptable.

19 comments:

bmiller said...

Reposting from the other thread here.

Catholics can also offer natural law as an explanation. Something that many Protestants used to rely on also.

One Brow said...

bmiller,

Since natural law depends on the arbitrary determinations of the purposes of things, you can change it conclusions simply by saying that you misunderstood what the final cause of something was.

One Brow said...

And while we might explain Paul's opposition to homosexuality in terms of his observation of how vile the practice was in his time, Christians hold that Paul had an Inspirer, the Holy Spirit, who as the Third Person of the Trinity, was surely aware not only of what homosexuality was like in the first century, but what it is like now in the 21st. If God had intended to only to condemn the injustice of ancient homosexual practice, He would have said so.

If you believe Moses was inspired, are you required to stop eating shellfish?

If you believe Paul was inspired, are required to view slavery as acceptable?

Christians have been trying to improve on their understanding of morality for a couple of thousand years since Paul. Why hold the line at homosexual marriage?

bmiller said...

Denying that sexual reproduction is a "thing" is arbitrary. Also kind of crazy.

Starhopper said...

"Inerrancy" is such a slippery term. The last time I was asked (challenged, actually) by a fundamentalist whether I believed the Bible to be inerrant, I had to ask him first, "Tell me just what do you mean by the word?"

1. Is scripture "true" in a woodenly literal sense?
2. Is it without error in the author's intent?
3. Does it express (without error) what the Holy Spirit wants it to say?
and 3a. Is Holy Scripture inerrant in its entirety (i.e., not isolated passages out of context)?

The 1st sense is easily disproven. The 2nd is somewhat problematic, as it puts the reader in the place of mind reading people who lived many centuries ago, in cultural circumstances quite alien to our own, and whose very names we often do not know (e.g., who exactly wrote 1st and 2nd Kings, or the Book of Job?).

I choose to answer yes, the Bible is inerrant in sense 3a. But what is most definitely NOT inerrant is the individual interpretation of Scripture, and this is doubly the case when it comes to pulling verses out of context.

"First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."
(2 Peter 1:20-21)

"So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures."
(2 Peter 3:15-16)

One Brow said...

bmiler,
Denying that sexual reproduction is a "thing" is arbitrary. Also kind of crazy

Based on context, I'm going guess that this was in response to my pointing out that the determination of the purpose of things is arbitrary, which is completely different from denying the consequences of an activity.

Consensual sexual activity can result in many outcomes: bonding, reproduction, pleasure, stress relief, status confirmation, etc. Natural law takes exactly one of these outcomes (reproduction), proclaims it to be the final cause (that is, the primary and most important reason to engage in sex), and creates all sorts determinations based on that (such as the only type of good sex is in marriage and with a man depositing semen in a woman's vagina). However, if you determine that the final cause of sex is bonding, you get a very different set of determinations on what is good or not. I started asking for how to objectively determine a final cause years ago, and have never received an answer.

So, when you can engage the actual argument, please do so. Until then, kindly stuff your straw men and accusations of crazy under a rock somewhere.

bmiller said...

Biologists think sexual reproduction is a result of of males and females of a species engaging in intercourse. You can call science arbitrary, but most other people don't.

One Brow said...

bmiller,

If you were to actually Dr. Feser, among others, closely enough to understand their position, you would realize that one of Dr. Feser's complaints is that scientists only look at material and efficient causes (and even then, not all of what Fest et. al. think efficient causes are), and entirely ignore formal and final causes entirely.

Thus, there are two problems with your reply:
1) biologists don't tell us anything about the final cause on which natural law depends, and 2) since biologists would also say that bonding, pleasure, stress relief, status confirmation, etc. are a result of males and females of a species engaging in intercourse, merely stating that something is a result is not sufficient to determine it is a final cause (again, something Dr. Feser et. al. make very clear).

Again, I would ask you to engage the actual argument of whether an objective method to determine final cause exists or not (my position being not).

bmiller said...

I don't really know what you think "the" argument is.

Biologists have objectively determined that sexual activity between males and females in a population tend to produce more males and females. The fact that there are incentives to engage in that activity does not mean that heterosexual activity does not result in progeny. So sexual intercourse is directed to propagation of the species.

We eat food to nourish our bodies and to keep ourselves alive. Food also tastes good, so we eat it. If we ate food only because it tasted good and vomited it right back up, that would be called bulimia and is considered a disorder.

One Brow said...

bmiller,

The argument is that throwing out a list of facts is not sufficient to determine what a final cause it. For example, for most type of unprocessed food, it's easy to make an argument that eating this or that particular object is a violation of natural law, because the purpose of the food is to grow more individuals/move parts of the body/etc.

So, once again, is there an objective method for determining a final cause?

bmiller said...

Well, now I'm not sure what you mean by *final cause*.

Normal sexual activity tends to result in progeny. This is an instance of science recognizing teleology. If you want to dispute that normal sexual activity does not tend to result in progeny then I'd like an explanation.

One Brow said...

bmiller,

If you don't understand what final cause is, it's going to be difficult to have any sort of discussion with you on natural law, outside of your parroting points.

Normal sexual activity tends to result in progeny.

Please describe how normal sexual activity between two males, or two females, results in progeny. Please describe how normal sexual activity between one person's mouth and another person's genitalia result in pregnancy.

Or, if you feel neither of the above is true, please give your objective criteria for establishing what is "normal".

bmiller said...

I understand what Aristotle meant by final cause, but it doesn't look like you agree with him.

It also seems you don't understand what biologists mean by sexual reproduction. Sorry about that.

bmiller said...

I can see this conversation is going nowhere fast, so anyone interested in the topic of natural law and how it relates to the OP, you can find a short explanation HERE

bmiller said...

And regardless of your opinion you need to click on the Carlin link.
If you don't think he was a genius, just try to memorize and repeat his routine.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...




what makes one a liberal theologically

I began calling myself a liberal about 1986-87 when I first went to Perkins school of theology. It was not just because I was a liberal politically but also because I had had it with the conservative form of Christianity that I had been associated with since my born again experience in 1979. Yet I'm not a liberal because I belong to a sect called liberal. I belong to a sect called liberal because through study and prayer I've come to a conclusion that things are a certain way and that way seems to be more often marked as a tendency by that term.

bmiller said...

Joe,

There's not much you stated in your article that Catholics would disagree with.
But you seemed to leave an impression that you opposed the 5 points of Fundamentalism. I don't think you actually intended that since you ended with an affirmation of the Nicene Creed.

One Brow said...

Blogger bmiller said...
I understand what Aristotle meant by final cause, but it doesn't look like you agree with him.

Actually, I think there are some very interesting and useful notions centered on hylomorphism.
I'm not sure to what degree I agree or disagree with it.

It also seems you don't understand what biologists mean by sexual reproduction. Sorry about that.

Upon what point of sexual reproduction have I disagreed?

One Brow said...

bmiller said...
I can see this conversation is going nowhere fast, so anyone interested in the topic of natural law and how it relates to the OP, you can find a short explanation HERE

Dr. Feser, AFAICT, has never made an effort to say how you objectively determine a final cause. Instead, as found in the link you provided, you get "For it is quite obvious ...", which I find insufficient, as what is obvious to me does not seem obvious to you. Regarding sexual activity, it is quite obvious that the primary purpose is to promote bonding between the people engaged in the activity.