Sexuality and Nature
(Part 7 of the essay)
Nature in St. Paul: Same-sex relations
As we’ve seen, few words feature more centrally in this and connected debates than 'nature' and its cognates. The word ('physis') is prominent in Paul’s argument in Romans 1, as are 'natural' ('kata physin'), and 'unnatural' ('para physin'). Recall Hays’ translation of the key verse: those who engage in homosexual actions exchange “the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.”
To recapitulate Hays: These categories -- natural behavior versus the unnatural sort -- were intellectually significant in Paul’s day. Stoic philosophy identified right moral action with living according to nature (kata physin) (i.e., natural law ethics). And inasmuch as there were no standard Greek words meaning “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” “natural versus unnatural” was a common way to distinguish between the two kinds of sexual behavior. Finally, as to St. Paul’s understanding of nature per se, Hays tell us that
As we’ve seen, few words feature more centrally in this and connected debates than 'nature' and its cognates. The word ('physis') is prominent in Paul’s argument in Romans 1, as are 'natural' ('kata physin'), and 'unnatural' ('para physin'). Recall Hays’ translation of the key verse: those who engage in homosexual actions exchange “the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.”
To recapitulate Hays: These categories -- natural behavior versus the unnatural sort -- were intellectually significant in Paul’s day. Stoic philosophy identified right moral action with living according to nature (kata physin) (i.e., natural law ethics). And inasmuch as there were no standard Greek words meaning “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” “natural versus unnatural” was a common way to distinguish between the two kinds of sexual behavior. Finally, as to St. Paul’s understanding of nature per se, Hays tell us that
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[t]hough he offers no explicit reflection on the concept of “nature,” it appears that in this passage Paul identifies “nature” with the created order. [This understanding] does not rest on empirical observation of what actually exists; instead, it appeals to a conception of what ought to be, of the world as designed by God and revealed through the stories and laws of Scripture. (387)
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However, it is the case that 'nature' is often used without much precision. So it’s crucial to be clear about the various ways in which it can be used. It is of course used as a proper name for the physical universe. Sometimes it’s used in the sense of inclination or fittingness: “That girl kicks the ball so well; she’s a natural soccer player.” Sometimes it means conventional: “Naturally, the groom kissed his bride on their wedding day.” Sometimes it’s used in an essentialist sense: “It is of the nature of a dog to be an opportunist about food.”
It’s also used in a properly philosophical (and theological) sense, as when the Stoics and their modern descendants speak of the natural law, or when Christians affirm that in virtue of God’s purposive creation of Nature certain valuative facts follow in due and natural course. For example, because humans bear God’s stamp and thus have intrinsic worth, we should love others as ourselves. Or, because God made the physical world and as such it is good, we should steward and care for it. The philosophical sense thus implies the essentialist one about particular facts.
To return to Romans 1: Hays’ point is that Paul is here using nature in the last of these senses -- the philosophical one -- with the essentialist corollary about sex. Regardless of whether Paul thought of himself as doing theology per se, Hays is broadly correct. Not only is Romans 1 a text brilliant on its own terms, it’s also foundational for the doctrine of creational monotheism.
Again, Paul begins his argument by appealing to the knowledge that everyone should possess if they merely paid attention to creation: that of God and of His invisible qualities, namely, His “eternal power and divine nature.” But the pagans worship idols, physical stand-ins for non-existent deities. They thus exchange true worship -- that of the Creator -- for phony worship -- that of physical likenesses of created things like animals or humans.
Not only does this confusion and consequent rebellion affect religious worship per se. It also spills over into how humans treat themselves and each other. Thus: “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored [atimazó] among them.” (1:24; NASB. The NIV puts in the adjective sexual before impurity; that doesn’t exist in the text.) Presumably, one aspect of the dishonoring here is of the Creator’s Image in humans. The chapter ends with a blistering litany of the terrible things that people can do -- from being “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice,” to gossiping, slandering, and disrespecting parents, to having “no fidelity, no love, [and] no mercy.”
Again, it’s in the middle of all this -- practically as a centerpiece -- that Paul talks about how those who engage in same-sex acts exchange “the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.”
It’s also used in a properly philosophical (and theological) sense, as when the Stoics and their modern descendants speak of the natural law, or when Christians affirm that in virtue of God’s purposive creation of Nature certain valuative facts follow in due and natural course. For example, because humans bear God’s stamp and thus have intrinsic worth, we should love others as ourselves. Or, because God made the physical world and as such it is good, we should steward and care for it. The philosophical sense thus implies the essentialist one about particular facts.
To return to Romans 1: Hays’ point is that Paul is here using nature in the last of these senses -- the philosophical one -- with the essentialist corollary about sex. Regardless of whether Paul thought of himself as doing theology per se, Hays is broadly correct. Not only is Romans 1 a text brilliant on its own terms, it’s also foundational for the doctrine of creational monotheism.
Again, Paul begins his argument by appealing to the knowledge that everyone should possess if they merely paid attention to creation: that of God and of His invisible qualities, namely, His “eternal power and divine nature.” But the pagans worship idols, physical stand-ins for non-existent deities. They thus exchange true worship -- that of the Creator -- for phony worship -- that of physical likenesses of created things like animals or humans.
