At the Second Festival of Theology, Will Jones explored the role of natural theology in belief. He writes:
Is God optional? You know – is it a take it or leave it kind of matter whether or not God is there? Our culture certainly thinks it is. Most people today seem to think that God is something that you might reasonably believe in or not, a matter of faith, not reason or logic. Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy famously had God disappear in a ‘puff of logic’ for inadvertently proving that he exists by creating the Babel Fish. For, says Man, ‘it’s a dead giveaway isn’t it?’ And if God has proven that he exists, then, the argument runs, he has left no room for faith, without which he is nothing. This idea of needing to leave room for faith goes back to at least Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, who advanced the then radical idea that God’s existence could not be demonstrated by pure reason but required a step of faith beyond what ordinary human reason could show.
Such an idea was radical then because up till that time most thinkers – and not only Christians – had held that God’s existence could be known as certain fact because it was logically necessary to explain the universe as we know it. The Greek pre-Christian philosophers Plato and Aristotle, for instance, had argued that God must exist because there must be an absolute reality that stands behind the shifting forms of nature, a Being in whom subsists the eternal intelligible realm of perfect order and goodness, a first cause and a pure form. Here, for example, is Plato, in a passage strikingly redolent of scripture:
God, as the old tradition declares, holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, travels according to his nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of his end. Justice always accompanies him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. … Every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the followers of God… And he who would be dear to God must, as far as is possible, be like him and such as he is.
Modern thinkers, including many scientists, have further argued that God is necessary to explain the universe because without a divine designer it is impossible to account for how finely tuned the laws of nature are for the emergence of life and, most pertinently, humankind – a fine-tuning that even non-theist scientists like Stephen Hawking acknowledge. Many also point out that a scientific materialist account of nature has yet to come up with any plausible way of explaining the existence of things like consciousness, free will and morality – phenomena basic to our human experience, and notoriously tricky to squeeze into any materialist world view.
This idea that human beings can, through the use of their ordinary rational faculties, be confident of the existence of their Creator is one endorsed in scripture. Psalm 19 declares that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’, and Paul in Romans 1:18-20 argues that people are ‘without excuse’ for their sinful neglect of God, since ‘what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.’ James points out that even the demons believe there is one God – ‘and shudder’ (James 2:19).
Yet despite this unmistakable endorsement in scripture, and a long and distinguished history of Christian thinkers engaging with natural theology, many Christians in the last century or so have bought into what we might call the Immanuel Kant-Douglas Adams way of thinking. Karl Barth, for instance, the eminent early 20th century Reformed theologian, uttered a famous ‘Nein!’ to natural theology. And although his more carefully stated position came with nuances not always appreciated by those who follow him, there can be little doubt that large parts of the Reformed and Protestant tradition in which he was such a major figure have jettisoned any real confidence in the theological insights of natural reason. This mirrors similar developments in the wider culture, as the gap between the outlooks of Christians and those without faith has widened into what can only be described as a yawning gulf. Yet for Christians the logic that animates natural theology has never changed.
The crucial distinction on which the possibility of natural theology rests is that between general revelation and special revelation. Special revelation is what God has revealed of himself and his purposes in human history and which, Christians believe, has been authoritatively captured in the words of Holy Scripture. General revelation is what God has made generally available about his nature and purposes to all people through rational reflection on, to use Paul’s words, ‘the things he has made’. Since from a Christian point of view both types of revelation reveal truths about God and his creation, the two cannot be in conflict, and if they appear to be then the conflict needs to be resolved, by revisiting either the interpretation of scripture or the meaning and accuracy of the empirical data.
A vexed question here is whether general revelation can save a person. Clearly salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, his atoning death and life-giving resurrection. And all those who repent and put their trust in Jesus receive forgiveness of sins and life in his name. The question is whether it is only people who have the benefit of special revelation in the form of the Gospel who can share in this salvation, or whether God makes provision for people who never hear the Gospel but respond positively to such revelation as they receive. Cornelius’ vision in Acts 10, in which an angel assures him that his prayers have been heard and his alms ‘remembered before God’, and Peter’s subsequent declaration that ‘God shows no partiality,’ and ‘in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him’ (Acts 10:31-5) suggest there is scope in God’s grace for salvation in Christ via general revelation, at least for those who have had no opportunity to hear the Gospel. This may be supported by Paul’s teaching that God, ‘who is not far from each one of us,’ has caused people to search for him ‘and perhaps grope for him and find him’ (Acts 17:27), while in his divine forbearance he has ‘passed over the sins previously committed’ (Romans 3:25) and ‘overlooked the times of human ignorance’ (Acts 17:30). And of course there is the status of Abraham and others of God’s people before Christ. But despite these tantalising intimations we have to admit there is no clear teaching on this, and it seems God is content to give us only hints about how he will handle those whom the Gospel has not reached, while we are to get on with preaching the Gospel.
But in any case, one thing we can say with confidence is that general revelation serves as an important precursor to the Gospel in human culture, preparing human minds and hearts to receive the message of salvation in Christ. Another key aspect is that it is the basis on which all people can come to a shared understanding of the meaning and significance of human life, on a level sufficient at least for civic friendship and mutual endeavour.
In this regard, we can note that general revelation shows us not only God’s existence but also some of his purposes in creation. Many of these purposes we encounter as the natural law. The part of this law governing rational human conduct we know of as the rational moral law. In Romans 2:14-16, Paul explains how God has written his law on the hearts of all people, and how their consciences bear witness to this revelation in and through their nature. Yes, humanity is fallen, and human reason is wounded and prone to error and bias. But even in this fallen, wounded state our reason can, with sufficient care, be expected to attain to many correct conclusions about God and his purposes, his laws.
Time permits me to give only a couple of examples here to illustrate how this process works, though the examples are perhaps the most pertinent at the present day. The first is the key insight that human beings bear the image of God. This image of God appears in Genesis 1:26-7, at the creation of humanity, so it is clearly part of special revelation. But it is also found outside scripture, in a number of ancient writers, so is also part of the general revelation. It appears, for instance, in Plato, where he contends that the rational soul possessed by humans uniquely bears the imprint of the divine nature. And it is a prominent theme in Stoic philosophy, with the Roman statesman Cicero writing of human beings as having ‘what can truly be called a lineage, origin, or stock in common’ with the divine, so that ‘the same moral excellence resides in man and in God, and in no other species besides.’ The Stoics regarded the divine Reason, or Logos, to govern the world – an idea we find picked up in the Gospel of John, where it is identified with Christ – and humanity to be, within nature, the supreme partakers in that divine Reason.
