Posted on 02/17/2014 2:47:09 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The question of why homosexuality is bad in itself is not easy to answer. I'm not suggesting that the Scripture doesn't give us insight. I think it does, and I'm going to offer that, but I'm not convinced the answer is going to be satisfying to a lot of people because most have lost the ability to recognize the significance of teleology.
“Teleology” is a theological and philosophical term referring to the purpose things were made for. Things are made with a “telos,” or an end, in view. For example, thumbs are made for grasping, eyes are made for seeing, and ears are made for hearing. Of course, if evolution is true, there is no teleology. If the Darwinian story is true, there are no purposes. Instead, there's just a mechanistic characterization of the biological world; things work a certain way, but not for any reason or to any end.
On a the theistic worldview things are the way they are for a reason. There are certain ends God has in mind for things. I'm thinking of Frank Beckwith's comment, “Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn't make it food.” There's a certain purpose for food, and it is tied to the design of human bodies. Just because you can get something into your stomach—an ashtray, for example—doesn't mean you're eating food. This is all part of the notion of teleology.
So the first problem here is that teleology in the natural realm is hard for people to affirm.
Secondly, people do not want to acknowledge God's appropriate role in the world. Every created thing is a result of God acting, willing it into existence. If God makes something, then it belongs to Him. He has appropriate authority over everything He has made, which is everything. Therefore, He can make things for ends that suit Him. Those ends are the proper and right ends, and a disregard of those ends results in something that's not right, not the way God wanted, and not what He made it for.
The answer I'm going to give about homosexuality trades on these two notions. First, things are made for certain ends. Second, the one who made them has the final say on what the appropriate ends—or purposes—are. Both of those things make modern man uneasy because he wants to be the center of the show. He doesn't want to acknowledge someone else is in charge. Man wants autonomy, the liberty to use things as he pleases, regardless of what God had in mind.
This brings us to the issue of homosexuality. There are passages in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that give us some indication of what is really wrong with homosexuality from God's perspective.
Leviticus 18:22 says that when a man lies with a man as a man lies with a woman, it's an abomination. The verse is sandwiched between prohibitions of bestiality and prohibitions of child sacrifice. Both bestiality and child sacrifice are not what God intended of human beings. Children were not made to be sacrificed to idols. Animals were not designed to be the sexual partners of humans. In the same way, if a man sleeps with a man the way he's supposed to sleep with a woman, it violates the purpose—the teleology—God had in mind when he created human sexuality. When we take what God has made and use it in a way completely inconsistent with God’s purpose, that is a rejection of God himself. That's why I think Leviticus 18 is worded the way it is.
Now, let’s fast-forward to Romans in the New Testament. We find the same thing going on, but the language is more precise. In my Bible I’ve highlighted certain words in the second half of chapter one: the word "exchanged" in verse 23, "God gave them over" in verse 24, "exchanged" in verse 25, "God gave them over" in verse 26, underneath that "exchanged," and "God gave them over" in verse 28.
This is a passage about God being angry at human beings who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Some of the truth they're suppressing is that things were made to be used in a certain way, according to God's desire. Man didn't follow God’s purpose, though, but rather “exchanged” and, therefore, perverted. “Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible men, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored.” So they exchange, and then God gives them over to this depravity.
Verse 25: “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions.” What “degrading passions” is He talking about? “For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way the men also abandoned [note the parallel here with “exchanged”] the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their persons the due penalty of their error.” The next verse: “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”
Here are human beings exchanging their desires for God's intentions—God's telos—so God gives them over to that. He removes grace from them and they get worse and worse and worse. This is the condition of humankind. Homosexuality is given as an example of man’s rebellion against God’s designs.
I want to read the passage once again because you can hear in this verse the same concept we saw in Leviticus, yet with more clarity. Leviticus seems to be saying that it’s wrong when a man lies with a man the way he ought to lie with a woman. I inserted the word “ought” here, but I think it’s implied. In Romans, though, it can't be missed: “For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural”—that is, they're doing with women what they should be doing with men—“and in the same way, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman.”
Notice what's being abandoned here: “the function of the woman.” God gave the man a woman for the sexual function, but he's exchanging the woman for a man. They “abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.” Consequently, these acts are described as “indecent,” a “degrading passion,” “unnatural,” characteristic of a “depraved mind.” Those are all words Paul uses to describe the behavior.
The simple answer to why homosexuality itself is bad is because it is a perversion of God’s provision regarding a deep and profound aspect of the created order. God made things one way because He's in charge. He created the world to function a certain way. There's teleology, a purpose to it, and when the purpose is fulfilled it's a beautiful thing.
Instead, human beings took the truth of God, suppressed it and exchanged it for a lie. So God gave them over to degrading passions in which they exchange the sexual function of the opposite sex for same-sex sexual behavior.
I understand there’s a psychological reason some people have same-sex attraction. It's a gender confusion that develops under certain circumstances that’s inconsistent with the way God intended people to function sexually.
However, all sin is similar to homosexuality in that it is a temptation and a desire to do what is contrary to God's purpose. The response should be the same as for any other kind of sin. We should stand against it, but instead we love it, at least in the moment, because it brings us satisfaction. We are driven to sin because we're fallen.