Not only does this confusion and consequent rebellion affect religious worship per se. It also spills over into how humans treat themselves and each other. Thus: “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored [atimazó] among them.” (1:24; NASB. The NIV puts in the adjective sexual before impurity; that doesn’t exist in the text.) Presumably, one aspect of the dishonoring here is of the Creator’s Image in humans. The chapter ends with a blistering litany of the terrible things that people can do -- from being “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice,” to gossiping, slandering, and disrespecting parents, to having “no fidelity, no love, [and] no mercy.”
Again, it’s in the middle of all this -- practically as a centerpiece -- that Paul talks about how those who engage in same-sex acts exchange “the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.”
Nature in St. Paul: Of heads and hair
There is, however, another famous place in Paul where the word 'nature' ('physis') is used:
There is, however, another famous place in Paul where the word 'nature' ('physis') is used:
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Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things [physis; the NASB more literally reads “does not even nature itself”] teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace [atimia] to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. (1 Corinthians 11:13-15)
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The context concerns how, in terms of authority, men and women rank relatively. Paul tells us that “the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” (11:3) Hair and head coverings feature prominently in the discussion. (I understand that “shorn women” were prostitutes or at least dishonored females.) In fact, the entire passage offends modern sensibilities. It is a key text for the ongoing debate between complementarians and egalitarians, as to whether both sexes have equal remit in leadership and participation within marriage, family, and the Church: The former believe no, the latter yes.
As with our topic, egalitarians make the point that the social context of this passage was a highly patriarchal one and so the complementarian reading doesn’t hold. And like traditionalists about sexuality, complementarians retort that it doesn’t matter what the social context was: the Scripture is clear.
I want to highlight, as have others, the use of 'nature' in both Romans and 1 Corinthians, as well as the word for 'dishonor' ('atimazó' / 'atimia'). Progressives have made the point that if we choose not to read 1 Corinthians as still holding with regard to hair length and head coverings, then we should not do so with Romans and homosexuality. (1) Their point, essentially, is that 'nature' must be understood in the conventional -- not philosophical -- sense in both passages. That is, because it’s absurd to maintain that there’s something essential about hair and heads, then 'nature' must be being used in the conventional sense in 1 Corinthians. But if that’s the case, then 'nature' should also be read as conventional in Romans 1. Consequently, that Paul considers homosexuality as being contrary to nature should be understood as merely context-dependent convention, not as fixed prohibition.
I agree that, lexically, whatever Paul intended by 'nature' and 'dishonor' in 1 Corinthians he also meant in Romans. Both the way the words read in the Greek and the general tenor of the passages strongly suggest that Paul saw the respective situations with equal urgency. However, I also doubt that he would have considered the situation in 1 Corinthians to be merely a matter of convention. That is to say, the pious women in my church growing up, who chose to wear head coverings, and who “submitted” to the “headship” of their husbands, probably got Paul’s intent in 1 Corinthians right. So Paul should be understood as using 'nature' in the philosophical / theological sense in both passages and as making essentialist points about both hair and sex.
Does this mean that the vexed issue of same-sex relations, and the less-vexed-but-still-contentious question of male / female roles in the Church, stand on equivalent ground as that of how long a man should wear his hair or whether a woman must cover her head? Such a conclusion would seem to reduce this entire debate to farce. A complementarian who liked long hair on men, or who felt that women shouldn’t hide their tresses, would doubtless urge that the instructions about hair in 1 Corinthians concern context-dependent practices which, relative to that time and place, connected up with overarching principles of gender roles. The traditionalist about sex-relations would urge something similar.
Such a response is reasonable. Yet this move -- the fact that it’s required if one wants to decouple such practices as hair length and head covering from an overarching principle like gender roles -- is open to this counter-question: What are the criteria by which we distinguish between context-dependent practices and overarching principles? A (lazy) progressive can always always push that, really, for all intents and purposes, acceptance of homosexuality is as much a matter of social convention as questions about hair length. What’s the difference?
As with our topic, egalitarians make the point that the social context of this passage was a highly patriarchal one and so the complementarian reading doesn’t hold. And like traditionalists about sexuality, complementarians retort that it doesn’t matter what the social context was: the Scripture is clear.
I want to highlight, as have others, the use of 'nature' in both Romans and 1 Corinthians, as well as the word for 'dishonor' ('atimazó' / 'atimia'). Progressives have made the point that if we choose not to read 1 Corinthians as still holding with regard to hair length and head coverings, then we should not do so with Romans and homosexuality. (1) Their point, essentially, is that 'nature' must be understood in the conventional -- not philosophical -- sense in both passages. That is, because it’s absurd to maintain that there’s something essential about hair and heads, then 'nature' must be being used in the conventional sense in 1 Corinthians. But if that’s the case, then 'nature' should also be read as conventional in Romans 1. Consequently, that Paul considers homosexuality as being contrary to nature should be understood as merely context-dependent convention, not as fixed prohibition.