How, without scripture, do these thinkers know that humanity so closely resembles the divine? It is because human beings possess a rational mind, a mind which it is evident from the order of nature must be of the same kind of thing possessed by the Creator of the cosmos, by which he conceived and ordered his creation. This is why human beings are the only part of nature which can know of God and know God and understand his ways insofar as he has revealed them to us.
A second very topical example is the recognition that humanity is created as a sexed creature, male and female, and that this basic duality is fundamental to our nature as God has designed it. Important moral principles arise from this sexually differentiated human condition, firstly out of basic respect for the divine design, and secondly because of the weak and dependent condition of the human offspring that result from the sexual union of male and female. There is a basic moral requirement, for instance, to safeguard the beginnings of human life in its extreme weakness and dependence, and also to ensure that each new human being receives the best opportunity to succeed in life through the attentive care of both its mother and father. The main outworking of these observations is the promotion and protection of the institution of marriage.
It is clear that both of these key ethical principles – the significance of the image of God and of marriage – are being heavily eroded in our culture, whether through aggressive agendas to legitimise the destruction of dependent human life, be it very young, very old or disabled, or the near continual assaults on the sanctity of the married family. But should this really be any surprise when God himself has been side-lined and presumed to be irrelevant in modern society? How, after all, can human beings be recognised as made in the image of God if God’s existence is regarded as highly questionable? Or how can God’s design of male and female and his prescription for the best context for welcoming new human life be honoured if human beings are not thought to bear any divine design at all? Without God it is little wonder that individual subjective experience has begun to take precedence over the Creator’s purposes.
Abandoning God has consequences. That applies not only on an individual level but also on a social level. Non-believers cannot know God like believers know God, as their heavenly Father and their Saviour in Christ. But they can know about God. They can know what Plato and Cicero knew: that without God there is no foundation for the truth about humanity and our place in the world and how we ought ideally to be. For on what else, besides the transcendent design of our Creator, could human identity and ideals be objectively grounded? What is left of us if we are merely the incidental by-product of an unintended process of gene replication, emerging purposelessly from the slime that happened to have accumulated on some lonely rock among the countless stars?
Western culture has been moving towards being post-Christian and post-God for a long time now – at least since the French Revolution of 1789. Atheism, along with its more diffident cousin agnosticism, have been growing steadily since then in social reach and cultural penetration, while the general revelation of God and his purposes has been progressively side-lined. God is dead, declared Nietzsche, and many have nodded in agreement. The world thinks it can do without God and his purposes, that it can function just fine with a postmodern, post-Christian, post-God vision centred on the subjective experience of the sovereign individual. But as Christians we know that despite all its promise of liberation from the shackles of history and nature that is a recipe only for disorder, disillusionment and despair. One of the great gifts that we as Christians bring as we engage with our society is not only the special grace of the Gospel of salvation, but also a fresh clarity about the common grace that is ours to share as the human race. But is it a gift that our society will ever be pleased to receive again? The future, of course, is in God’s hands. All we can do is keep on offering this gift to those around us, holding it out to a world set on going its own way. In doing this we aspire to that perfection that Jesus calls us to in imitation of our heavenly Father – the God who ‘makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous’ (Matthew 5:45-8).
Come and think about Christian Hope and the End of the World at the teaching morning on 10th November 2018.
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Will, this is superb. Its very conciseness indicates the kind of clear thinking which the Christian world desperately needs right now.
Some of us will recognise the situation of hearing the opening bar or two of a piece of music on the radio and, although we do not know the piece, we can be almost certain of who the composer is – he cannot help revealing himself in his work (it may be she of course!).
Thanks Don!
This article was going along nicely until mid way through when it quotes Paul in Athens from Acts 17, where he says “30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance…”
So that was the past. But what now? Paul, the says, “but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
We live in the “but now.” Jesus’ coming changed everything. Now people must repent, and are lost if they don’t, convicted by the general revelation described in Romans 1. Jesus himself spoke of hell repeatedly, and said that those who don’t believe in him stand condemned. Why do Christians in this century find this so hard to accept? Because they prefer to live in comfort than to follow through with the logical conclusions – that we need to be the next generation of Apostle Pauls, of William Careys and Mother Theresas. That we need to give everything for the spread of the gospel, and even after we’ve done that we will be rejected for it – we will be the “stench of death and doom to those who are perishing.”
“Jesus himself spoke of hell repeatedly, and said that those who don’t believe in him stand condemned” – it’s not quite as simple as that.
In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus uses the word “hell” 14 times in 3 gospels (GNB), which, allowing for repeats, barely counts as “repeatedly” – just as important, he said that the religious people (mainly) are the ones going there. In John, Jesus does indeed speak of “condemnation” for the unbelievers, without using the word “hell.”
It’s frankly very hard to derive a straightforward reconciliation of these contrasting emphases.
There is so much wrong with this article in just the few paragraphs that I read.
He states many modern scientists accept the idea of Intelligent Design because it is “impossible” to account for the fine tuning of the universe without it. How many? It is a tiny fraction of the millions worldwide. ID is a friend theory that 99.9% of scientists reject. It is not impossible. Has anyone shown it is impossible? Scientific ignorance is not an argument for God. All we can say at best is that we do not know. We don’t know how universes are made. We may never know. This does not force us to conclude that that the Bible must be true.
He says that “[m]any also point out that a scientific materialist account of nature has yet to come up with any plausible way of explaining the existence of things like consciousness, free will and morality”
Cognitive scientists are very busy as we speak unraveling the mysteries of consciousness.
Morality is being shown to exist in animals as diverse as crows to dogs to monkeys. It is easy to show how morality evolved within the human species over millions of years as a survival mechanism.
Sam Harris has written a book on free will and determinism and while I have not read it I am aware that there are good explanations for these things within an evolutionary materialist framework.
I wouldn’t be too quick in putting statements like that in print, because it could look very foolish 50 years from now, as the god-of-the-gaps is pushed back ever further as an explanatory device for our shrinking ignorance on these matters.
The heavens do not declare the glory of God, unless that is what you are already predisposed to believe. They simply exist, and we do not know why or how. I have continually asked Christians for evidence that God created the universe and I have only ever gotten back anger and trolling. I’m not even arguing that a god does not exist. I’m arguing we have no way to be confident one does or does not.
The rest of the article then seems to descend into a theological discussion about whether the general revelation of God can save a person’s soul. How does the Universe reveal the Christian god? At best it would suggest some general first cause, god-of-the-philosophers.
