In my previous post, I argued that christians should support gay rights, on the basis that there is insignificant biblical evidence against it, and that conversely, the biblical narrative encourages christians to be an advocate for minorities and those who have not recieved justice. I wish to add to this argument.
Premise 1: ‘It is not good for man to be alone’. It is an inalienable right that someone should be able to live with their mutually chosen partner. An individual’s right to form a close intimate bond with another individual should not be taken away, without very very good reasons.
Premise 2: There exists homosexual individuals who would not be satisfied by a heterosexual relationship. I’m not saying that homosexuality has a solely genetic aieteology, I’m just saying that some people are at a point where they just couldn’t do a heterosexual relationship.
If one deems homosexuality to be wrong, this means that there will be individuals who have had their right to form an intimate relationship taken away from them.
What would you do if someone told you that even though you loved someone, you were not allowed to be with them? If you have a partner, think about them. What would it be like to look upon your very relationship as something pathological, something wrong, something to be repressed, ignored? Think what it would be like to spend the rest of your life away from them, knowing that although you both love each other, you must live apart?
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
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April 20, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Scott Mackay
Interesting point Nathan. I think you raise important issues relating to the difficulty of singleness in general, and unchosen singleness in particular.
It’s helpful to remember that for a range of reasons, many people are single not because of their own choosing. These people therefore have to struggle with that same situation - whether hetrosexual or homosexual in orientation.
My question for you however, is - why do think that forming a close bond with another individual is an inalienable right? You certainly can’t be getting that from Genesis 2:18. If you had actually quoted the second half of the verse, this becomes clear.
“It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him”
God isn’t giving us our ‘rights’ in this verse. He is describing the purpose for which he created the woman - to assist Adam in the task that he had given them both, to ruler over creation (Genesis 1:28). What is ‘not good’ about the situation of Adam being alone, is not loneliness. That can be fulfilled by friendship and family relationships - and from the context we see that lonliness is not in view in Genesis 2:18. What is ‘not good’ in God’s eyes, is that Adam by himself is incomplete in fulfilling God’s purpose for him. He requires a ‘helper’ who is ’suitable’ for him - to assist him in serving God in the creation.
I wonder if by reading this verse through the grid of the western Enlightenment emphasis on ‘rights’, we distort it in two ways.
1. You see rights, whereas God is actually describing responsibility. He is describing to us his purpose for the creation, and how he has made the world, and relationships to operate.
2. You then use these ‘rights’ to trump this purpose, and creation order. But the verse is clearly teaching that a ’suitable’ helper for the man is woman. You have completely twisted the original intent of God’s words.
You may of course choose to believe that someone has an inalienable right to a sexual partner. But you can’t pretend you get that idea from the Bible. Also, I believe you’d be hard pressed to find a basis for that ‘right’ from anywhere else apart from the Bible anyway.
April 20, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Nato
By using the ‘rights’ language, I was appealing to the western emphasis on rights, but I was also appealing to the fact that the bible also makes a similar point. If the bible and culture are in agreement, it makes for a decent argument.
However, your interpretation of the verse is at odds with mine. We can each provide a different translation that backs up our own point: Take the CEV: “The LORD God said, ‘It isn’t good for the man to live alone. I need to make a suitable partner for him.’.” In this version there is no mention of helper, so I’d question that the passage actually indicates women should be helpers / subservient to men, and question again whether you are letting ancient patriarchal culture influence too much of your theology.
With regard to the “you’re twisting God’s word” comment, and the “you can’t pretend to get that idea from the bible”, I believe I am following God’s intent, and you believe you are following his intent, and we happen to both disagree. So we both think the other party has gotten the wrong end of the stick. I guess time will tell.
April 20, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Scott Mackay
Hi Nathan, thanks for your comment.
I think that regardless of translation, and patriarchalism, my point still stands. The verse is about God’s purpose for marriage, rather than establishing any rights - I can’t understand where you get that from Genesis 2. I’m not sure that you’ve addressed that issue at all.
For the record, the CEV isn’t exactly the pinnacle of translation accuracy - it’s made to be “easily read by grade schoolers, and second language readers”. Every other translation I looked at renders the word ‘helper’.
The word ‘helper’ however doesn’t neccesarily imply subservience, and I think my interpretation helps in that regard. In fact, I never said that Genesis 2:18 is teaching that a woman is ’subservient’ to men. I said it means that woman serves God together with man, and helps him in that task. That is quite different. The surrounding context supports this reading, as the task given to mankind is to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). It’s pretty hard for Adam to do that on his own!
April 20, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Scott Mackay
I’d also reemphasise my point about singleness. There are plenty of instances in which we would be required to remain single, rather than put a desire for sexual intimacy into action. If we were the only unmarried person of our gender in a particular community, we would not be free to initiate an intimate union. Likewise if the only other single people around were our close relatives.
As you said in your post, there can be reasons when this ‘right’ as you call it, might be taken away. The issue is about what those reasons are, and I am arguing that God’s complementary male-female design for sexual unions is one of those reasons. Your argument merely begs the question that this isn’t a good reason.
April 20, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Nato
From western culture I get the idea of human rights, from the bible, it doesn’t come across as a ‘right’ per sei, but it does say that it is better for a man to not be alone. They’re not the same idea, but they have the same general theme.