I agree that, lexically, whatever Paul intended by 'nature' and 'dishonor' in 1 Corinthians he also meant in Romans. Both the way the words read in the Greek and the general tenor of the passages strongly suggest that Paul saw the respective situations with equal urgency. However, I also doubt that he would have considered the situation in 1 Corinthians to be merely a matter of convention. That is to say, the pious women in my church growing up, who chose to wear head coverings, and who “submitted” to the “headship” of their husbands, probably got Paul’s intent in 1 Corinthians right. So Paul should be understood as using 'nature' in the philosophical / theological sense in both passages and as making essentialist points about both hair and sex.
Does this mean that the vexed issue of same-sex relations, and the less-vexed-but-still-contentious question of male / female roles in the Church, stand on equivalent ground as that of how long a man should wear his hair or whether a woman must cover her head? Such a conclusion would seem to reduce this entire debate to farce. A complementarian who liked long hair on men, or who felt that women shouldn’t hide their tresses, would doubtless urge that the instructions about hair in 1 Corinthians concern context-dependent practices which, relative to that time and place, connected up with overarching principles of gender roles. The traditionalist about sex-relations would urge something similar.
Such a response is reasonable. Yet this move -- the fact that it’s required if one wants to decouple such practices as hair length and head covering from an overarching principle like gender roles -- is open to this counter-question: What are the criteria by which we distinguish between context-dependent practices and overarching principles? A (lazy) progressive can always always push that, really, for all intents and purposes, acceptance of homosexuality is as much a matter of social convention as questions about hair length. What’s the difference?
Some natural principles
It’s at this point that traditionalists will usually make a significant-yet-subtle, and thus easily missed, move: To get at some kind of objective criteria, they will appeal to what they think should be a shared -- i.e., by both traditionalist and progressive Christians -- framework, what I’ll call the Principle of Apparent Naturalness. Often they will use the language of design and so of purposiveness. This is how the Nashvillians, for example, frame their missive. Thus:
It’s at this point that traditionalists will usually make a significant-yet-subtle, and thus easily missed, move: To get at some kind of objective criteria, they will appeal to what they think should be a shared -- i.e., by both traditionalist and progressive Christians -- framework, what I’ll call the Principle of Apparent Naturalness. Often they will use the language of design and so of purposiveness. This is how the Nashvillians, for example, frame their missive. Thus:
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By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences. The pathway to full and lasting joy through God’s good design for his creatures is thus replaced by the path of shortsighted alternatives that, sooner or later, ruin human life and dishonor God. [From the Preamble]
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And so, too:
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WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing. [Article 4]
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Now, granted, these folk are working from within a perspective that assumes the traditionalist picture of God’s intent for human sexuality. But it’s that very picture that’s at issue. Indeed the subtext here -- for both the Nashvillians and countless traditionalist apologists -- goes something like this: “Male and female are literally made to fit together! Together, their respective biologies collaborate, as it were, to reproduce the human species. What could be more obvious and more beautiful? What more evidence does one need of God’s design for human sexuality?” The language about “human good and human flourishing” cap off the implicit appeal to a shared sense of what such goodness and flourishing looks like.
Rhetorically, this has the effects both of showing that the traditionalist isn’t urging a retrograde sexual ethic and of softening the blow, as it were, of his position. Logically, however, what the traditionalist takes as obvious simply is not seen as such by others party to the dispute. The traditionalist is sincerely trying to appeal to an objective principle, one he thinks is evident upon reflection both on the Scripture and on general evidence. But the progressive -- with good reason -- can simply deny the putative principle. If, as I argued earlier, a gay sexual orientation is as “natural” as a heterosexual one, then the sought-for principle doesn’t exist.
It is of course always open to the traditionalist to challenge that earlier conclusion. But given what I argued there, in terms of science, ethics, and empathy, I believe that the traditionalist will inevitably, and justly, be open to the charges of special pleading and of smuggling in traditionalist assumptions about how sex ought to work when he appeals, explicitly or implicitly, to the Principle of Apparent Naturalness. To be intellectually credible, the traditionalist should thus jettison any appeal to such. He should not claim that what he discovers in Romans (or, for that matter, in 1 Corinthians) to be obvious about sexuality (or gender roles) is obvious to anyone but him.
What’s the upshot of all this with respect to St. Paul? The upshot is that what Paul took as “natural” -- in the full philosophical / theological sense and with the essentialist corollary about sex per se -- does not square with my claim that homosexuality is just as “natural” as heterosexuality. Or, to get things the right way round: It is I who fail to line up with the Apostle, as well as with the Christian consensus since him.
This is, to be sure, an awkward conclusion for someone who calls himself a “believing Christian.” Nevertheless, rather than not follow the argument where it leads, or fail to do justice to the text or to Paul, I’d rather simply own the fact that I think Paul is wrong about the “non-naturalness” of homosexuality. I want to believe that Paul -- an intellectually rigorous man of deep integrity -- would respect both my conclusion and how I’ve gotten here. I also hope that my proposed resolution of this conundrum, below, would not be unacceptable to him.
If the Principle of Apparent Naturalness fails -- if it devolves into an Apparent Principle of Naturalness -- how else might one distinguish between context-dependent practices and overarching principles? The traditionalist / complementarian might urge that inasmuch as sexuality and gender roles are matters of such significance, both in general and in the Scripture, that they rise to a different level than questions about hair and heads. While understandable, such a response ducks the hard question of giving non-question-begging criteria. After all, why are they so significant -- if indeed they are? We quickly devolve into fundamentalism: “The ‘clear teaching’ of Scripture is X, so do X.” Haircuts and head coverings aren’t far behind.
