A Law and Gospel Approach to Sexual Boundaries and the Biblical Confessions: A Search for Clarity

1
A Law and Gospel Approach to Sexual Boundaries
and the Biblical Confessions A Search for
Clarity

• Dr. Dennis Bielfeldt
• South Dakota State University

2
Why Talk About This?

• The Issue Wont Go Away
• There is General Confusion in the Arguments
• Conflict between Values of Culture and Christian
  Tradition (Christ vs. Culture)

3
Towards Clarity

• Explanation Types The Distinction between
  Social Scientific and Theological Explanation and
  Justification
• Motivation The Distinction between Self-Interest
  and Judging on the Basis of an Objective
  Criterion
• Emotion The Distinction between Adjudication by
  Emotion and Reason and the Problem of Personal
  Experience

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Examples of Non-Theological Justifications

• There is a genetic or psychological basis to
  homosexuality that is not chosen, thus homosexual
  behavior is natural for some
• Blessing same-sex activity and ordaining
  practicing homosexuals is necessary if homosexual
  people are to have equal rights
• Blessing same-sex relationships will diminish
  homosexual promiscuity
• Dont Reject my Son, Daughter, etc.!

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Examples of Weak Theological Justifications

• Ones sexuality is gifted by God, and God would
  not gift something that He never intended to be
  used
• Same-sex sexual relations are not explicitly
  disallowed in scripture, or if explicitly
  disallowed, their prohibition is overridden by
  theological considerations explicitly present in
  the text

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Important Distinctions

• Ethical vs. Theological Argument and/or
  Justification
• Homosexual orientation vs. homosexual behavior
• Theoretical Theological vs. Pragmatic Theological
  or Social Considerations
• What is natural for x vs. what is naturally
  designed by God
• The Order of Creation vs. the Fall

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Ethical vs. Theological Argument

• Deontological, Consequentialist, Divine Command
  and Virtue Ethics
• A Theological Consideration Trumping the
  Universal the Nonequivalence of goodness and
  holiness
• Sources, Media and Norms for Theological
  Reflection

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Homosexual Orientation and Action

• Homosexual Orientation and the Notion of a
  Dispositional Property
• Dispositional vs. Overt Properties
• Analogy to Fragility or Rigidity
• Dispositional Properties and their Individuation
• Dispositional Properties and their Explanation
• The Ontological Status of Psychological
  Dispositions (Realism vs. Social Constructivism)
• The Question of Agent Freedom

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Excursus on Freedom

• If homosexuality is not chosen, then how can one
  be responsible?
• Civil Freedom X is free if and only if X is not
  externally prohibited from doing what X wants to
  do
• Philosophical Freedom X is free if and only if X
  could really have done other than what X did do
  given the same antecedent conditions
• Personal Freedom X is free if and only if X
  continually desires to do those things X knows
  that X ought to do

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Freedom in Christ

• The theological tradition has taught (and
  Lutheran theology has staunchly affirmed) that
  our dispositional nature to act contrary to God
  is not chosen, but we are nonetheless responsible
  for so acting even when we may not have been
  philosophically free to do otherwise
• Christian freedom brings with it the gift of now
  desiring to do what one knows that God wills one
  ought to do

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Theoretical vs. Pragmatic

• Theoretical Arguments grounded in legitimate
  sources, using non-distorted media, acting on the
  basis of developed norms
• Pragmatic arguments based upon current cultural
  context, advocating positions for utilitarian
  considerations (good order arguments)

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Whats Natural vs. Nature

• Traditional understanding of nature as
  developed from Stoicism into Christian theology
• The meaning of Natural law in the tradition vs.
  natural law after the Enlightenment
• Concept of natural presupposed by current
  homosexuality discussion

13
Creation and Fall

• Relevance of Natural Law to Eternal Law and
  original divine intention
• Eternal law, divine intention and the Order of
  Creation
• Paradise Lost and the irrationality of the Fall
• The Fall from nature into the dynamics of the
  natural