Cognitive scientists are very busy as we speak unraveling the mysteries of consciousness
Cognitive scientists are very busy unravelling the mysteries of the nematode worm brain, with its whole 300 neurons, and they have just scratched the surface. I think it’s fair to say that ‘any plausible way of explaining the existence of […] consciousness’ is a long long way off, and as for morality and free will, those things aren’t even within the scope of science (morality, for example: the point of science is to study how the world is, but no matter how carefully and completely you study what is, it won’t tell you what ought to be, which is the domain of morality; and truly free will requires something which is neither determanistic nor random, and so far everything science has come up with is one or the other).
It is easy to show how morality evolved within the human species over millions of years as a survival mechanism.
That’s as may be. But while science might be able to show how certain behaviours enable the species to survive, it can never answer the question, ‘ought the species to survive?’ — and that is what morality is about.
Hi David
Thanks for engaging.
The Faraday Institute is one of the foremost organisations of Christian scientists advancing arguments from fine-tuning. Here’s a link to John Polkinghorne’s excellent paper on the subject: https://faraday-institute.org/resources/Faraday%20Papers/Faraday%20Paper%204%20Polkinghorne_EN.pdf.
Stephen Hawking – no theist – said: ‘The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.’ Hawking, as you probably know, personally favoured a multiverse theory, though that is seriously problematic from a theoretical and empirical point of view, as many others have pointed out. There aren’t really any other options. You say ‘we don’t know how universes are made’, but we are capable of understanding design constraints and parameters and configurations and probabilities, and seeing what is contingent and what is necessary. If we couldn’t we couldn’t do science at all.
Consciousness is a well-known problem in cognitive science. The basic problem is that there is nothing in the material world that is anything like experience. There is nothing blue, say, about the brain patterns that correspond to an experience of blueness. If you open up someone’s head you won’t find anything blue in it. Trying to find consciousness in the material world is increasingly being recognised to be a category error.
In terms of morality – morality, as S says above, is not merely about instrumental rules for what is conducive to, say, a species’ survival, but categorical rules or imperatives about what ought to be done (or not done) by free and rational agents objectively and absolutely.
Some of your points are answered further down the article – for instance you say ‘This does not force us to conclude that that the Bible must be true.’ but I don’t argue it does.
I’m somewhat wary of arguments which are not very different from “we cannot explain this, therefore it must be God.” I fear that I-D as often proposed is such an argument. A long time ago (late 70’s I think) at a meeting of the Research Scientists’ Christian Fellowship I recall Prof Sam Berry saying that we should look for God in the things we do understand not in the things we do not understand. Then, as our understanding increases, our knowledge of God will increase not decrease.
However, perhaps it is that we want to understand and have an explanation, and we are not satisfied that something is simply a ‘brute fact’ that points to the mind behind the universe.
I’m somewhat wary of arguments which are not very different from “we cannot explain this, therefore it must be God.”
I think you need to distinguish between ‘we cannot explain this yet, because we don’t know enough’, which I agree is a bad argument for God; and ‘we could not explain this ever, even if we knew everything there is to know about the physical universe’, which is actually a pretty good one.
No matter how accurate a map Hamlet had of Elsinore, Shakespeare would never appear on it, and therefore Hamlet could never explain why he came to be. Similarly no matter how much we understand about the universe, we can never explain the purpose for which it was created.
“A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”
https://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
Thank you. An excellent mixture of some apologetics and some systematic theology which opens doors to other deep themes. The reformed theology and biblical theology proffer answers to the faith of Abraham, and all Old Testament believers , who looked forward to God fulfilling His covenant promises, the Promised Seed, deliverer , redeemer, as do we as we look forward in faith to Christ’s return and new heaven and earth and consummation. And, so far as I can recall, it’s the first time in CoE /Anglican circles, (not that I move in any) that there has been any mention of “common grace”.
Nature being “red in tooth and claw” has been given as a reason for unbelief. This is an opening to draw-in the universal nature or consequences of the Fall. And that also enjoins the place of Satan in Christian theology and Paradise Lost.
Thanks Will – Brilliant. Loved it. Important theological foundations with their ethical implications.
Both Calvin and the late Barth believed God was known in creation. But both believed the revelation of God in creation whilst leading people to some knowledge of God, ultimately led them to condemnation for failing to follow that revelation. Special revelation was required to inform us of general revelation. You rightly highlight the implications of Paul’s move to sexual ethics from general revelation. And it seems plain and obvious to you and me that God has made us as sexed beings in his image, male and female, and by design this is the divinely ordained context for bringing new life and nurturing that life. But even as most cannot see God in creation, any appeal to God’s sexual ethics in creation must surely be unclear also. How then do we seek to teach into this?
Why do you think many, within the church, with the Scriptures, can see God’s hand clearly in his handiwork (Rom1:20) but not see God’s revelation in sexual ethics and as you say ‘God’s design of male and female and his prescription for the best context for welcoming new human life’?
thanks again Will
Thanks Simon.
Very good questions. I wish I had some better answers. So many in the church have been swept along by the Zeitgeist and its muddled thinking, often because of understandable sympathy for friends and relatives in unhappy situations. Somehow we need to keep pointing to God’s design, and filling out the dry arguments with stories and testimonies, and solid science and data. But there’s no doubt that right now it’s an uphill struggle and many even in the church don’t want to hear.
It’s a key question, and hope you continue to expand and refine the material. Excellent.
Will, thank you so much for this: really clearly put, and difficult to disagree with a word of it (in my view).
On David’s point re Intelligent Design, am I right in thinking that ‘Intelligent Design’ can stand for two very different ideas – one which posits divine intervention to account for particularly astonishing bits of nature (e.g. the eye), and one which simply says that the existence of the whole ordered (and as you note, finely-tuned) cosmos suggests – with great force – an Intender, a Mind, ‘behind’ it? As David notes, most scientists reject the first kind of ID. Many scientists would be much more open to the latter, which is the one natural theology is also about.
At the risk of making everything about sex … you know from our last exchange where I stand on same-sex relations. But I also agree with what you say here. I don’t think that is an incoherence. Why can’t we say something like: ‘On the whole, human sexuality is geared towards reproduction (amongst other goods). That is why the vast majority of human beings are heterosexual. God’s intention for these people is that they bear his image in part through their sexual union and creation of new life. They do this best in marriage; heterosexual marriage is the context God intends for new life, and it is demonstrably the best context – on the whole. Nevertheless, a small minority of people for whatever reason don’t seem to be geared for the other sex. Physically, one might expect them to be, but they’re just not. They’re drawn to the same sex. That is unusual. But if they can live out that attraction in a way that mirrors God’s character – generous, faithful (etc, etc.) it’s not necessarily wrong. Different doesn’t necessarily mean wrong’.