The only other way I can see to locate such criteria is to ground them in what I will call the First Principles of a True Christian Naturalism. By Christian Naturalism I mean those aspects of the Christian worldview having to do with the Universe and its denizens (including sexual creatures like humans) and which arise from its commitment to creational monotheism. This, in essence, is what the Nashvillians want to do. It’s what Paul actually does, both in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. The difference -- and this is what makes his account a genuine appeal to such first principles -- is that Paul pays us the courtesy of making it clear that that’s what he’s up to (which the Nashvillians do not) and he actually gives arguments.
Again, Paul begins his argument in Romans by appealing to the general knowledge he thinks everyone possesses and which reveals the Creator God. But, the argument thus begun, the implicit premises driving it on can only come from Genesis 1, 2, and 3, the fountainhead of Christian teaching about creational monotheism. This means, then, that we’re square up against yet another controversial question: How ought the first chapters of Genesis to be understood and what is their normative import for us now?
Rhetorically, this has the effects both of showing that the traditionalist isn’t urging a retrograde sexual ethic and of softening the blow, as it were, of his position. Logically, however, what the traditionalist takes as obvious simply is not seen as such by others party to the dispute. The traditionalist is sincerely trying to appeal to an objective principle, one he thinks is evident upon reflection both on the Scripture and on general evidence. But the progressive -- with good reason -- can simply deny the putative principle. If, as I argued earlier, a gay sexual orientation is as “natural” as a heterosexual one, then the sought-for principle doesn’t exist.
It is of course always open to the traditionalist to challenge that earlier conclusion. But given what I argued there, in terms of science, ethics, and empathy, I believe that the traditionalist will inevitably, and justly, be open to the charges of special pleading and of smuggling in traditionalist assumptions about how sex ought to work when he appeals, explicitly or implicitly, to the Principle of Apparent Naturalness. To be intellectually credible, the traditionalist should thus jettison any appeal to such. He should not claim that what he discovers in Romans (or, for that matter, in 1 Corinthians) to be obvious about sexuality (or gender roles) is obvious to anyone but him.
What’s the upshot of all this with respect to St. Paul? The upshot is that what Paul took as “natural” -- in the full philosophical / theological sense and with the essentialist corollary about sex per se -- does not square with my claim that homosexuality is just as “natural” as heterosexuality. Or, to get things the right way round: It is I who fail to line up with the Apostle, as well as with the Christian consensus since him.
This is, to be sure, an awkward conclusion for someone who calls himself a “believing Christian.” Nevertheless, rather than not follow the argument where it leads, or fail to do justice to the text or to Paul, I’d rather simply own the fact that I think Paul is wrong about the “non-naturalness” of homosexuality. I want to believe that Paul -- an intellectually rigorous man of deep integrity -- would respect both my conclusion and how I’ve gotten here. I also hope that my proposed resolution of this conundrum, below, would not be unacceptable to him.
If the Principle of Apparent Naturalness fails -- if it devolves into an Apparent Principle of Naturalness -- how else might one distinguish between context-dependent practices and overarching principles? The traditionalist / complementarian might urge that inasmuch as sexuality and gender roles are matters of such significance, both in general and in the Scripture, that they rise to a different level than questions about hair and heads. While understandable, such a response ducks the hard question of giving non-question-begging criteria. After all, why are they so significant -- if indeed they are? We quickly devolve into fundamentalism: “The ‘clear teaching’ of Scripture is X, so do X.” Haircuts and head coverings aren’t far behind.
The only other way I can see to locate such criteria is to ground them in what I will call the First Principles of a True Christian Naturalism. By Christian Naturalism I mean those aspects of the Christian worldview having to do with the Universe and its denizens (including sexual creatures like humans) and which arise from its commitment to creational monotheism. This, in essence, is what the Nashvillians want to do. It’s what Paul actually does, both in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. The difference -- and this is what makes his account a genuine appeal to such first principles -- is that Paul pays us the courtesy of making it clear that that’s what he’s up to (which the Nashvillians do not) and he actually gives arguments.
Again, Paul begins his argument in Romans by appealing to the general knowledge he thinks everyone possesses and which reveals the Creator God. But, the argument thus begun, the implicit premises driving it on can only come from Genesis 1, 2, and 3, the fountainhead of Christian teaching about creational monotheism. This means, then, that we’re square up against yet another controversial question: How ought the first chapters of Genesis to be understood and what is their normative import for us now?
Genesis and sexuality
Genesis 1-3 is of course the main stomping ground for the “Evolution v Creation” debate, a topic I’ve written about at length. I say quite a bit about how early Genesis should be understood. I shall not restate that discussion, though I stand by what I’ve written. My main points (following most scholars) are that: These ancient texts were not intended to be understood as statements of historical or scientific fact in terms of durations, sequences, gardens, personages, snakes, flaming swords, and so forth. They’re not a reporting of events. To take them as such is to import an intellectual frame of reference (largely, a post-Enlightenment one) completely alien to them. It is thus to misread them, and so to miss what they seek to tell us. What they’re trying to say is something that’s true, yet not literally so, while not merely metaphorical either: Namely, that the God of Israel is so much more excellent than the deities of the nations surrounding Israel. That He exists and is one. That He creates. And that what He creates is good. This, in its pith, is the doctrine of creational monotheism.
