Graham A Cole

reprinted from Pressure Points: Papers presented to the EFAC Australia Consultation, 27-30 July 1993 For the purposes of this paper, sexuality is defined as that complexity of thoughts, feelings, bodily changes and behaviours that surround the human capacity for one flesh union and which is grounded in human biology.1 So defined, sexuality is a subset of human interpersonal relations and is to be distinguished conceptually from gender relations. Gender is grounded in social learning.2 Gender relations refract therefore one’s socialisation in a given culture (for example, whether men and women may sit together in church or synagogue, or whether it is socially acceptable for a man to be a house-husband). This is a common distinction in social science literature, which is important to recognise, even if difficult to apply.3 The distinction is important with respect to the present discussion, since more specifically gender related issues will not be canvassed (for example, sexism). The Rev Dr Graham Cole is Principal of Ridley College of file University of Melbourne. He lectures in theology and ethics and has taught also at Moore College and the University of Sydney. He enjoys films, fishing and family. He is married to Julie and they have three children: Jonathan, Jerome and Hannah.

The phenomenon of human sexuality may be viewed from a multitude of perspectives. Sexuality may be explored, for example: biologically (as has Derek Llewelyn-Jones) psychologically (as has Leonore Tiefer), sociologically (as Scarpitti and Anderson), philosophically (as has Roger Scruton) and historically (as has G. L. Simons – albeit at a popular level) .4This paper, however, looks at human sexuality from an unashamedly theological perspective.

Approaching any question from a theological perspective involves thinking theologically, which in turn means recourse to the Word of Revelation (the Scriptures) and the Witness of Christian Thought down the ages (what, for example, Augustine taught about sexuality). It is thinking that takes place in the context of the World of Human Predicament (the world outside of Eden and this side of Christ’s return). When the task of thinking theologically is combined with an evangelical commitment to the formal principle of Scripture as the Word of God (the source of our knowledge) and the material principle of the gospel of grace (the burden of that knowledge), then Scripture in this formal role becomes the touchstone in all matters of faith and controversy. The Witness of Christian Thought, therefore, is always under the discipline of Scripture, as is Christian experience and Christian reasoning. Thinking theologically is also a Work of Wisdom in that it has as its starting point the fear of the Lord. It is Anselmian in its mood. That is to say, that thinking theologically is an exercise in faith seeking understanding. It is a believing practice.

The paper will endeavour to achieve three aims tackled in two parts. In the first part of the discussion it will attempt a biblical and theological outline of human sexuality as presented in the Scriptures. In the second, it will seek to address the problems facing the homosexual Christian with sympathy and criticism and in so doing it will try to delineate the brief of the Christian moralist in a pluralist post-Constantinian setting.

A broad question underlies each part. In the first part, what do the Scriptures say about human sexual relations? In the second part, how may the scriptural teaching be communicated by the Christian moralist in a pluralist society, with homosexual practice serving as a case in point?

An excursus offers a typology of five approaches to the question of the moral propriety of homosexual practice. Part One: The Scriptural Presentation

1. The Foundations Of Sexuality (the Doctrine of God as Trinity)

A theological approach starts logically with first principles: namely, who is God? The living God Tendered in the Scriptures as the chief actor in the drama of salvation is triune. The one God without rival in Old Testament revelation is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the New Testament (Dt.6:4-5 and Matt. 28:18-20). The oneness remains, but a complexity is now revealed. God’s own ontology (or being) is not that of an undifferentiated substance prior to relationships of some kind, but is constituted by those very relationships that are eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s being is in communion.6 God is therefore relational intradeically (ad intra) as triune and not simply extradeically (ad extra) as Creator. The God of Scripture then is relational with or without a creation. He needs no consort outside of the Godhead. Put another way, the-will-to-relate/to covenant/to commune is in the Godhead in an essential, rather than an accidental way. This is the revolutionary concept of God that is Christianity’s treasure. 2. Sexuality Created (the Doctrine of Creation)

The complexity of God is refracted in the image of himself that he has made. Humankind are image bearers in varied ways: as exercisers of dominion over the created order, as social beings and in their sexual differentiation (Gen. 1-2).7 Indeed in the Genesis stories Adam is unable to find all his significance in God. We read it was not good for Adam to be alone (Gen.2:18). He had God and he had the rest of the animal order, but it was not enough to assuage his loneliness. Hence God made Eve from Adam’s own being. In the leaving and the marital cleaving of man and woman described in Genesis 2 the one creature is restored (one flesh). Put another way, the-will-to-relate is not adequately satisfied in a Godward relationship alone, nor in a relationship directed towards the animal kingdom alone. Another human being is needed. This is good in God’s eyes. The-will-to-relate in its sexual expression finds its proper moral context in the one flesh union of male and female. It is a creational good. 3. Sexuality Distorted (the Doctrine of Sin) Sin warps relationships. The-will-to-relate becomes the-will-to-dominate or the-willto-withdraw. Again, the Genesis narrative is fecund in its suggestiveness. Having sinned, Adam and Eve withdraw from God (Gen.3). Having sinned, Adam and Eve will experience the asymmetry of the dominator and dominated within their own relationship (Gen. 3). Sin, therefore, warps sexuality both as an expression of power (domination)

