by Kolbitar » December 7th, 2006, 3:25 am
Specific Objections 1
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In response to Alecto:
::“In order to claim that the Bible condemns homosexuality, you have to add information to it. The information that has been added may boil down to only one thing, that "fornication" means any kind of sex outside of marriage. It really means "visiting prostitutes". This will be a key to the Apostolic reinterpretation of the sexual codes in Acts.”
No, you don’t have to add information, you merely have to read it in light of the boundaries set forth -- from the beginning, so to speak, and reaffirmed by Jesus himself -- by the simple concept that God made humanity male and female so that a man and women could become one flesh; not that a particular man or women must become one flesh, but that they could, and the purpose of becoming one flesh is to have a family.
::“From the first in particular is derived the claim that the purpose of the sexes is to procreate, and this is the obvious design. But there is a difference between design and purpose. Were the only purpose for the creation of man that he inherit the Earth, why bother with faith and loving God? This is a different purpose. Why worry about how the Earth is inherited? Why not promote the greatest promiscuity possible, if having sex and children is the only purpose of the creation of sexes. After all, quality of life for the children is a separate purpose. History makes clear to us that happy children is not a prerequisite for a nation to conquer territory. It is also obvious that Genesis is an outline of the story of creation. Not every detail and purpose is related. Where, for example, do we specify the creation of the platypus, and why it has its bill? Where do we learn the reason Man has two legs, not four? We should not expect to find every purpose under heaven explained to us in Genesis. To do so is artificial.”
I just see this as forcing a point. The context after all is, to us, the entire Bible; and is, to those before us (to those of us who have the Bible as we have it), the religious teachings of the Hebrews. In other words it’s complete nonsense to think an overarching purpose of happiness (be it inheriting the promised land, enlightening the nations, bringing forth the Messiah, seeing God, etc), in some form, was not the general goal to which the purpose of the sexes, and of procreation, and of raising a family, and of creating a nation, were all but means -- not ends in themselves. Your point may apply to robots, who need programmed, but not to men.
:: “To prevent the Disciples from falling into this very same simplistic interpretation of Genesis, Jesus explains several roles of men in Matthew 19:10-12. Ironically, the immediately preceding section is used to make the claim on New Testament grounds that the only reason for men and women is to be married”
Who makes that argument? It’s a straw man. The reason for the difference in the sexes is so that particular members of those sexes may become one flesh: that’s the argument. But that’s not an end in itself. Becoming one flesh is designed for fruitfulness, for multiplying. But no one says that that’s an end in itself, nor does the fact that Genesis stops there indicate that we cannot reasonably conclude that the Hebrews did, or that fundamentalists must.
:: “The argument made above that there must be multiple purposes can be made here, but I do not need to because Christ will make it for me.”
No it can’t be made, and no Christ doesn’t make that point because your straw man doesn’t exist. He states that the reason -- that the purpose -- man is made male and female is so to make becoming one flesh possible. Genesis doesn’t say that God made each man and women for the purpose of becoming one flesh; it says he made male and female (categories) so that a man and women (particulars) may become one flesh. There’s only one purpose for making man male and female: that man may become one flesh. Man and man cannot become one flesh; woman and woman cannot become one flesh; the purpose for the difference is for the very possibility of the unity.
:: “But before going there, I should point out the purpose of this lesson: it is to forbid divorce and to request that men who do not believe they can avoid divorce should never be married. Within this lesson is explained the primary hypocrisy of the "family values" movement in the United States. They will use these verses to claim indirectly that one kind of sex is bad, while allowing divorce, which is directly called adultery in the same place. They will use this to support "defense of marriage" laws that do not contain the obligatory ban on divorce. I do not agree with the claim that these verses argue against homosexual behavior, but I can see how one gets there. But to make that claim and not be all fired up about banning divorce at the same time is absurd.”
The automatic assumption that one must insert or translate his religious or theological obligations into the political realm as societal law is what frightens me about the “religious left”; for it reveals either the unrealistic assumption about the opposition that they cannot be rational and/or an inability to themselves make any rational distinctions which, projected upon their opposition, becomes an occasion for fear. It does not follow that one cannot support the defense of marriage act as it defines marriage between a man and women on account of it’s derivation from nature without supporting the supernatural insight of Jesus Christ, concerning the sacramental covenant which transcends natural revelation (derivation), in the realm of politics. The first comes by reason, the other by faith; to seek to establish the latter would be to try to establish religion: securing the distinction is not absurd.
:: “Here we have, out of the mouth of Jesus, another thing that too many people think cannot exist: a discriminant - a statement that some laws apply to different people or nations in different ways because of different conditions. It also contains a rational explanation, reminding us that the Law is supposed to be reasonable.
But they’re never backward, we don’t go back to something that was allowed, but shouldn’t have been ideally.
:: “I have to wonder how many good Christian Republicans who believe in the literal truth of Scripture are committing adultery this very second with their lawfully (according to the State) wedded wives. I wonder how many of these very ones contemplated today that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. It is this very kind of hypocrisy that convinces me many people, if not most, who quote these verses are actually homophobic, not Christian, in their view of this. Were they truly Christian, they would not concentrate on one sin and ignore the other. The "defense of marriage" laws would address all of the sins, not just one. Now to any reading this who is not hypocritical in this way, I apologize if I made it seem I was including you. I am not. I just know from the way the political winds blow in this country that there are a great many out there who are hypocritical.”
I’ll never understand appealing to other wrongs in order to accept a wrong. Either homosexuality is wrong, or it’s not. If it’s wrong then the hypocrisy of heterosexuals, Republican or Democrat, makes it no more right. I’ve already addressed the difference between natural law and revelation as it appeals to “defense of marriage” laws, but I will agree that many people of all political stripes are, according to religious principles, committing adultery if they were lawfully wedded to their first husband or wife. However, to be “convince[d] [that] many people, if not most, who quote these verses are actually homophobic, not Christian, in their view of this” simply fails on logical grounds; for your conviction assumes that these people not only know (which most probably don’t), but, in addition, actually think there’s any credibility whatsoever to an alternative interpretation.
I’ve indirectly answered all the rest of the points made in the Matthew post, but let me know if I need to be direct…
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton
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