I have put this simplistically and no doubt it needs refining in all sorts of way. But the basic point seems important to me: you can build a really powerful case from both Bible and natural law as to why, overall and in general, heterosexual marriage is the best expression of human sexuality. The positive, orthodox Christian vision of human sexuality is a truly powerful and beautiful thing. But why does that necessarily mean that there cannot be exceptions? That there aren’t quirky and ‘queer’ elements in creation? And that when we encounter them, the trick is then to work out how in their oddity they can yet bear some witness to God?
But if they can live out that attraction in a way that mirrors God’s character – generous, faithful (etc, etc.) it’s not necessarily wrong
Does that way have to involve physical sexual activity?
Because if it doesn’t, then I don’t think anyone on any side would have any problem with that.
The only disagreement comes with whether there exists a ‘way’ to ‘live out that attraction’ which is compatible with both mirroring God’s character, and engaging in physical same-sex activity. That’s the point at which the two sides differ, I think: one side thinks that ‘mirroring God’s character’ is compatible with same-sex sexual activity, the other thinks that ‘mirroring God’s character’ necessarily means refraining from same-sex sexual activity.
Hi Peter. Thanks!
I think the argument you’ve outlined there is, in my view, the strongest argument for affirming same-sex relationships of certain kinds. It’s essentially arguing that same-sex attraction should be regarded as part of natural variety, not natural defect, or even if defect in some sense, not morally problematic, and capable of being channelled in morally admirable ways.
My reason for rejecting it is a combination of a number of considerations, including:
– An observation that same-sex sexual behaviour is contrary to God’s design of the human being
– The clear teaching of scripture prohibiting it
– Its close connection with the sexual revolution, with all of its destructive fruit
– Its strongly negative impact on the capacity of a society to uphold a healthy marriage culture with strong marital and family norms (because reinforcing non-judgmentalism about sexual relationships)
– Its close connection with other related movements, such as for polyamory, open relationships, transgenderism, lowering the age of consent, sexualising children at younger ages, sex as harmless fun, the consent principle etc.
– Its connection and correlation with a number of personal pathologies, including mental health issues, substance abuse, venereal disease, and relationship dysfunctions (promiscuity, non-exclusivity, violence)
– Its close connection with practices which violate the natural right of children to be raised by a mother and father, and their own wherever possible, such as adoption by same-sex couples, surrogacy, and artificial insemination by a donor.
You may say that same-sex sexual behaviour can be separated from all these things, and a pure, morally admirable version isolated and socially enshrined. But I just don’t think it can. The experience of Western society over the last century and still today suggests that it has a certain character, embodies a certain idea of what sex is and what humanity is, that inherently connects it to all these things. All this convinces me that when the Bible says God prohibits it, it is conveying his will accurately, and displaying his wisdom – despite the pastoral and personal difficulties this can cause for some.
(I set out my view at greater length here if you’re interested https://faith-and-politics.com/2017/09/19/why-i-oppose-same-sex-marriage/.)
Good summary. Look at the company, social and theoretical, that same-sex keeps, in practice.
I know Christopher – singing in choirs, walking coastal paths, entertaining their children and grandchildren, saying Mass, walking the dogs……shocking isn’t it?
Not to mention cooking, cleaning, reading, sleeping, listening to music. These gay people are really beyond the pale aren’t they?
I’m going to stick my neck out here, Peter, and suggest that a major part of the present questioning and argument about same sex marriage (among Christians) is that we haven’t fully grasped what marriage is about from God’s point of view. We’re fixated on only one aspect – sexual activity – and thereby missing the whole picture.
It seems to me that the first 3 chapters of Genesis are all about giving us a glimpse of how things started from God’s viewpoint. So they’re not some kind of primitive scientific explanation for how creation came about or how and when we human beings came to exist. Instead we have 3 narratives which convey just enough and no more of what we need to know about God’s creative endeavour, mankind’s place in creation, and how a wonderful relationship between God and mankind was so badly broken that it took the rest of the Bible to describe the long road to reconciliation for those who would accept it.
And right there in Genesis chapter 2 marriage is presented as God’s intention to provide the answer to a deep longing within the man, not for sexual intercourse (perhaps we can take that as read!), but for companionship. God said: ‘it is not good for man to be alone’. This was not presented as biological need or desire but as the need for psychological completeness (‘fulfilment of the soul’s longing’ if you like). And clearly that completeness was not to be found in another man or there’d have been no need for the surgery! Surely we don’t need to pick the story apart (and especially not to import today’s sexual politics into it) in order to understand the significance of God taking the man’s rib and making a woman out of it: the man would only feel truly complete when he was united to the woman (‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’). And the truth is that this has to refer to a psychological completeness (the dreaded ‘complementarity’) because, in reality the man and woman remain physically separate people.
The words, quoted all those years later by Jesus himself, ‘a man…is united to his wife, and they become one flesh’, were written in the context of this story. I’d suggest that a common interpretation that ‘the two become one flesh’ refers to children is misplaced: in reality a man and woman do not become their child – they both remain as a couple who are separate from the child. Of course there is a sense in which a man and woman are irretrievably united in the physical existence of their child but I’m not sure that this describes a unique requirement of marriage – sadly, plenty of children exist who don’t enjoy the benefit of parents cohabiting in a stable marriage. Children are an unspeakable joy of a marriage, fulfilling a fundamental role in the created order but, as we know, a marriage can exist whether or not that particular joy is part of it. I’d add that for Christians to suggest that children might be conceived and nurtured in any situation other than heterosexual marriage would be unthinkable.
Given the above 3 paragraphs, I hardly need to spell out that, while same sex couples can have truly deep and wonderful bonds of friendship, such relationships can not equate with the Genesis account of marriage. So we have to choose: either this story is a quaint explanation (clearly unscientific in its detail) of a cultural norm in the long distant past, or it is enough of what we need to know to tell us of God’s intention regarding marriage. We know what Jesus’s opinion was.
Of course there is a wealth of practical reasons based on real life experience (as Will has easily listed above) which in combination offer serious reasons why we should not plunge ahead with redefining marriage.
And right there in Genesis chapter 2 marriage is presented as God’s intention to provide the answer to a deep longing within the man, not for sexual intercourse (perhaps we can take that as read!), but for companionship.
I agree with your conclusions but I disagree with your reasoning.
Specifically, I don’t read in Genesis 2 any ‘deep longing within the man […] for companionship’.
To the contrary, it is God who says, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’. For all we know, the man might have been quite happy to remain alone for ever in the Garden! (some of us might sympathise…)
But no, God, without so much as consulting the man, decrees that the man must have a companion, and it is so.
I mention this because I — if we must make everything about the sexuality debate — I think a fundamental problem with the debate is the tendency to put human desire at the heart of everything, and then try to argue about whether human desire can be properly fulfilled in such-and-such a relationship.