Romans is a book that records an argument by Paul about the human condition and what God has done to rescue us from it. Paul's point in Romans 1 is that human beings are desperately lost. All humans—not just homosexuals—suppress the truth and righteousness. The human condition is universally rebellious: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. God made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes of his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.”
Given God's revelation and man's response of rebellion, no one has an excuse. This is the case Paul is making in the first three chapters of Romans. Everybody, the “heathen,” the Jew, the so-called “moral” man, are all condemned. Paul concludes this point in chapter 3 when he writes, “…so that every mouth may be closed and all the world become accountable to God.”
Homosexuality is wrong because it perverts the good purposes of God. This is true of all sin, though, and Romans makes it clear that each of us is guilty in our own way, even if our sin is not homosexuality.
It is unnecessary, a leisure time activity. If there are 100 people in the world, and people would need to mate to survive and proliferate, same-sex pairs are not part of the solution.
That, and other reasons. I always wonder if these threads get monitored by outside folks.
Good article. To a large extent, the teleological argument follows exactly what Paul says in Rom. 2.
Without regard to biblical perspective, I find it disgusting and sick.
“Why Is Homosexuality Bad in Itself?”
Religion need not be mentioned when answering that question:
It is bad because it is not reproductive, period, and an end to the argument liberals use by attacking the religious angle.
Queers are queer but they become unqueer to make babies.
So let's extrapolate ... how much value does life have after 2 or 3 generations of ... "Ohhh .. OK ... if I HAF to" ?
By the fourth or fifth generation their 'society' would have to deal with diseased kids that just don't come out right physically and would probably be sterile by gen 10.
OK ... now .. I made that all up ... but it looks right to me.
RE: It is bad because it is not reproductive
Not sure if this is a good counter argument.
Artificial Insemination and Surrogate Motherhood and adoption could solve this problem today.
I don’t care about what homosexuals do.
I care about homosexuality being used as a front to let the State control the legitimacy of marriage, that is only valid between two human beings and God.
I care about homosexuality being used as a front to violate prepubescent childhood, and stress adolescence even more by demanding equivalent time and consideration of someting that affects less than 2% of the population.
I care about homosexuality being used to support the acceptance of unlawful, vicious, irrational cruel and terrorizing political correctness.
I care about homosexuality being used to attack Christian soul teachings, while ignoring the literal murderousness of Islam for the same cause.
And most of all, I care about homosexuality being used to front collectivism and the destruction of human rights and freedom, by mocking those rights and freedoms as being deficient unless they are used to destroy the very foundation of the Constitution on behalf of tyrannies which, historically, have slaughtered homosexuals immediately upon gaining power - before moving on to slaughter or enslave everyone else.
Finally, I am just sick of hearing about sex and politics all the time, by morons who don’t understand either, and who are serving the purposes of slithering creatures who plan on having eating their livers for lunch, with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
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“The question of why homosexuality is bad in itself is not easy to answer.”
Really? Just look at it, and its consequences.
If that’s not easy, I don’t know how you manage to get dressed in the morning.
But it's a classic case of people not seeing what they don't want to see.
“Homosexuality is wrong because it perverts the good purposes of God. This is true of all sin, though, and Romans makes it clear that each of us is guilty in our own way, even if our sin is not homosexuality.”
That is grotesquely deceptive.
Some sins are worse than others, and homosexuality is up there right near the top. Far above consensual fornication.
Why did the country and cities and businesses ever offer benefits to married couples to begin with? It was for the sake of the high potential for the vulnerable members, in fact the intended offspring or offspring by design, as in children. (A subtle reason this gets obscured today is due to the loss of the full-time homemaking mother, which is arguably necessary for vibrant offspring.) To offer any special care for a member of a union that isn’t in existence for that end is folly and huge squandering of resources as well as a mammoth endorsement for highly self-centered (and perverted) activity.
Any human being that defines himself/herself by their sexuality is a fool. We are more than our sexual impulses. My first reaction is always: I don’t care!
These are the same arguments lefties make against smoking. If states can outlaw or restrict smoking based on this without violating the Equal Protection Act, why can't those who want to preserve marriage do the same on homosexuality?
Truthfully, homosexuality, along with several other practices, like prostitution, may have a biological purpose.
That is, that there are only a limited number of people who are optimal for having and raising children. And there are also people who are sub-optimal, but are also able to have and raise children, either as alternates or to enlarge the genetic pool. But those people that remain, our biology dictates, should not have nor raise children.
However, this does not mean that they are not compelled to want sex. Yet this becomes a problem for the optimal and even sub-optimal breeding couples, because unless they are distracted, the non-breeders will interfere with the breeders.
So, to distract the non-breeders, the human species may use homosexuality, non-procreative prostitution, post-menopausal sexuality, and who knows what other techniques.
Importantly, homosexuality is not unique to the human species, so with observation and genetic analysis, we should be able to determine if the theory is correct.
HIV, rectal cancer, rectal lesions, tears or collapsed sphincters just to mention a few.
If those aren't enough reasons, you are totally sold out to Satan!
If only He had put warning labels on stupid humans.”WARNING!!use of this product in a manner inconsistant with the Creator’s original intention is a crime and will be punished accordingly”.
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