Inasmuch as Genesis 1-3 form the backdrop for the Scriptural witness about sexuality, how does this way of reading them affect how we understand their testimony about sex and gender roles? The Nashvillians, straightforward if nothing else, are Exhibit A as to where a hyper-literalist reading of Genesis takes you:
Genesis 1-3 is of course the main stomping ground for the “Evolution v Creation” debate, a topic I’ve written about at length. I say quite a bit about how early Genesis should be understood. I shall not restate that discussion, though I stand by what I’ve written. My main points (following most scholars) are that: These ancient texts were not intended to be understood as statements of historical or scientific fact in terms of durations, sequences, gardens, personages, snakes, flaming swords, and so forth. They’re not a reporting of events. To take them as such is to import an intellectual frame of reference (largely, a post-Enlightenment one) completely alien to them. It is thus to misread them, and so to miss what they seek to tell us. What they’re trying to say is something that’s true, yet not literally so, while not merely metaphorical either: Namely, that the God of Israel is so much more excellent than the deities of the nations surrounding Israel. That He exists and is one. That He creates. And that what He creates is good. This, in its pith, is the doctrine of creational monotheism.
Inasmuch as Genesis 1-3 form the backdrop for the Scriptural witness about sexuality, how does this way of reading them affect how we understand their testimony about sex and gender roles? The Nashvillians, straightforward if nothing else, are Exhibit A as to where a hyper-literalist reading of Genesis takes you:
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WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female. (Article 3)
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Now, it is an extraordinary reach to expect people living in our modern, pluralistic society to even believe in a historical First Couple, let alone to ground their understanding of sex and gender roles in what, to most, will seem sectarian myth. Granted, the Nashvillians’ primary audience are their co-religionists. But to make such a public statement, one that links controversial social issues to even more tendentious historical claims, is absurd. It deals a massive black eye to any attempt to speak Christian truth into our post-Christian context. It also reveals a scandalous lack of theological and exegetical nuance and expertise.
Furthermore, this move undercuts the Nashvillians’ own aims: By linking sex and gender norms so tightly to an actual First Couple, if it were the case that a person who’d previously believed in Adam and Eve came to have a “softer” view about human origins, then she would then have much less justification from Genesis for a traditionalist understanding about sex and gender. Moreover, the putative Nashvillian entailment -- that from the literal creation of humans created in God’s image the traditionalist understanding of sexuality follows -- can always be resisted. One could argue, on some of the other grounds I’ve offered here, for a non-traditionalist understanding of sexuality and yet still hold to a literal First Couple. The sort of package, proffered by traditionalists, as to what Genesis means with respect to humans and sexuality is far too neat and tidy.
Indeed, the Nashvillians and other conservative evangelicals should be careful what they wish for. The Catholic Church has long argued that a true naturalism about sex means that artificial birth control is unacceptable for Christians. For what could be more at odds to the natural course than prophylactics for males or chemically-induced suppression of ovulation for females? The Catholic positions on sexuality and birth control are logically consistent; those of your average conservative evangelical, not so much.
Returning to Genesis: If these chapters do not speak -- aren’t in fact intended to speak -- to historical realities, do they speak to facts about sex and gender? This question parallels that having to do with the Fall of Adam. Just a bit further into Romans, past our favored first chapter, Paul writes:
Furthermore, this move undercuts the Nashvillians’ own aims: By linking sex and gender norms so tightly to an actual First Couple, if it were the case that a person who’d previously believed in Adam and Eve came to have a “softer” view about human origins, then she would then have much less justification from Genesis for a traditionalist understanding about sex and gender. Moreover, the putative Nashvillian entailment -- that from the literal creation of humans created in God’s image the traditionalist understanding of sexuality follows -- can always be resisted. One could argue, on some of the other grounds I’ve offered here, for a non-traditionalist understanding of sexuality and yet still hold to a literal First Couple. The sort of package, proffered by traditionalists, as to what Genesis means with respect to humans and sexuality is far too neat and tidy.
Indeed, the Nashvillians and other conservative evangelicals should be careful what they wish for. The Catholic Church has long argued that a true naturalism about sex means that artificial birth control is unacceptable for Christians. For what could be more at odds to the natural course than prophylactics for males or chemically-induced suppression of ovulation for females? The Catholic positions on sexuality and birth control are logically consistent; those of your average conservative evangelical, not so much.
Returning to Genesis: If these chapters do not speak -- aren’t in fact intended to speak -- to historical realities, do they speak to facts about sex and gender? This question parallels that having to do with the Fall of Adam. Just a bit further into Romans, past our favored first chapter, Paul writes:
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[S]in entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned ... (5:12)
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So if there were no Adam, how can there be Original Sin? And if no Original Sin, then what’s the point of Jesus? Absent a literal reading of Genesis, traditionalists find not only their views on human origins and sexuality without grounds but indeed the very heart of their faith as well. Perhaps this is a sign that too much is riding on the facticity of early Genesis.
