On the Rise of the Rebel Virgins
A recent editorial from Christianity Today (CT) raises an interesting and common question: “what if having protected sex with my fiancée seems like it will increase our health and happiness?”
At issue is a movement on college campuses to promote virginity in order to avoid the harmful consequences of casual sex. The writers applaud the trend, but note that, though the rationale offered by the “virginity clubs” points to an ethical result similar to that taught by the Church, the rationale itself is insufficiently theological. The writers quote Lauren Winner, Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Duke Divinity School (and a member of the Episcopal Church) in noting the distinction between this secular view of sexuality and that of Scripture:
Read it all....
At issue is a movement on college campuses to promote virginity in order to avoid the harmful consequences of casual sex. The writers applaud the trend, but note that, though the rationale offered by the “virginity clubs” points to an ethical result similar to that taught by the Church, the rationale itself is insufficiently theological. The writers quote Lauren Winner, Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Duke Divinity School (and a member of the Episcopal Church) in noting the distinction between this secular view of sexuality and that of Scripture:
Read it all....
posted by Unknown at 3:18 PM
18 Comments:
I don't really want to go through Mill and Bentham right now, but if sexuality is framed in the manner of virtue ethics, I do not think that it must be that far from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is not pragmatism. Thus, an argument that people should abstain from sex before marriage because it is more useful for themselves would be a pragmatic argument, while if it were more useful for society (or a society) that they abstain it would be a utilitarian argument.
From the viewpoint of the Christian virtues, the question you pose, “what if having protected sex with my fiancée seems like it will increase our health and happiness?”, becomes valid but quickly incoherent. The issue of health is moot (for me, at least), but the issue of happiness is the rub of the ethical life. The happy life, which, as Augustine and others say, every person desires, is found through following Christ. The question twists because when a couple asks that, what form of happiness do they so desire that sex becomes a way to arrive at that place? (I have just as much problem with the modifier "protected" as I do with the question itself. Where do Christian marriages live out the pragmatic credo more than in contraception?)
If these societies are truly utilitarian (and not just using that word) than they abstain for each other instead of for themselves. This, i think, can be a good that the Church should embrace.
I knew someone would pick up on the pragmatism/utilitarianism language on the angle you did. Note that I seem to vacillate between the two in my text. A reviewer objected that none of our readers would know what pragmatism is (as a philosophy) and so we settled on the word "utilitarianism" as a word that many would identify with the "What works?" of pragmatism. I concede your point to the extent that you claim that utilitarianism could lead to a point of intersection with the virtues as understood by Christianity.
However (a) I don't think Augustine used "happy" in the way we use it today. For him it was similar to blessed; today the word points to an ephemeral feeling that can be produced by drugs and other stimuli. Not the same thing.
(b) I buy into Barth's claim that ethical behavior is that which is a response to the fact that God is gracious. Responsible behavior therefore begins with Christ and responds in acknowledgement of God's act (and continuing acts). Behavior that is not specifically a response to the grace of God but that is a calculus of social utility in which God's grace is not a factor can not be ethical. At least that is my current reading of Barth and I invite correction since I have read him alone. But that is an important premise I hold in my essay.
Does holiness ever lead to un-health? I think it often does (at least in a fallen and broken world).
First, note that "health and happiness" is CT's words and not mine. Not my focus, really, either.
Second, for me, the definition of health I worked out in CPE (and I think Barth confirms) is that a human is able to worship God. Physical and mental maladies often obstruct that but the absence of these does not constitute health. Holiness, if by this we imply the ability and actualization of worship, could not be un-health, by definition.
Ah Craig, your protestantism is always refreshing. I understand that people may not use the word 'happiness' as Augustine did, but I don't thing we should dismiss their understanding of happiness because I think Augustine's was just as basic. What it comes down to, for Augustine, is happiness comes from love, which is God. The issue is whether God must be explicitly acknowledged in the good life or the happy life for it to be truly good or happy. On this point, we disagree, but I do not think we are that far from each other. People can respond to the grace of God without realizing it. All creation cries out in worship to God, but it does not speak in the same language. (this is not, mind you, an argument for religious pluralism).
All that is to say, I don't think we should dismiss the words 'good' and 'happy' from their common meaning (and when you say they have to be found in Christian community, i think that is dismissing them), but we can see some redemption with in their fallenness. To use such language is to cry out for God. Hmm, I should flesh that out a little more at some point, but I think this is enough of a response.
You are right, Wilson, if you attribute to me the belief that it is impossible to know the greatest good (and therefore experience real happiness or health) until one has been grasped by God. I'll follow Lauren Winner and call the latter 'faux happiness.'
