I don’t find your article at all biblically sound. Your use of Gagnon seems misguided. According to Robert Gagnon, Romans 1:19 - 20 teaches that God has established the material structures of the creation, in this case the twoness of the sexes, for us to use a roadmap to His moral will concerning human sexual ethics. The text of Romans 1:19 - 21 clearly states that the purpose of the material structures of the creation is to testify to His attributes & authority — not our own — as the epistemic foundation for all ethics, in this case worship & sexual ethics.
Your article argues that human sexual ethics can be properly derived from human anatomy & physiology & human psychology. According to your own reasoning, the created order itself serves as a sufficient epistemic warrant for human sexual ethics, yet the Bible states that the teleological purpose of the creation is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority, & since our bodies & our minds are not required for sexual ethics to exist, your entire argument rests on philosophically arbitrary foundation.
On the one hand, homosexuals ought not to look to their intuitions concerning their sexual ethics. On the other, human beings in general ought to look to their own anatomical, physiological, & psychological attributes & draw moral conclusions based on their intuitions. That strikes me as a classic exercise in Special Pleading and a classic example of what amounts to the Is-Ought Fallacy.
I appreciate your interaction with my article, David. We seem to come to this issue from very different theological perspectives, which is fine with me. I'm happy for anyone else to develop their own positive case for how we discern God's will about marriage.
What theological perspective do you think I am coming from? All I am doing here is is reading the text of Romans 1:18 - 32 without committing any exegetical fallacies. I am a Presbyterian Teaching Elder in a church in which we are all biblical inerrantists.
You cited Gagnon, & Gagnon’s reading of Romans 1 is available on his website.
Here he is in his own words: By “against nature” Paul meant that the evidence from the material structures of creation—here the complementary embodied character of maleness and femaleness—gives clear evidence of God’s will for human sexual pairing. Some have argued that this could not have been what Paul intended by his nature argument, despite Paul’s clear statement in Rom 1:19-20 that such matters are “transparent” and have been so “ever since the creation of the world . . . being mentally apprehended by means of the things made.”
According to Mr. Gagnon, “Romans 1:19 - 20 teaches that God has established the material structures of the creation, in this case the twoness of the sexes, for us to use a roadmap to His moral will concerning human sexual ethics.
The text of Romans 1:19 - 21 clearly states that the purpose of the material structures of the creation is to testify to His attributes & authority — not our own — as the epistemic foundation for all ethics, in this case worship & sexual ethics.
Do you agree with Gagnon that the structures of creation are intended by God to serve as an epistemic warrant for our sexual ethics? If so, then the human body constitutes a sufficient epistemic warrant for sexual ethics?
How is it that you can say that it is an illicit move for homosexuals to appeal to their own psychology or even biology to underwrite their sexual ethics while at the same time, it is licit for you to use yours to underwrite your own sexual ethics.
That’s just like Greg Koukl in his article on whether or not homosexuals are committing the Is-Ought Fallacy when they appeal to their genetics. Koukl says - correctly - that the homosexual is committing the Is-Ought Fallacy. Then he pivots to Romans 1 & says that Paul’s words mean that human anatomy & physiology (which depend on genetics) serves as a sufficient epistemic warrant for heteronormativity. So, when the homosexual does it, that’s epistemically & therefore logical fallacious, but when you do it, Gagnon does it, & Koukl does that is sound theology, & NOT epistemically & logically fallacious.
The natural teleology (design & function) of the Created Order is to serve as a testimony to ***God’s*** existence, attributes, & authority which alone serves as the necessary, reasoned, & principled epistemic warrant for interpreting reality in a manner congruent with the objectively true state of affairs.
If the word “natural” means “heteronormative” then that necessarily means that the God created human anatomy, physiology, & psychology to serve as an epistemic warrant for us to do worship & sexual ethics —- but the text says that the created order’s purpose is to serve as a testament to God’s existence, attributes, & authority.
5
Rom. 1:21–23 - For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
The text describes the unnatural use of the created order. People, even though in truth they knew God exists, chose to suppress God’s existence, attributes, & authority & substituted their own. The result was idols crafted for pseudodeities that looked like people & animals.
In other words, when the Bible describes the results of using our own image- our bodies & our psychology to underwrite sexual (and worship) ethics, it very clearly calls that idolatry, and that sort of thinking is what led to polytheism in the ancient world.