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Scripture as Norm

• Scripture as the formal norm of theological
  reflection
• Scripture read by and within a community
  presupposes a center Justification by grace
  through faith as material norm
• The hermeneutical problem and the
  hermeneutical circle
• The presupposition of law as demanded by the
  claim that justification by grace is the material
  norm of Scripture

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The Law

• The Law is one, but has different uses
• In its civil use, the law restrains human beings
  from acting according to their dispositional
  nature
• In its theological use, the law drives men and
  women to Christ
• The Law not cancelled by the gospel, but is
  taken up (Aufhebung) by the gospel
• The Dialectic of law accusation and gospel
  acceptance

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Law and Gospel

• Condemnation and acceptance normally thought to
  be a two-place predicate x is condemned by y
• But saying one is acceptable to God simpliciter
  is not equivalent to the Christian claim that one
  is acceptable to God on the basis of Christ
• A dyadic (two-place) property is simply a
  different property than a triadic (three place)
  property
• A dyadic property of sinfulness and divine
  rejection vs. a triadic property of righteousness
  and divine acceptance

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Law/Gospel A Defensible Reading of Scripture

• Contemporary readings of scripture denying
  scriptural injunction against homosexuality (male
  rape, pederasty) Gen 195 Lev 1822 2013,
  Rom 126-27, I Corinthians 69, I Timothy 19-10
• The problem of harmonizing these readings with
  the classic homosexuality passages
• Criteria for law/gospel reading of scripture

18
Law Gospel

• The Gospel pronounces and effects freedom in
  Christ
• This freedom recalls the paradise of the original
  divine intention and presences in anticipation
  the reality of the final consummation
• The Law calls us to be what we ought to be, what
  we are not now
• This ought recalls the order of the original
  divine intention and witnesses to the order of
  the final consummation
• Sin keeps us in the not yet our freedom and
  our keeping of Gods will are incomplete and
  partial

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An Analogy from the Philosophy of Science

• Scientific theories must agree with the data
  External criteria of applicability and adequacy
• Scientific theories must be internally consistent
  and coherent
• Scientific theories should be locatable with
  respect to background theories
• Scientific theories should be fruitful for a
  future research program

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The Traditional View as the Best Explanation of
the Scriptural Data

• Applicability to Genesis and other standard texts
  (Gen 127, 224 Mark 106-7 Matt. 194-5 and
  Gen 195 Lev 1822 2013, Rom 126-27, I
  Corinthians 69, I Timothy 19-10)
• Adequacy to all the texts of scripture and not
  merely some
• Consistent and coherent
• Fits the background theories of the time Semitic
  rejection of same-sex activity
• Research program has already been in place

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The Reality of the Slippery Slope

• Some argue that the form of relationships is
  not theologically significant, but that the
  content is what is important, e.g., mutuality,
  love, commitment
• Why, however, do they assume the form of
  monogamy? On what textual and/or theological
  basis can the form of monogamy be supported that
  is not, at the same time, a support of the form
  of heterosexual monogamy?
• Who is to judge mutuality?

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Are these Necessarily Inconsistent with Love,
Commitment, and Mutuality?

• Polyamorous relationships
• Bisexual relations
• Incest
• Bestiality
• Group sexual encounters, etc.
• These are on the horizon The reality of the
  slippery slope

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Other Relevant Theological Issues

• The contemporary importance of the homosexuality
  issue betokens a penchant to place ones identity
  in ones sexuality instead of Jesus Christ
• The question of implicit idolatry
• The diversion of limited time away from the
  important issues e.g., the Great Commandment

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Having a Defense

• Dont argue on the basis of one or two biblical
  passages refer to the whole of Scripture
• Dont forget about the significance of the
  traditions reading of Scripture
• Dont confuse the order of creation and the
  fallen created order
• Dont confuse Law and Gospel