I am in a heavily anglo-catholic diocese. I no longer think of myself as a protestant, though I openly love Calvin and Luther and Barth and Yoder (we are supposed to pucker our mouths and say their names as though spitting, if I understand the culture right, while we are to say "Augustine" in a hushed tone). I need you to identify for me where my black-hearted protestantism poked through, please, for I am blind to it.
Ugh, I should have previewed my comment. 'Faux happiness' should have been more clearly associated in my remarks with that happiness we claim is possible before one has been grasped by God.
Craig Uffman's sassy picture makes me (faux) happy.
The protestantism poking through is the need for the explicit acknowledgment of God and Christ in order for something to be good or ethical. I think if something is good it inherently reveals itself as coming from God, the same thing with happiness. Of course there are idols and idols are bad, but I think there is a protestant fascination with idols and idolatry which can be crippling and cause people, in effect, to take the Lord's name in vain (exempli gratis, Christian kitsch). I am still a protestant and so I do not mean to distance myself far from you. But there is even some truth in faux happiness and that should not be dismissed, and it does not become true happiness just by throwing some God talk into it. I just now thought of the line on idols so that may, as well, need some more thought, but I think it may be close to being right. Think about the protestant iconoclasts in the Reformation, et cetera.
I am glad I asked about the protestantism, Wilson. Clearly, I failed to communicate clearly, for I do not embrace the position that you attribute to me. Perhaps it is a subtle distinction, but my position is not that "explicit acknowledgment of God and Christ in order for something to be good or ethical." Indeed that is a position I argue strongly against. Rather, I am saying that we are incapable of recognizing the good rightly until we are given the lens of Christ. I am trying to emphasize the retrospective nature of salvation contra the prospective gospel that dominates protestantism. It is true that Calvin and Barth make this point, but I think it is a classical doctrine that we find in Augustine and Aquinas. Our acknowledgment of the good certainly does not create the good. Rather, it is God's movement towards us that enables us to comprehend the good, and not our own prior movement towards God.
Within my part of the Church, there is a large group of evangelicals who would find my point (which is Doug Campbell's emphasis, following J. Torrance and others) quite controversial.
I share your sensibilities about "throwing God talk" and excessive language about idols and idolatry within our culture. However, within this particular Socratic community, I trust I can reliably use such traditional language without alienation.
Graham,
I am checking with my 22-year-old son to determine what "sassy" means in your generation. Given the subject of my post and my natural animal magnetism, I am thinking that you just made a virtual pass at me. I know we both like Calvin, Barth, and bright colored shirts, but, nonetheless, I don't think I am your type. If I have misread your meaning: in the words of a famous SNL skit from my generation, "never mind!"
Graham,
What about my cowboy graduation picture?
There is a subtle distinction between what I claimed your position is, craig, and your position, yet I still feel like my description of them as very protestant still applies.
You describe your position as the following: "Rather, I am saying that we are incapable of recognizing the good rightly until we are given the lens of Christ." There is a Reformed basis for this, for it reveals an emphasis on depravity. The modifier "rightly" is quite loaded and could be construed in a number of different ways, but I would say that it is not necessary, nor is the retrospection. The question is not whether people can do good or know they are doing good. Instead, it is the why and the what. The construal of "what is good?" outside of the Church can be deficient, as is the "why should I do good?"
Now, of course, I agree with you that the source of all goodness is God. The distinction I am trying to make is that to do good in a Christ -ordered way does not necessarily take a community ordered to Christ, retrospectively or prospectively. Of course, like a good Augustinian, I would say that it is only retrospectively that we are able to acknowledge the good God has done in our lives, but also as an Augustinian I would want to say that that phrase is redundant: all I have to say is the good. I am drifting into a realist philosophical argument, but I suppose that is what I was after all along.
"There is a Reformed basis for this, for it reveals an emphasis on depravity."
Hmm. I concede that there is a Reformed basis for what you are describing as "depravity." But there is prior basis for it in Paul (Rom. 1) and indeed in the election of Israel.
I don't develop this as much on the notion of Original Sin (to which 'depravity' refers) as much as on the doctrine of election. That is, Humankind is to the extent that Humankind is with God and to the extent that our lives are a response to the grace of God. To the extent that we choose paths that do not correspond to this grace that defines us, then we are not. But since we cannot comprehend what constitutes correspondence until we have union with God (we know God), we cannot be until we know God. For me, Augustine's garden tale is illustrative. God acts and turns us towards God. Only then do we know the good and its opposite. We still can't separate the dark from the light, but to the extent that we hear and respond to God's Word, we are.
If that's Protestant, so be it. I am. This I know because the Bible told me so.