You are very clearly arguing in your article that the human image constitutes a sufficient epistemic warrant for our sexual ethics & God intended that to be the case. Whereas the Bible calls that idolatry.
The UNNATURAL teleology of the created order looks to human anatomy & physiology to do sexual ethics, & the only road to the tradition-bound view of the word “natural” does exactly that, thus committing 4 epistemic, logical, & exegetical fallacies : Is-Ought, Vicious Circularity, Overspecification, & Category Error.
Your article appeals to Genesis 2 via Matthew 19 in order to draw moral conclusions from God’s decretal will. The twoness of the sexes is an example of God’s decretal will. To draw a moral conclusion from God’s decretal will is a Category Error, insofar as it conflates the properties of 2 separate, yet intersecting domains.
The Moral precept in the Edenic Covenant is “be fruitful & multiply,” but it doesn’t require sexual reproduction to fulfill that command because (a) elsewhere Scripture teaches singleness is blessed & we are not required to marry, & (b) adoption is sufficient to fulfill these terms.
An appeal to the human image to morally warrant ethics is a viciously circular procedure, because in order to arrive at that conclusion you have to assume that there is an embedded telelogical principle in the human body. It conduces to looking in the mirror & saying “Isn’t it obvious?”
Besides that, sexual ethics exist independently of our minds, bodies, souls, & existence. Your appeal to the human image is no different than Hume’s appeal to his own psychology to underwrite his beliefs. His reasoning commits the Naturalistic Fallacy & is viciously circular insofar as his epistemic warrant cannot & does not supply the necessary truth conditions to interpret reality. God’s existence, attributes, & authority do. You accept that authority only insofar as you are willing to use it (incorrectly) warrant your beliefs about marriage & family and sexual ethics via an appeal to human anatomy, physiology, & psychology (the human image) as an authoritative epistemic warrant.
It seems to me that you are tone deaf to the implications of your defense of traditional real marriage. You’re calling your view “real” - not just “traditional” marriage, and you are insinuating that I am of a different theological POV, with no evidence whatsoever, when in fact, I am a TE in a WCF compliant church & denomination where we disagree with your POV wholly & solely on the basis of the exegesis, exposition, & understanding of the pertinent texts. We are not liberals, unless you think that the 95 % of the WCF’s confessional contents qualify as liberal.
The article you published ought to have looked like an examination of the pertinent texts via an exposition of each independently then a section harmonizing them. Instead, it’s a defense of Ecclesiastical Tradition that winds up stating that the human image is a sufficient & authoritative epistemic warrant for sexual ethics. It can be summarized as “Heteronormativity is what the Bible teaches via directly teaching that human anatomy & physiology, & psychology constitutes a proper, sufficient, & authoritative epistemic warrant for sexual ethics, & the human condition proves it along with centuries of Ecclesiastical Tradition. Where is the biblical exposition to underwrite that claim?
I'm just not interested in getting into this debate. You're certainly free to promote your own perspective on these issues in whatever venues you have available. This will be my last word on the matter.
I didn’t think you would be. TBH, my target isn’t just you — it’s your readers.
The truth of the matter is that the traditional view you articulate in your article has been with the churches for 2000 + years, and Ecclesiastical Tradition — which is not our Rule of Faith — is a powerful tool of both the LORD & the Enemy. After all, although the Bible clearly teaches Justification by Faith, it took 1500 years for a critical mass of people to rise up & clearly articulate it.
I’d like to point out, while we are here, that I am not doing anything in my critique of your perspective that we Protestants haven’t been doing since the Reformation. When we debate or critique the Roman Catholic view of Justification, it’s not at all uncommon to point out the exegetical fallacies (Semantic Incest, Semantic Inflation) that are involved in the Roman Catholic defense of their perspective. If an institution's or an individual's defense/articulation of their point of view runs through a number of exegetical fallacies, they ought to rethink their position &/or reformulate their defense.
The truth of the matter is that the principles of sound reasoning & the rules of biblical hermeneutics inhere in the mind of God, & the only reason God reasons from Is to Ought Himself is because He is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable with respect to all of His attributes. Whereas if your POV involves you — a finite, morally flawed individual or institution — reasoning from Is to Ought so that you draw abstract moral precepts from human anatomy, physiology, & psychology, you are engaging in a project that the Bible presents as humanly iffy at best & iniquitous at worst (Romans 1:18 - 32).