Whereas actually if you read Genesis, human desire doesn’t get so much as a look-in. In the Chapter One liturgy, God creates humanity, male and female, in His image. In the Chapter Two semi-narrative, God decides it is not good for the man to be alone (no matter what the man thinks about the situation) and then objectively none of the animals are suitable (again, no suggestion as to whether the man was asked [I know several men who would certainly have said that a dog was an eminently suitable companion]) so God, again without asking the man, takes a rib.
So I think any account of marriage which starts from it as being a means to fulfil human desires, whether for companionship or intimacy, is bound to be utterly wrong-headed.
God did not create marriage to provide the answer to any question asked by humanity. God created marriage for His own purposes.
(And what was that purpose? Well, I think there is where we have to look to Chapter One: created in His image, male and female. Just as God is the joining of separate but complementary natures into a single whole, Father Son and Spirit, so humanity, in one of its ways of being the image of God, is also a union of complementary natures into a single whole, male and female through marriage).
Human desires are totally irrelevant.
S
that is a very interesting post and has me thinking – nevertheless, I dont think you can conclude ‘human desires are totally irrelevant” for if, as you suggest, they find their telos in the design of God for the joining of separate but complementary persons into a single whole, they are surely ontological and part of the design? But your wider point is well made and often overlooked – the complementary union of male/female is God’s desire 1st and foremost.
Yeah, I may have been pushing the envelope there just to see how far it would go.
Since it was God who suggested all the animals for Adam’s partner which the earthling rejected, can we infer that God did not have marriage or male/female complementarity in view at all in the Gen. 2 narrative?
Since it was God who suggested all the animals for Adam’s partner which the earthling rejected
Sorry, where do you get that ‘God […] suggested all the animals for Adam’s partner which the earthling rejected’ from?
From your link:
’19 oNow out of the ground the Lord God had formed6 every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and pbrought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam7 there was not found a helper fit for him.’
Nothing there about ‘suggesting’ or ‘rejecting’. The beasts and birds are brought to man; man names them; no suitable helper is found.
But nowhere does it say God ‘suggests’ any of the beasts (they are brought forward for the man to name, not as some sort of ‘audition parade’) or that the man gets any choice whatsoever in the matter in what would be a ‘suitable helper’.
Penelope, surely the fundamental point God in his Word is making is that humans are NOT animals and animals are not suitable partners for animals not that he tried to find an animal match!??
‘For the earthling there was not found a helper as his partner’. After God presents all the animals to Adam. The earthling seems somewhat wiser than God for this writer/tradition.
‘For the earthling there was not found a helper as his partner’. After God presents all the animals to Adam.
After God presents all the animals to Adam for naming:
’19 oNow out of the ground the Lord God had formed6 every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and pbrought them to the man to see what he would call them.’
Nothing there about this being some kind of beauty parade loojing for a helper, is there?
And then note:
‘But for Adam7 there was not found a helper fit for him’
An objective judgement. The text isn’t shy about saying when God, for instance, finds things good. And the text certainly says that it is God who decides it was not good for the man to be alone.
So why, if it was the human’s decision that not of them were worthy, doesn’t it say: ‘But Adam did not find any of the animals fit to be his helper’?
The earthling seems somewhat wiser than God for this writer/tradition.
That’s not in the text. You’re projecting onto it what you want to be there.
Hi Penelope,
What translation has ‘For the earthling there was not found a helper as his partner’? There is no noun in the Hebrew corresponding to ‘partner’. Even ‘a suitable helper for him’ (aka ‘a help meet for him’) seems to me to be interpreting from my limited reading of the Hebrew with the help of Tyndale House’s Step Bible.
Hello David
NRSV I’m afraid!
S
I don’t ‘want’ anything to be there. It’s the natural inference from v. 20b. Why mention that there wasn’t a suitable helper among the animals if the writer hadn’t assumed that there might be?
Hi Penelope
I reckon the point of my comment further up was somewhat sidetracked by ‘S’, but that’s often what happens! However, I actually agree with you that the order of the story in question certainly implies that, when God said he would ‘make’ a helper suitable for the man, he started off by bringing all the animals to him. But of course the animals were already ‘made’; so the order of what happened and why is not exactly clear (I’m using the 2011 NIV).
But then I take the story as a construction to teach something fundamental rather than a record of historical events; so getting bogged down in minor details is not necessarily helpful. In my opinion over thinking (needless speculation) about such stories can actually lead us to the wrong conclusions – but then I’m just a simple soul. We might well agree on that! Where we’d almost certainly disagree is on my conclusion about the heterosexual completeness (complementarity!) of marriage as instituted (intended) by God: I think it’s hard to take the point of the story as anything else.
PS Thank you for your reply on an earlier topic which I did eventually find!
Hi Penelope
The writer’s meaning appears to be that while animals (especially livestock) are provided by God for the man to serve his purposes, none of them is a ‘suitable helper’ in the full sense. This is implied by the phrase ‘animal of the field’ used in both v19 and v20, and the specific mention of ‘cattle’ in v20 . So it’s not that the writer is assuming that the animals might have been a suitable helper, but it is a narrative depiction of the comparison between the relationship between the sexes and the relationship between humanity and beasts – both a likeness, in that animals are helpers for humanity, but a contrast in that they are not suitable helpers in the full sense only provided by one who is ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’ (v23).
Why mention that there wasn’t a suitable helper among the animals if the writer hadn’t assumed that there might be?
To show that God already knew there wasn’t going to be a suitable helper among the animals, and that was demonstrated to the human as a side-effect of the naming operation?
Perhaps. But the point is there’s definitely now way to read it, using just the text, as it being the human’s choice. Nowhere in the text is the human given any choice in any matter other than what to name the animals. God (not the human) decides it’s not good for the human to be alone; no suitable helper is found [objective phrasing, no choice involved there on anyone’s part]; then God puts the human to sleep and performs throactic surgery without so much as a by-your-leave.
At no point does the human get any say. It’s all God.