Ugh, Craig, you even claim the righteous indignation of the Reformed as if any criticism is criticizes Scripture instead of positions on Scripture as if Scripture has one position nor does it have one book that is superior to others. If someone figures out the secret to Romans, that's great, but Scripture is much larger than Romans and the letters of Paul. The bible tells people a lot of things, not all of them are Christian (Marcion read his Paul very closely).
Anyways, comprehending the good and doing the good are different things. They often go together, but they do not necessitate each other. Satan knows what the good is just as he knows that Jesus is God. My point in all of this is that if a group of people are celibate for each other without a Christian setting that is a good and, in part, it is in worship of God. They may not know this or acknowledge it, but specifically because it is good it gives glory to God. They may do this for a number of reasons, but the reason does not matter as much as the goodness of the act.
Wilson,
I can't tell from my remark immediately above yours how I offered provocation for your comment. I assumed that my casual reference to Rom 1 was sufficient between us to point out that there is a strong basis for objections to anything resembling natural theology. You seem to teeter on that cliff right now.
I see no evidence of indignation in my remarks. Indeed, I have to ask, how could anyone ever have indignation towards you who knows you?
I think we have reached a moment of impasse requiring the assistance of our fellows for forward movement. We think the other is wrong on a fundamental issue. You claim "They may not know this or acknowledge it, but specifically because it is good it gives glory to God. They may do this for a number of reasons, but the reason does not matter as much as the goodness of the act."
To the contrary, I claim (a) that it is impossible to do the good without knowing the good; (b) knowing the good is participating in the good in such a way that we can describe as uniting with the good and He who stands behind all good; (c) it matters greatly that one's act is consciously a movement towards that source of all good (the Creator) or an act that does not transcend self at all.
It may be helpful to read my remarks to Tom Arthur on the nature of faith to be sure you are interpreting my words here correctly. I am not suggesting that this movement towards the Creator has a cause and effect relationship with regard to individual salvation. Rather, I assume that those who know God are characterized by this movement. Grasped by the Spirit in God's movement toward Humankind through specific individuals in history (Israel (the Jews and the Church)), they respond to God with their own movement towards God by choosing the good within history, transcending themselves.
The Church makes God visible in these collective and corporate moments of self-transcendence in which we move towards God in choosing the good within history.
I think you err when you equate the good within history with God as though there is an identity between them. To choose the former is not necessarily to choose the latter. The former point to the latter and enable us to move towards the latter. But the distinction between Creator and created remains.
This is Augustine's distinction in "Doctrine of God." In context, he speaks not only of objects, but also our interaction with them, including (particularly) sexual activity.
Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and there are others which are to be enjoyed and used. Those things which are to be enjoyed make us blessed. Those things which are to be used-help-and; as it were, sustain us as we move toward blessedness in order that we may gain and cling to those things which make us blessed. If we who enjoy and use things, being placed in the midst of things of both kinds, wish to enjoy those things which should be used, our course will be impeded and sometimes deflected, so that we are retarded in obtaining those things which are to be enjoyed, or even prevented altogether, shackled by an inferior love. [III,3]
To enjoy something is to cling to it with love for its own sake. To use something, however, is to employ it in obtaining that which you love, provided that it is worthy of love. (IV,4)
The things which are to be enjoyed are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit* a single Trinity. [V, 5, 10]
My snark came because of the "it may be Reformed but it is also in Paul" comment and
'my bible tells me so' which, you have to admit, is pretty protestant. (read Chesterton's Father Brown story about the Broken Sword)
The distinction you make in the substance of your remarks, however, I think is correct: "I think you err when you equate the good within history with God as though there is an identity between them." This is exactly what I think. Something is only good in relation to God. Nothing is good apart from God. There is no distinction between the good of history and the good of God for if it is a good not of God it is not good. Knowledge of God allows, as you point out, enjoyment in God, but there is a hierarchy of goods because there is a hierarchy of how we participate in God. Not every participation is the same but that does not deny the goodness of an act because it may participate less in God than another act.
I agree that the Church makes visible the Triune God and that complete enjoyment of God and knowledge of the good comes through the witness of God made manifest in the Church. Yet, this does not deny the goodness of people outside of the Church. There are degrees of participation. An athiest can still love her neighbor and that is good.
There, of course, is a semantic issue about whether what one thinks is good relates to 'the good' or whether what one thinks is love relates to the love of the Father for the Son. I think this should be critically addressed, but I don't think it means we should scrap language outside of the Church and assume that when other people use the word 'good' they are inherently wrong. They may be incomplete, but they are not completely in error.
On all of these points, Wilson, thanks. I think they are helpful corrections. One of my weaknesses is that the old habits of dividing the world into friend or foe, yes/no, etc. are so strong that their residuals pervade my language even though I am trying to move beyond all that.
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