Magdalenbrother
February 5th 2005, 02:28 AM
One of the justifications for marriage in current theology, specially in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) but also in other churches, is that marriage leads to procreation. Procreation is not only good, it is desirable and anything that does not lead to procreation is anti-God and anti-Nature. Homosexuality and masturbation, which are by definition sterile, are therefore damnable.
Now my contention is that the claim that males and females are made for each other in order to procreate has very little to do with the Gospel. It does have scriptural roots, namely in the OT injunction "to be fruitful and multiply" but as far as I can see, it flies in the face of everything Jesus and Paul said about the subject.
Before we turn to the passages of the NT that deal with the question of child bearing, we absolutely need to understand the background of Paul and Jesus when they talk about marriage: this backgound is the End of times, the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. This momentous event was (wrongly )considered by Paul and maybe also by Jesus, as IMMINENT. If we keep in mind this messianic backdrop, everything becomes clear. Since there is no future, to make children is an absurdity. Because the later Church forgot the messianic hopes of the first generation of Christians, it claimed that, in keeping with Jewish thought, procreation was all-important.
Paul did not think of procreation as a justification for marriage. What is his justification? Releasing man (the male that is) from the pressure of his burning sexual desires: "It is better to marry than to burn". In other words, woman is only an instrument for relieving man's physical discomfort. Not a single word about love, relationship, let alone about children! The whole affair is seen from a exclusively male perspective and we hear nothing about the rationale for marriage from a female point of view.
That is the profound, refined Paulinian theology of marriage .
Now what about Jesus?
On the way to Calvary, Jesus declared to the women who were weeping that they ought to weep over themselves and he added that pregnant women were specially to be pitied because the bad times ahead would be particularly hard on them (see Luk 23,2). Paul also mentioned this point.
In other words, Jesus was saying: The times are bad. Don't make children!
Elsewhere, He stated most emphatically that in the resurrection human beings are angel-like (isangeloi in Greek), which means that the resurrected are neither male nor female. For them there is no marriage, no procreation. Resurrection means a return to the edenic androgyne, before the appearance of the wo-man.
This explains why celibacy was highly regarded in the Christian community, at least until the Reformation, which, on this topic as on many others, reverted to pre-Christian, Jewish modes of thinking. Monks and nuns, once considered the paragons of Christian virtue, were hounded, celibacy despised and spat upon. Have sex and make children became the motto of Christians again.
Paradoxically, the exalted, transbiological state of the resurrected, while justifying celibacy and refusal to procreate, provides marriage with its ultimate justification: it is an icon of the complete human being: male AND female forming one flesh, ie one being. Procreation in this view is clearly accessory. And if we keep in mind Jesus' and Paul's eschatological admonitions, it is in fact not advisable at all.
Conclusion: I have shown that on the basis of the NT there is no reason to claim
1. That males and females only exist for each other since celibacy is not only permissible, but recommended as the higher calling of human beings. Males and females exist before God as human persons primarily, not as gender-conditioned tools for procreation;
2. That procreation is the end neither of marriage nor of human life. In the view of Jesus and Paul, children are in fact a burden and an impediment;
3. That human beings belong to God, not to the world of nature, which only is concerned with reproduction.
Greetings in the Lord,
JP
Now my contention is that the claim that males and females are made for each other in order to procreate has very little to do with the Gospel. It does have scriptural roots, namely in the OT injunction "to be fruitful and multiply" but as far as I can see, it flies in the face of everything Jesus and Paul said about the subject.
Before we turn to the passages of the NT that deal with the question of child bearing, we absolutely need to understand the background of Paul and Jesus when they talk about marriage: this backgound is the End of times, the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. This momentous event was (wrongly )considered by Paul and maybe also by Jesus, as IMMINENT. If we keep in mind this messianic backdrop, everything becomes clear. Since there is no future, to make children is an absurdity. Because the later Church forgot the messianic hopes of the first generation of Christians, it claimed that, in keeping with Jewish thought, procreation was all-important.
Paul did not think of procreation as a justification for marriage. What is his justification? Releasing man (the male that is) from the pressure of his burning sexual desires: "It is better to marry than to burn". In other words, woman is only an instrument for relieving man's physical discomfort. Not a single word about love, relationship, let alone about children! The whole affair is seen from a exclusively male perspective and we hear nothing about the rationale for marriage from a female point of view.
That is the profound, refined Paulinian theology of marriage .
Now what about Jesus?
On the way to Calvary, Jesus declared to the women who were weeping that they ought to weep over themselves and he added that pregnant women were specially to be pitied because the bad times ahead would be particularly hard on them (see Luk 23,2). Paul also mentioned this point.
In other words, Jesus was saying: The times are bad. Don't make children!
Elsewhere, He stated most emphatically that in the resurrection human beings are angel-like (isangeloi in Greek), which means that the resurrected are neither male nor female. For them there is no marriage, no procreation. Resurrection means a return to the edenic androgyne, before the appearance of the wo-man.
This explains why celibacy was highly regarded in the Christian community, at least until the Reformation, which, on this topic as on many others, reverted to pre-Christian, Jewish modes of thinking. Monks and nuns, once considered the paragons of Christian virtue, were hounded, celibacy despised and spat upon. Have sex and make children became the motto of Christians again.
Paradoxically, the exalted, transbiological state of the resurrected, while justifying celibacy and refusal to procreate, provides marriage with its ultimate justification: it is an icon of the complete human being: male AND female forming one flesh, ie one being. Procreation in this view is clearly accessory. And if we keep in mind Jesus' and Paul's eschatological admonitions, it is in fact not advisable at all.
Conclusion: I have shown that on the basis of the NT there is no reason to claim
1. That males and females only exist for each other since celibacy is not only permissible, but recommended as the higher calling of human beings. Males and females exist before God as human persons primarily, not as gender-conditioned tools for procreation;
2. That procreation is the end neither of marriage nor of human life. In the view of Jesus and Paul, children are in fact a burden and an impediment;
3. That human beings belong to God, not to the world of nature, which only is concerned with reproduction.
Greetings in the Lord,
JP