I know you might have in your head a cutesy story of God going off to check on the garden, and coming back to find Adam staring into space, and Adam realises God’s there and, not wanting to seem ungrateful, tries to smile and voer up, but god says, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you sad?’ and Adam says, ‘Sad? Me? No!’ and God says ‘So everything’s all right then?’ and eventually teases it out of Adam and he says, ‘Well, this Garden is lovely and everything but… you know… sometimes I wish I had someoen to share it with.’ and ‘God goes ‘Of course! how could I be so stupid! You’re lonely! I never get lonely, there’s three of me in here. come on, let’s see if any of these things I’ve made will help.’ and they do a beauty contest where Adam names all the animals and at the end God says, ‘Okay, so which one do you like as your partner?’ and Adam says ‘Oh, I’m really sorry God, but none of them quite fit the bill’ and god is sad that he didnt’ manage to help Adam out of his funk but then something occurs to Him and He says, ‘Listen, I have an idea, but it’s going to get a bit medical for a second.’ and Adam says ‘Will it hurt?’ and God says ‘No, no, don’t tell anyone, but as well as light, dark, sea, land, day and night I also invented anaesthesiology, bu they, keep it on the down=low for now, okay? Just start counting backwards form twenty.’ and the Adam goes ’20, 19, 18… zzzz…’ and then God whips on the surgical scrubs…
I’ve heard the story told that way before too. But the thing is, all that cutesy stuff? None of it’s in the Bible. None of it.
Which is hardly surprising: the Bible doesn’t, as a rule, do cutesy. Because the Bible’s about real life, not children’s stories (just look at how much all the Children’s bibles have to tone down the sex and violence).
And God is a Father in Heaven, not a Grandfather / therapist in heaven who just really wants us to be happy.
Thanks, Don. My suggestion was meant to be quite light-hearted, although it was made by a Hebrew scholar friend some years ago.
I think the narrative tells us that the 2nd human was created as a companion but not as a ‘complement’.
S
I made no reference to the earthling deciding anything. And where do you get the idea that I find the narrative cutesy? Perhaps amusing. But cutesy? Shudder.
I made no reference to the earthling deciding anything.
Excuse me but you did; I quote:
‘Since it was God who suggested all the animals for Adam’s partner which the earthling rejected’
And where do you get the idea that I find the narrative cutesy? Perhaps amusing. But cutesy? Shudder.
I can’t see how the interpretation of the narrative that you seem to have adopted, where God is a kindly fool who wants to make the human happy but gets it wrong and has to be taught by Adam that the animals are not suitable companions, can be described as anything but cutesy.
Fortunately it is not an intepretation that is supported at all by the text.
Of course verse 23 entirely supports the reading that Penelope has identified.
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…..”
The clear implication being that other alternatives had come before.
Would you give us a definition of ‘cutesy’ S? What do you actually mean by using this term?
Of course verse 23 entirely supports the reading that Penelope has identified.
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…..”
The clear implication being that other alternatives had come before.
But not, and this is the key point, that the human had played any part in the decision, or had any option to accept or reject any of the others.
What actually happens is: God declares, unprompted, that it is not good for the human to be alone (the human gets no say in this, and it is not in response to the human being lonely or needing a companion or any nonsense like that; it is simply God’s decision).
The animals are brought to the man for naming, which he does.
None of the animals are a suitable helper. No suggestion that the human gets any input into this, or asked if he would like any of them as his helper: we’re just informed that none of them are suitable.
God performs surgery on the human (without bothering with any consent form).
The man sees the woman and recognises that this is his proper counterpart — again, no suggestion that he gets any option in this, he just recognises that what God has done is right in the same way he recognised the garden was good.
Would you give us a definition of ‘cutesy’ S? What do you actually mean by using this term?
Well, the Cambridge International Dictionary of English web-site has:
‘artificially attractive and pleasant, especially in a childish way’ ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cutesy )
and I think that pretty well sums it up.
The idea of a God who just wants us to be happy but is a bit clueless as to what we actually need so offers us comically wrong things until we set him straight is a superficially attractive child’s view of God, a God who is safe and nice and not at all scary and powerful and unsafe.
Hence, cutesy.
“The idea of a God who just wants us to be happy but is a bit clueless as to what we actually need so offers us comically wrong things until we set him straight is a superficially attractive child’s view of God, a God who is safe and nice and not at all scary and powerful and unsafe.”
Which of course is just a complete distortion of what has been said- it’s a very ‘cutesy’ thing to do S.
Which of course is just a complete distortion of what has been said- it’s a very ‘cutesy’ thing to do S.
Is it? Is it really?
What’s been said? Well, this started with a claim that ‘marriage is presented as God’s intention to provide the answer to a deep longing within the man’ — that certainly looks like God wanting us to be happy.
And then Penelope claims:
‘For the earthling there was not found a helper as his partner’. After God presents all the animals to Adam. The earthling seems somewhat wiser than God for this writer/tradition.
…which looks to me an awful lot like saying that God presented the animals to Adam thinking they would be a solution for this ‘lonliness problem’; but Adam had to explain to God that none of them would do, ie, ‘The earthling seems somewhat wiser than God’
And then later Penelope actually wrote that the story seemed ‘amusing’.
So actually in what way is:
‘a God who just wants us to be happy but is a bit clueless as to what we actually need so offers us comically wrong things until we set him straight ‘
not a fair summary of the view that has been advanced? Certainly we have a God who wants us to be happy (hence wanting to ‘provide the answer to a deep longing within the man’); a God who offers us wrong things (the animals), comically (‘amusing’); until we set him straight (‘The earthling seems somewhat wiser than God’).
So tell me where I’ve gone wrong?
Oh I’m sure you always right ‘S’.
So what kind of literature is this that we are dealing with?
Poetry? A play in several acts? A newspaper? A transcription of an actually conversation?
I’m curious because I don’t know how I can make any judgement about what was meant until I know what kind of literature you think it was.
Oh I’m sure you always right ‘S’.
Actually I was wrong once. 1983 I think it was.
Still, are you going to explain how I have misrepresented the view that’s been put forward? Or are you going to accept that I have summed it up fairly?
I’m curious because I don’t know how I can make any judgement about what was meant until I know what kind of literature you think it was.
Wouldn’t have thought you’d be wanting to dredge up that again, it just provides an opportunity to remind people of your views on the gospels.
(Are you the Andrew Godsall that Google says works for Exeter Cathedral? Do the cathedral congregation know that you think the post-Resurrection stories in the gospels are fictional? Is that really an acceptable view for someone employed by a cathedral to hold? the Church of England is happy with that?)
Fictional is not at all a word I’d use ‘S’. I think that was your word.
It’s not an appropriate term for the Gospels.
I will await your answer about the type of literature that Genesis is before answering anything further.
I am not so sure about the idea that Gen 2.18-23 is basically about getting a companion for (the) adam so that he is not lonely. It seems to hang too much on the word ‘alone’ for this interpretation. From Bible Hub’s Strong listing, I see that the NASB translates the Hebrew word ‘bad’ 19 different ways! It also seems to treat the word translated ‘helper’ too weakly. The word is used most commonly in the OT as a description of God himself. I cannot help thinking that there is something grander here than (simply) companionship and intimacy. It is as if the story is something of a midrash on Gen 1.27-28. It seems surprising that this text explicitly gives humans created as male and female, unless it is significant in the context of not only image-bearing but also to the charge given to them.