and as an experience of shame (human nakedness becomes problematical). In the flow of the biblical narrative, canonically considered, the warping effects of the fall are also seen in idolatrous sex (for example, male and female temple prostitution), violent sex (for example, homosexual rape, heterosexual rape and incest), male homosexual practice, lesbian practice, adultery and divorce. Historically considered, the after-shocks of the fall are seen in the anti-sex tradition, that has grown up within Christianity itself, with its denigration of our embodiment as creatures (Augustine in particular has been a sad influence here) and in the idolatry of the couple or the nuclear family, either of which implicitly questions the integrity of singleness. Pornography adds to the list of after-shocks.

4. Sexuality Celebrated (the Doctrine of Continued Creation) In the biblical writings human sexuality though it may be warped remains a creational good. The Song of Songs is a marvellous depiction of the joys of embodiment as expressed in sexual arousal, desire and consummation (Song 7:1-8:4).11 Sex is indeed the poor person’s opera as one wag has put it. There is none of the ancient Greek view of the body as the tomb of the soul nor of the later Manichaean flight from the physical. Likewise in the New Testament, Paul attacks the proto-Gnostic teaching that forbade marriage. For Paul, God’s creation remains good and can be properly appropriated for human enjoyment in the context of the word and prayer (1 Tim. 4:1-5). Paul’s own teaching on the created order is a dialectic then between the good creation continued (as in 1 Tim. 4:1-5) and a creation which itself longs for redemption from futility (as in Rom. 8:18-25).

There is, therefore, no room in a robustly biblical Christianity for the denigration of sexual union or more generally put, life in the body. The doctrine of continued creation is against it.

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12. Conclusions

The foundations of sexuality are theological. They are found in the God who is relationally triune. The will-to-relate is in the Godhead. Human sexuality is a created good and is expressive of, but does not exhaust, the imago dei. Sexuality and its expression are under tension outside of Eden. The creational good continues, but so do the distorting effects of the historic fall. Sexuality is to be celebrated still, but is also to find its one flesh expression within the delimitations of marriage. The drives of fallen human sexuality are redeemable in Christ and in the world to come will find their consummate expression in relationship to Christ. In a world of easy sex, the Christian moralist adopts a counter-cultural stance that blends criticism with caring and nowhere more so than in the sensitive area of homosexual attraction and practice. The Christian moralist needs to make careful distinctions between homosexual orientation and homosexual practice, and between moral concerns and aesthetic matters. Further the Christian moralist needs to deploy a more subtle tool of ethical analysis than the simple appeal to moral rules and their infringement. The moral agent, the morality of the action on view and the moral value of the aftermath of the action all need to be factored into the subsequent equation of moral judgement. Above all, the Christian moralist not only enunciates ideals and argues for them, but also seeks to embody the-will-to-relate Christianly. There is a corporate dimension to the embodiment of that will-to-relate, which is relevant to the church, when viewed as educator, care giver, citizen and employer. Lastly, our own culture appears on the one hand to be increasingly and paradoxically both more and more religious (for example, New Age, the occult and Eastern religions) and secular (for example, humanism and hedonism). On the other hand, it seems to be increasingly less and less Christian. In such a cultural context, there has never been a greater need for Christians to be counter cultural in their moral practices as individuals and as a people.

Excursus: Responses to Homosexual Practice. Five Approaches: Adapted from R.K. Johnston’s Evangelicals at an Impasse (Atlanta, John Knox, 1979) pp113-145. 1 = Homosexual activity is criminal and is, therefore, to be punished with capital punishment (Theonomists)

2 = Homosexual activity is to be condemned without qualification, but not criminalised in law (R. Lovelace)

3 = Homosexual activity of any kind is to be rejected as sinful, but not all such activity has the same moral quality. The Scripture itself recognises differences between sins (for example, the eternal sin of Mark 3:28-30 & the mortal sin of 1 John 5:16-17). The pastoral response to the homosexual recognises this reality. In some cases the pastoral guidance offered and the objective moral theology held by the pastor may be under tension outside of Eden. For example, a pastor might advise a homosexual couple to practise safe sex in the era of AIDS, even having just criticised the relationship. This is my category addition to Johnston’s typology. I am using the term “qualified” to mean “to attribute some quality to” (The Oxford Paperback Dictionary) (G. Cole)

4 = Outside of Eden sometimes we are faced with choice between the lesser of two evils. Consequently, in some circumstances, we may need to accept a monogamous homosexual relationship as better than promiscuous ones, especially in the AIDS era. For some gays, a stable monogamous homosexual relationship might be counselled as “the optimal ethical possibility”. Johnston describes this view as “Qualified Acceptance”, but I think his own argument suggests that “Partial Acceptance” would be more accurate (H. Thielicke)

5 = This is the view that there is no moral or theological impediment to monogamous homosexual relationship (V. Mollenkott)

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