As I have written, the reason that Paul believed in Adam was simply because the Torah told him so. Modern ideas about “how to read Genesis” were as far-removed from his cognizance as notions like radioactive decay and genome-sequencing. That’s no disrespect to Paul: He was, after all, simply a man of his time. Testifying to the Gospel of Jesus Christ was his mission, not opining on science or ancient history.
Given the importance of Genesis -- not only as touching our current topic but also with respect to where we come from, whose we are, and what is wrong with us -- how should we think about both its relationship to the rest of Scripture and its function as the fountainhead of Christian belief? Scholars often use the term myth when describing literature like early Genesis. They mean this in a technical sense as referring to the narratives, stories, and lore that groups of people -- from ancient tribes to modern nations -- recount to explain how they came to be, what their values are, how they compare to others, and where their destiny lies. We Americans have a Myth -- the version of which depends on whether you are white or black, conservative or liberal, rich or poor, Southerner or Northeasterner -- that purports to make sense of our nation’s history from The Mayflower to now.
The problem with the word 'myth' is that for most people it has an overwhelming connotation of "false, fictitious, merely legendary." But it’s not the case that Genesis is false: When read appropriately -- as true, yet not literally so, yet not merely metaphorical either -- it is true. The irony is that a literalist insistence on treating Genesis as a kind of reporting of facts ends up falsifying the text. Rather than myth I shall use story (or narrative) instead. Genesis -- like Dante’s Divine Comedy -- tells a story that is true in the sense of relaying verities about God, Creation, and humans, yet which makes no pretense to be recounting history or doing science.
Genesis 1-3 serve, then, as the narratival backdrop against which the rest of Scripture must be read. They also serve as the touchstone for any belief or teaching that claims to be authentically Christian. Their main motif, as I’ve noted, is creational monotheism. But they also speak to the fact that both humans and the entire created order are disconnected from, and at odds with, their Creator. That is to say, they speak of fallenness and sin. It is to these moral and cosmic realities, then, that the narratival figures of Adam, Eve, and their Sin refer and connect. The First Couple stands in, in the story, for all of us -- past and present. The Temptation-and-Fall stands in as signifier for both particular acts of human moral failing and the cosmic fact that this World is not as it’s intended to be, not as it should be.
I am not arguing for an allegorical reading of Genesis, as a kind of simplistic morality play, where a figure stands for something in a woodenly prearranged way. I’m working both backwards and forwards, trying to find a reading that explains all of the relevant data as best as possible: Given that Genesis isn’t a literal recounting of events but a narrative meant to reveal things about God, creation, and humans; given the prominence of narrative in the way Jews (like Paul) understood God and his ways; and given what we learn from the rest of Scripture, especially the New Testament, about Jesus and the Gospel -- then the account I’ve given about Adam, Eve, and the Temptation-and-Fall makes the most sense. Moreover, it “lets” Paul refer to Adam in a non-empty manner while being consistent with the fact that there was no literal person called Adam.
Thus Adam, Paul, and the Fall. What about Genesis, sex, and gender? Though I’ve said it often, it bears repeating: The world into which Genesis was written was male-centered and patriarchal in a way we can scarcely imagine. That reality must inform how we understand the “claim” that while Adam was directly fashioned by God, Eve was only derivatively thus made. Likewise for the stereotypical gender roles in Genesis 3: the man doing the earth-tilling, the woman doing the childbearing while “ruled” by the man.
As to the pairing of the original Couple, how else would a traditional society account for “normal” sexual expression? Heterosexuality is certainly “normal” enough: Not only is it the usual form of sex relations, it’s also how the species propagates. Eve and Adam, in the narrative, stand in for these biological and sociological facts. They are the proto-Couple, the exemplars, as to how sexual expression usually works and how human reproduction always works. In the story they testify to God’s gift of fecundity to the human species.
Building a theory of sex and gender roles on Genesis is thus problematic. I would say, in fact, that it’s impossible: The milieu into which it was offered is so different than ours. Its understanding of sex and gender is so incomplete compared to what we now know. And -- above all -- serving as grist for a theory of sexuality is, as with the case of origins, simply not the point of these texts.
As I have written, the reason that Paul believed in Adam was simply because the Torah told him so. Modern ideas about “how to read Genesis” were as far-removed from his cognizance as notions like radioactive decay and genome-sequencing. That’s no disrespect to Paul: He was, after all, simply a man of his time. Testifying to the Gospel of Jesus Christ was his mission, not opining on science or ancient history.
Given the importance of Genesis -- not only as touching our current topic but also with respect to where we come from, whose we are, and what is wrong with us -- how should we think about both its relationship to the rest of Scripture and its function as the fountainhead of Christian belief? Scholars often use the term myth when describing literature like early Genesis. They mean this in a technical sense as referring to the narratives, stories, and lore that groups of people -- from ancient tribes to modern nations -- recount to explain how they came to be, what their values are, how they compare to others, and where their destiny lies. We Americans have a Myth -- the version of which depends on whether you are white or black, conservative or liberal, rich or poor, Southerner or Northeasterner -- that purports to make sense of our nation’s history from The Mayflower to now.