Fictional is not at all a word I’d use ‘S’. I think that was your word. It’s not an appropriate term for the Gospels.
It was my word, but given that you think they didn’t happen and were made up, ‘fictional’, which is how we usually describe things that didn’t happen and were made up, seems entirely appropriate unless you can explain why it isn’t and what exactly you do think of the post-Resurrection stories in the gospels.
I will await your answer about the type of literature that Genesis is before answering anything further.
That’s fine, you’re the one who brought it up, I’d be perfectly happy if you could manage to not respond to me again.
So what kind of literature is this that we are dealing with in Genesis ‘S’?
Poetry? A play in several acts? A newspaper? A transcription of an actual conversation?
I’m curious because I don’t know how I can make any judgement about what was meant until I know what kind of literature you think it was.
So what kind of literature is this that we are dealing with in Genesis ‘S’?
You know, I didn’t think you could manage it.
David
I think the ‘helper’ is rather more complex than that’s it a word used elsewhere for God. But I’m not a Hebrew scholar…
As for Gen. 2 being a midrash on Gen 1, I think the Gen 2 narrative was the first to be written. Not sure if it could have been altered by the editor(s) of the Pentateuch. Perhaps a HB scholar could elucidate?
Yes ‘S’, I do think parts of the Gen. 2 narrative are amusing. I think this is intentional. Scripture can be playful.
This is not the same thing as thinking that God is being ‘clueless’. That’s your reading. As I think I said, my reading was suggested by a Hebrew scholar, so I think I’ll stay with his.
To be frank I think it’s a bit rich interrogating Andrew Godsall about who he is and where he works, when we don’t have a clue who you are. It’s rather offensive.
Yes ‘S’, I do think parts of the Gen. 2 narrative are amusing. I think this is intentional. Scripture can be playful. This is not the same thing as thinking that God is being ‘clueless’.
Really? Please explain. How would you describe God’s ‘amusing’ offering of animals as ‘companions’, if not ‘clueless’?
Usually if a comic character offers something totally unsuitable in a way that is meant to be amusing, what we are supposed to find amusing is the character’s lack of either intelligence, or wisdom, or situational awareness, or, for a more general term, clue.
If that’s not what we are supposed to find amusing about God’s mistake — for you are saying that in your reading God made a mistake, aren’t you? — then what is supposed to be amusing about it?
That’s your reading.
It’s my reading of what you wrote, and as far as I can see it is accurate. It’s not my reading of the Bible text: yes, there are comedic bits of the Bible, but I can’t see how this is one.
As I think I said, my reading was suggested by a Hebrew scholar, so I think I’ll stay with his.
Even though it is not supported by anything in the text? Well, fine, go ahead, if you prefer it to what’s actually there.
To be frank I think it’s a bit rich interrogating Andrew Godsall about who he is and where he works, when we don’t have a clue who you are. It’s rather offensive.
No interrogation, I just typed the name into Google. Is that not what all the cool kids are doing these days?
“You know, I didn’t think you could manage it.”
S, I can happily manage not to respond to you. But I’m asking you a question – repeating a question actually – which you don’t seem to be able to answer.
‘S’
Since you seem so keen to repeat others’ words, I quote:
“(Are you the Andrew Godsall that Google says works for Exeter Cathedral? Do the cathedral congregation know that you think the post-Resurrection stories in the gospels are fictional? Is that really an acceptable view for someone employed by a cathedral to hold? the Church of England is happy with that?)
Seems awfully like an interrogation to me. With the addition of a veiled threat. As I said, offensive.
Don’t see where this ‘earthling’ comes from. You say NRSV, but it is not in any NRSV I can find – on paper or on line.
Hi Nick,
I don’t know where it comes from but ‘the earthing’ is not a bad way to get the sense of ‘the adam’, given the play on words between ‘adam’ and the Hebrew for ‘dust’ from which the creature came. For English, to translate ‘the adam’ (note the definite article, which I believe reflects the Hebrew in Gen 2) as ‘the man’ can be taken to mean ‘the male’.
I have read that there are Jewish traditions which hold that ‘the adam’ was either non-sexed or hermaphrodite prior to the extraction of the woman.
Since Adam becomes a name later on, I quite like ‘Dusty’, even though for someone of my generation, this is a reminder of Dusty Springfield. Her song “I only want to be with you” might not be a bad song for Adam on meeting the woman.
Seems awfully like an interrogation to me.
It’s a couple of questions. Are all questions interrogations?
With the addition of a veiled threat. As I said, offensive.
Threat? What possible threat?
‘S’
Since you are so familiar with Google, try looking up interrogate.
Hi Nick and David
Yes, earthling is my translation (well, not mine originally) of Adam, as a gesture towards the ‘myth of the androgyne’ reading of Gen. 2.
The NRSV referred to the insertion of ‘partner’.
S,
The Fall was a consequence of human desire, was it not? and the desire of woman in Gen 3:16? (which compares and contrasts with the pre-Fall desire of woman.)
Male plus female union of oneness of flesh is a reflection of the Oneness of the Trinity, of a human oneness being brought out from one and joined together as two in one flesh, of a distinction without a difference.
The Fall was a consequence of human desire, was it not?
Quite possibly — I was addressing specifically the idea that God’s decisions to make a companion for the human was prompted by the human’s desire, which simply isn’t an idea that’s there in the text.
(It’s not explicitly ruled out by the text, sure, but it’s not there either.)
Peter, why are you talking in terms of individuals and ‘orientations’ when the science says that same-sex orientations are in 80-90% of cases fluid if we start at age 16 and go onwards from there? (Savin-Williams/Ream; Diamond.) Especially for women.
Which is probably exactly why most cultures have not spoken in terms of orientation. They were largely correct.
The situation is compounded by the many dimensions of evidence that circumstances, environment and culture are the main contributory factor. Lesbian parenting. Identical twins. Effect of university. Effect of urban life. Effect of molestation. Fact that lesbian women have had twice as many male sexual partners on average as non-lesbian.
Fashion is not fact – we’ve all known that since a young age.
Yes, that is obviously a key question.
Though it begs a series of other ones. What exactly, for instance, is physical sexual activity? Is cuddling ok? If not, then it seems we’d be getting perilously close to banning intimacy. If it is, why not kissing? Plane about to take off, need to stop typing… more tomorrow perhaps!
Hi Peter,
I can’t see why “physical sexual activity” needs to be defined, when, in any other context and without prurient policing, there are clear social demarcation of this, which includes an intuitive understanding of when they are crossed.