The primary function of a married couple is not to create children. This is a secondary, and optional function of the married couple. The primary function of marriage is unity, not procreation, an echo of divine unity. Note that the blessing “be fruitful and increase in number” doesn’t occur after the account of creation of woman, rather the account of the creation of mankind in chapter 1. The context of the creation of woman in chapter 2 begins with “it is not good to be alone”, God creating woman, therefore marriage. The progression of chapter 2 is from a need/right/betterment of unity/fellowship, and the fulfillment of this need in marriage, and doesn’t discuss procreation.
So the creation of woman account is about God providing an individual’s needs for a companion. It happened to be heterosexual - and back then it needed to be, because they needed to produce offspring, but now this doesn’t matter, if anything we’re overpopulating the place (but that’s another discussion). I can’t see a good reason why these days the same need cannot be fulfilled in a slightly different way. So it’s not rights trumping God’s plan, it’s God’s intention that man shouldn’t be alone trumping the assumption that because he solved a problem one way, it always has to be solved this way.
April 21, 2009 at 9:25 am
Scott Mackay
But why is it better for a man not to be alone in Genesis 2? That’s the question. You’re assuming relational unity is primary, but I think that comes more from our modern western understanding of marriage than anything else.
The primary function of a married couple is not unity or procreation, but serving the purpose of God - to be fruitful and rule creation. Unity and procreation are how they fulfill this purpose in Gen 1/2. To be in the image of God in Gen 1 is to rule creation - as an echo of God’s Kingship over creation.
The context of the creation of woman in Gen 2 does not begin with Adam’s lonliness in 2:18. It begins a few verses beforehand in 2:15, where God places Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. In this context of Adam’s task, God says it is not good for him to be alone - he needs a helper.
Also the broader context is Genesis 1, and God’s purpose for humankind. You can’t read Ch2 and ignore the chapter beforehand, even though it is stylistically different, it is a continuation and expansion of the role of humanity in creation.
You say that Adam’s companionship ‘happened to be hetrosexual’ as if this isn’t essential to the Gen 1/2 understanding of marriage. But the fact that Eve was a ’suitable helper’ in this task shows that to properly rule creation, both Adam and Eve were required. This is the reason marriage is designed as it is. We don’t have the artistic licence to create a new union and claim that this fulfills God’s intention for sexuality. Sexual union does go beyond procreation - as you assert - it creates a suitable and complementary pairing which enables man and women together to serve the purpose of God in ruling creation. The narrative rejoices in this complementarity (2:14-15, “this is now bone of my bones, etc”, and “two shall become one flesh” i.e. another Adam would already be one flesh with him), but you instead have a purely functional that is based on mere biological necessity.
You can’t divide the ‘bits’ of marriage up like you have. If a single person is longing for companionship, and isn’t able to marry in a way that is lawful and fulfills God’s puposes for sexuality, then companionship must be provided by the community of God.
“I can’t see a good reason why these days the same need cannot be fulfilled in a slightly different way. It’s … [an] assumption that because he solved a problem one way, it always has to be solved this way.”
This is not at all an assumption - this couldn’t be further from the truth. The rest of the Bible’s teaching on sexual morality excludes any other sexual union on the basis of Genesis 1-2, and the purpose for sexual union that God outlines there. It excludes these alternative unions, (i.e. incest, beastiality, homosexual unions, etc) in order to protect the purpose of marriage outlined in the creation narrative.
In fact, Jesus himself uses the creation narrative in a normative way! When responding to a question about divorce, he says:
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
These words of Jesus rebuke us. Firstly, will we heed the authoritative voice of God in the scriptures - as he clearly treats it here (”Haven’t you read?”)?. And secondly, will we heed the voice of the Lord Jesus himself, who clearly taught that the pattern for sexual union is laid down in Genesis 2. For anyone who claims to follow Jesus as Lord, I don’t think that’s optional.
April 21, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Nato
Just in case you’re wondering what’s happened to the discussion, Scott and I are having a discussion on Facebook, and are continuing the discussion in private. Yep.
April 22, 2009 at 10:25 am
Fraser
Slightly off-topic Scott, but I’d be interested if you could expound on the “rule creation” concept.
April 26, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Scott Mackay
Hi Fraser,
Only slightly… but yeah, I’m mainly thinking about the comission God gives humanity in Genesis 1:28-30. In other words humanity’s position as stewards of creation, excercising rule over creation in a way which images God’s rule over creation. God places us as ’second in command’ almost, over the creation.
I think you’ll find that same idea is Psalm 8, for example, which is a meditation on Genesis 1,
“what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.”
Hebrews 2 actually quotes this Psalm when talking about Jesus fulfilling the rule of humanity over creation. It says we currently don’t see everything in subjection to humanity as God designed it, but in Jesus we see this glory of humanity being re-established.
Similar in Romans 8:18-27 as well, where the creation is actually groaning, and waiting for humanity to rule the creation rightly again.
I think the position of humanity as rulers of creation is one of the central themes of the Bible, and it explains why God’s salvation was accomplished wonderfully by Jesus, who is the image of God (Col 1:15), the second Adam (Romans 5, 1 Cor 15), the one who rightly rules creation.
Our doctrine of humanity tends to either ignore the absolute depravity and falleness of humans in Adam, or it ignores the reality that humanity is created in the image of God and is intended for glory, ala Psalm 8.