The problem with the word 'myth' is that for most people it has an overwhelming connotation of "false, fictitious, merely legendary." But it’s not the case that Genesis is false: When read appropriately -- as true, yet not literally so, yet not merely metaphorical either -- it is true. The irony is that a literalist insistence on treating Genesis as a kind of reporting of facts ends up falsifying the text. Rather than myth I shall use story (or narrative) instead. Genesis -- like Dante’s Divine Comedy -- tells a story that is true in the sense of relaying verities about God, Creation, and humans, yet which makes no pretense to be recounting history or doing science.
Genesis 1-3 serve, then, as the narratival backdrop against which the rest of Scripture must be read. They also serve as the touchstone for any belief or teaching that claims to be authentically Christian. Their main motif, as I’ve noted, is creational monotheism. But they also speak to the fact that both humans and the entire created order are disconnected from, and at odds with, their Creator. That is to say, they speak of fallenness and sin. It is to these moral and cosmic realities, then, that the narratival figures of Adam, Eve, and their Sin refer and connect. The First Couple stands in, in the story, for all of us -- past and present. The Temptation-and-Fall stands in as signifier for both particular acts of human moral failing and the cosmic fact that this World is not as it’s intended to be, not as it should be.
I am not arguing for an allegorical reading of Genesis, as a kind of simplistic morality play, where a figure stands for something in a woodenly prearranged way. I’m working both backwards and forwards, trying to find a reading that explains all of the relevant data as best as possible: Given that Genesis isn’t a literal recounting of events but a narrative meant to reveal things about God, creation, and humans; given the prominence of narrative in the way Jews (like Paul) understood God and his ways; and given what we learn from the rest of Scripture, especially the New Testament, about Jesus and the Gospel -- then the account I’ve given about Adam, Eve, and the Temptation-and-Fall makes the most sense. Moreover, it “lets” Paul refer to Adam in a non-empty manner while being consistent with the fact that there was no literal person called Adam.
Thus Adam, Paul, and the Fall. What about Genesis, sex, and gender? Though I’ve said it often, it bears repeating: The world into which Genesis was written was male-centered and patriarchal in a way we can scarcely imagine. That reality must inform how we understand the “claim” that while Adam was directly fashioned by God, Eve was only derivatively thus made. Likewise for the stereotypical gender roles in Genesis 3: the man doing the earth-tilling, the woman doing the childbearing while “ruled” by the man.
As to the pairing of the original Couple, how else would a traditional society account for “normal” sexual expression? Heterosexuality is certainly “normal” enough: Not only is it the usual form of sex relations, it’s also how the species propagates. Eve and Adam, in the narrative, stand in for these biological and sociological facts. They are the proto-Couple, the exemplars, as to how sexual expression usually works and how human reproduction always works. In the story they testify to God’s gift of fecundity to the human species.
Building a theory of sex and gender roles on Genesis is thus problematic. I would say, in fact, that it’s impossible: The milieu into which it was offered is so different than ours. Its understanding of sex and gender is so incomplete compared to what we now know. And -- above all -- serving as grist for a theory of sexuality is, as with the case of origins, simply not the point of these texts.
Nature and St. Paul: A Conclusion
How should what we’ve learned about, and from, Genesis inform how we understand St. Paul in Romans 1? (These considerations likewise apply to 1 Corinthians.) Recall that what Paul is doing there, at least in part, is grounding criteria for ethical human behavior through appeal to the First Principles of a True Christian Naturalism: namely, those aspects of the Christian worldview having to do with the Universe and its denizens and which arise from its commitment to creational monotheism. And, again, he relies, implicitly, on the Genesis story as he makes his argument.
A first point is that Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality is as unsurprising, apriori, as his belief in a real Adam. The Torah instructed him on both, and thus he believed. If asked as to the days of creation or the age of the earth, he would have given the traditional answers. If questioned as to the facticity of gardens, trees, fruits, ribs, snakes, and flaming swords, he would have replied in the affirmative. It turns out, however, that these beliefs, based on what the words of Genesis are and on what centuries of Jewish culture and practice took them to mean, simply aren’t correct. That’s the upshot of a sensitive, honest reading of Genesis.
Does this mean that Paul -- and other New Testament personages, including Jesus -- have no credibility because they held to materially false beliefs about Genesis? Of course not. That would be like saying that George Washington was useless as a statesman because he thought bloodletting efficacious. Surely we must make allowances, when considering the views held by historical figures, for beliefs they held with justification, given what was known at the time, yet which later turned out to be wrong. If not, then future generations will in turn judge us harshly.
The traditionalist might object -- and this explains why the “package” of beliefs in actual days, a historical Adam, and traditionalism about sexuality and gender roles is bundled so tightly by fundamentalists -- that once we start “correcting” Paul and other biblical authors in this way, then before long the entire Gospel story will lose its credibility. Start pulling on particular threads and the whole sweater will eventually unravel.
My perspective is just the opposite: The Gospel is true. It’s central events -- including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth -- bear all the marks of genuine history. From the parables drawn in the Synoptics to the arguments crafted in the Epistles, the literary quality and logical cogency of the New Testament are just glorious. Whether viewed through a purely human lens or through acknowledging its divine inspiration, the New Testament simply does not need our “help” by asserting that certain beliefs its authors held -- contingent ones having to do with empirical data -- amount to eternal truths when they just aren’t.