For example, at a meeting in which the parish learns that their bid for diocesan funding has been successful, it would be generally acceptable not only for everyone to shake hands, but also for them to extend hugs.
Post-meeting, it might even be appropriate for two church members who are not married to each other, but who spearheaded the application, to have a celebratory drink together and share recollections of the ‘journey’ that they shared.
Yet, I can’t imagine a context in which it would be appropriate for them to cuddle together or kiss intimately.
Again, these are known social demarcations and boundaries of Christian decency, which we are trusted to observe.
It is when crossing those boundaries is an occasion of scandal that it becomes a matter for church leadership to ensure that firstly sensitive ongoing pastoral support is provided and secondly to ensure that the church’s public witness to what’s meant by redeemed life is not obscured by connivance at continued persistence in unreformed behaviour.
You may ask: “But when does a hug become a cuddle?” or “When does a kiss become intimate?”
As I think you know, that’s the continuum fallacy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy
Thanks David,
I don’t want this thread to turn into yet another one on same-sex stuff, and am not going to post much more just now.
But just to say …. I think the reason we do need to define what physical sexual activity means is because – I thought – the ‘conservative’ position was to affirm gay people in their need for intimacy, in faithful, committed, mutually upbuilding relationships with a life-partner, but to object to such relationships being sexually expressed. My query is whether that actually makes sense. Is it plausible to say to people you support their need for intimacy and for a life-partner, but that they mustn’t hold hands / hug each other / kiss / fondle? And in what sense is that kind of physicality not sexual?
Or have I misunderstood things, and actually conservative pastoral guidance would rather say gay couples should break up entirely – and their need for intimacy be met not through one life-partner, but in relationship with the wider church?
Is it plausible to say to people you support their need for intimacy and for a life-partner
Interesting — in what sense do you say people ‘need’ a life-partner?
And how does it relate to those who are unmarried through no choice of their own — say, whose fiancée or fiancé dies before their wedding, or who just never meet anyone who happens to fancy them, or who when they did meet someone that person was already married to someone else? Do they ‘need’ a life-partner?
Or are there some people who need a life-partner and some who don’t, in which case how do you distinguish those who need a life-partner from those who don’t actually need one but just really, really want one?
Hi S: you ask in what sense I think people *need* a life partner.
I don’t think everyone does. I think it would be safer to say that everyone needs initimacy, and that in the vast majority of cases that need is best met through a cleaving to one other person. Even if – and I think it is an ‘if’ – in a better world and church, wider social groups could provide this intimacy, in practice in this world and church they usually don’t. The couple is for most people, how the ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’ is met, how intimacy happens.
So in the examples you give, I’d say that each of those people is in a difficult position. If they’re like most people, and need (for their full flourishing) to be in a covenant style relationship with another person, then they’ll need to find another person with whom that can happen. Talk about life partners shouldn’t equate to the idea of ‘soul mates’: for most of us there are plenty of people with whom it could work.
How can you tell the difference between needing, and just really, really wanting? With difficulty, I guess! I suppose the answer is whether the person is wounded by the not having. I don’t mean just frustrated, or just temporarily upset. I mean whether there is long term damage to someone’s capacity to bear the fruits of the Spirit. Are they stunted by not having their need for intimacy met in a couple? Difficult to tell, but I would start by assuming that for many, many people – not all, but i think most – the answer is probably ‘yes’. Coupling seems to be what most of us are made for.
So I think if you bar gay people from being in couples, you’re doing something really damaging. Assuming you don’t bar them, the question then becomes how the intimacy of those couples is physically expressed, sustained, renewed. Hence the debate I was stumbling into above. If you object to all same-sex sexual behaviour (hugging, cuddling, kissing) then you’re really – I think – objecting to the possibility of same sex bonded intimacy. You should really be telling gay couples not just to be chaste, but to split up. Which to me seems several pastoral bridges too far.
P.S David, you said:
“Post-meeting, it might even be appropriate for two church members who are not married to each other, but who spearheaded the application, to have a celebratory drink together and share recollections of the ‘journey’ that they shared.
Yet, I can’t imagine a context in which it would be appropriate for them to cuddle together or kiss intimately”
Er…. apart from the one in which they are not married at all, but attracted to each other, and interested in trying for a future together?
You’re not really suggesting that all sexual activity – snogging, say – belongs within marriage alone, are you?
Hi Peter,
My phrasing, ‘not married to each other’ was short-hand for ‘married to different partners’. It was not long-hand for ‘unmarried’.
Hopefully, that clarifies what I meant. 🙂
Should have realised I was being obtuse! Sorry.
I’m not sure that I am happy about the ideas of “intelligent design” either in specific biological structures or in specific physical properties. Neither of these gives God much credit.
Good article. Just two points to make: (1) science does not just struggle with consciousness, more fundamentally it cannot explain – assuming for a moment what cannot be proved, that the Big Bang theory is correct – where matter/energy/whatever came from in the first place. There are only four options: matter has always existed (but science seems to point toward a beginning ie the Big Bang); matter sprang from nothing (but science seems to rule out effects without causes); the universe was created by gods/goddesses/demons; or the universe was created by God. Only the latter seems entirely reasonable to me.
(2) ‘Undeniable’ by Douglas Axe is a must-read on ID, because it is written by a scientist who has run experiments to prove that random mutations cannot lead to outcomes that would explain evolution. The difference between him and Creationists is that they start from Genesis and seek to make scientific data fit their theological position, whereas he starts with science and shows that it disproves the gradualist position invoked by Darwin.
S – so rather than say ‘human desires are totally irrelevant’ might we say: God’s desire and design for humans is that their design and desire be met in male and female marriage???
“a mind which it is evident from the order of nature must be of the same kind of thing possessed by the Creator”
Is there a typo here?
I am particularly interested because I really like the argument in this section, except I would want to say our minds are reflections of the divine mind, analogically the same perhaps, but not literally “the same kind of thing” as God’s mind.
Indeed. “My thought are not your thoughts”
Hm, I’d say that a human mind is more the same kind of thing as God’s mind than a computer is the same kind of thing as a human mind.
Hi Russell. ‘The same kind of thing’ insofar as it is a mind that has rational thoughts and which can engage in a degree of mutual comprehension. You are obviously right to say the likeness has quite severe limits.
Might it not be that *God* knew the animals would not provide the right sort of relationship, and what He meant to do about it – but the human needed the “beauty parade” to discover it for himself? I often think something like that is how “science” works.
Otherwise Adam might have simply thought another animal, much nicer than the rest, had turned up a bit late and could be treated as a gift for him to to use and have “dominion” over exactly like the rest.
(And thereby hangs another discussion or three…)