And this, ultimately, is my resolution of the conundrum posed by Paul’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality: He had a belief about a set of empirical data that, though reasonable enough given what he knew, turns out to be false. To be clear, I claim that the status of Paul’s view on homosexuality is logically parallel with his view on Adam. Both primarily have to do with contingent empirical data not transcendent moral laws; both made sense given what Paul knew at the time; and both now have simply proved incorrect given what we’ve learned in the intervening centuries.
This concludes the, as it were, defensive case for inclusion of gay Christians. I turn finally to the positive case for inclusion.
How should what we’ve learned about, and from, Genesis inform how we understand St. Paul in Romans 1? (These considerations likewise apply to 1 Corinthians.) Recall that what Paul is doing there, at least in part, is grounding criteria for ethical human behavior through appeal to the First Principles of a True Christian Naturalism: namely, those aspects of the Christian worldview having to do with the Universe and its denizens and which arise from its commitment to creational monotheism. And, again, he relies, implicitly, on the Genesis story as he makes his argument.
A first point is that Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality is as unsurprising, apriori, as his belief in a real Adam. The Torah instructed him on both, and thus he believed. If asked as to the days of creation or the age of the earth, he would have given the traditional answers. If questioned as to the facticity of gardens, trees, fruits, ribs, snakes, and flaming swords, he would have replied in the affirmative. It turns out, however, that these beliefs, based on what the words of Genesis are and on what centuries of Jewish culture and practice took them to mean, simply aren’t correct. That’s the upshot of a sensitive, honest reading of Genesis.
Does this mean that Paul -- and other New Testament personages, including Jesus -- have no credibility because they held to materially false beliefs about Genesis? Of course not. That would be like saying that George Washington was useless as a statesman because he thought bloodletting efficacious. Surely we must make allowances, when considering the views held by historical figures, for beliefs they held with justification, given what was known at the time, yet which later turned out to be wrong. If not, then future generations will in turn judge us harshly.
The traditionalist might object -- and this explains why the “package” of beliefs in actual days, a historical Adam, and traditionalism about sexuality and gender roles is bundled so tightly by fundamentalists -- that once we start “correcting” Paul and other biblical authors in this way, then before long the entire Gospel story will lose its credibility. Start pulling on particular threads and the whole sweater will eventually unravel.
My perspective is just the opposite: The Gospel is true. It’s central events -- including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth -- bear all the marks of genuine history. From the parables drawn in the Synoptics to the arguments crafted in the Epistles, the literary quality and logical cogency of the New Testament are just glorious. Whether viewed through a purely human lens or through acknowledging its divine inspiration, the New Testament simply does not need our “help” by asserting that certain beliefs its authors held -- contingent ones having to do with empirical data -- amount to eternal truths when they just aren’t.
And this, ultimately, is my resolution of the conundrum posed by Paul’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality: He had a belief about a set of empirical data that, though reasonable enough given what he knew, turns out to be false. To be clear, I claim that the status of Paul’s view on homosexuality is logically parallel with his view on Adam. Both primarily have to do with contingent empirical data not transcendent moral laws; both made sense given what Paul knew at the time; and both now have simply proved incorrect given what we’ve learned in the intervening centuries.
This concludes the, as it were, defensive case for inclusion of gay Christians. I turn finally to the positive case for inclusion.
Footnotes:
(1) See for example the Reformation Project website already referenced.
Credits for Images:
"Paul of Tarsus statue in front of St. Peters Basilica (Vatican)"
By user:AngMoKio - Own work (Original text: selfmade photo), CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1196825
"Bride's hair styled with a hair ornament"
By Kaboompics. https://www.pexels.com/photo/bride-s-hair-styled-with-a-hair-ornament-6171
"English Garden in the Csáky Castle at Hotkóc"
By János Rombauer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J%C3%A1nos_Rombauer_-_English_Garden_in_the_Cs%C3%A1ky_Castle_at_Hotk%C3%B3c_-_WGA20009.jpg
"Adam and Eve were both naked and not ashamed"
By illustrators of the 1728 Figures de la Bible, Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Figures_Adam_and_Eve_were_both_naked_%26_were_not_ashamed.jpg
"Pinkish-orange flower"
Image pulled from Pinterest. No attribution available.
(1) See for example the Reformation Project website already referenced.
Credits for Images:
"Paul of Tarsus statue in front of St. Peters Basilica (Vatican)"
By user:AngMoKio - Own work (Original text: selfmade photo), CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1196825
"Bride's hair styled with a hair ornament"
By Kaboompics. https://www.pexels.com/photo/bride-s-hair-styled-with-a-hair-ornament-6171
"English Garden in the Csáky Castle at Hotkóc"
By János Rombauer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J%C3%A1nos_Rombauer_-_English_Garden_in_the_Cs%C3%A1ky_Castle_at_Hotk%C3%B3c_-_WGA20009.jpg
"Adam and Eve were both naked and not ashamed"
By illustrators of the 1728 Figures de la Bible, Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Figures_Adam_and_Eve_were_both_naked_%26_were_not_ashamed.jpg
"Pinkish-orange flower"
Image pulled from Pinterest. No attribution available.