You & your readers ought to know & understand that the traditional view, without fail, runs through a misuse of Natural Theology. It’s one thing to say that the created order points us to God via moving us to inquiry — but it’s quite another to use the created order as an authoritative & sufficient epistemic warrant for doctrinal & ethical propositions. The Bible frowns on that sort of thing.
These are the fallacies through which the traditional view runs: Is-Ought, Vicious Circularity, Overspecification, Special Pleading, & Category Mistake/Error. You yourself committed 4 of these fallacies openly/directly. You committed a 5th one (Overspecification) tacitly/indirectly, insofar as any discussion of this issue inevitably involves the proper referent for the terms, “natural” and “unnatural” in Romans 1, & the two terms Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6, which are drawn from Leviticus 18, for which Romans 1:18 - 32 provides in inerrant & infallible suzerain covenantal form.
If an institution’s or an individual’s faith & practice (theology & ethics) is built on that sort of foundation, then, like the Roman Catholic view of Justification, it ought to be rejected, reformulated, and rearticulated correctly. Your readers deserve to know & understand that fact.
Avoiding all logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies results in God prohibiting cultic homosexuality not *all* homosexuality. In addition, since 1 Cor. 6 is related to Lev. 18 & Rom. 1 is an inerrant & infallible commentary on Lev. 18, it too, as well as I Tim. 1 - refers to *cultic* homosexuality not *all* homosexuality.
May God bless us all, each & every one, & may we go & sin no more.
I don’t find your article at all biblically sound. Your use of Gagnon seems misguided. According to Robert Gagnon, Romans 1:19 - 20 teaches that God has established the material structures of the creation, in this case the twoness of the sexes, for us to use a roadmap to His moral will concerning human sexual ethics. The text of Romans 1:19 - 21 clearly states that the purpose of the material structures of the creation is to testify to His attributes & authority — not our own — as the epistemic foundation for all ethics, in this case worship & sexual ethics.
Your article argues that human sexual ethics can be properly derived from human anatomy & physiology & human psychology. According to your own reasoning, the created order itself serves as a sufficient epistemic warrant for human sexual ethics, yet the Bible states that the teleological purpose of the creation is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority, & since our bodies & our minds are not required for sexual ethics to exist, your entire argument rests on philosophically arbitrary foundation.
On the one hand, homosexuals ought not to look to their intuitions concerning their sexual ethics. On the other, human beings in general ought to look to their own anatomical, physiological, & psychological attributes & draw moral conclusions based on their intuitions. That strikes me as a classic exercise in Special Pleading and a classic example of what amounts to the Is-Ought Fallacy.
I have explored your article further here:
https://thepropheticpresbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/08/on-christian-defense-of-real-marriage.html
I would be interested in a good faith discussion about my analysis there. May God bless us all, each & everyone, & go & sin no more.
I appreciate your interaction with my article, David. We seem to come to this issue from very different theological perspectives, which is fine with me. I'm happy for anyone else to develop their own positive case for how we discern God's will about marriage.
Take care,
Chris
What theological perspective do you think I am coming from? All I am doing here is is reading the text of Romans 1:18 - 32 without committing any exegetical fallacies. I am a Presbyterian Teaching Elder in a church in which we are all biblical inerrantists.
You cited Gagnon, & Gagnon’s reading of Romans 1 is available on his website.
Here he is in his own words: By “against nature” Paul meant that the evidence from the material structures of creation—here the complementary embodied character of maleness and femaleness—gives clear evidence of God’s will for human sexual pairing. Some have argued that this could not have been what Paul intended by his nature argument, despite Paul’s clear statement in Rom 1:19-20 that such matters are “transparent” and have been so “ever since the creation of the world . . . being mentally apprehended by means of the things made.”
According to Mr. Gagnon, “Romans 1:19 - 20 teaches that God has established the material structures of the creation, in this case the twoness of the sexes, for us to use a roadmap to His moral will concerning human sexual ethics.
The text of Romans 1:19 - 21 clearly states that the purpose of the material structures of the creation is to testify to His attributes & authority — not our own — as the epistemic foundation for all ethics, in this case worship & sexual ethics.
Do you agree with Gagnon that the structures of creation are intended by God to serve as an epistemic warrant for our sexual ethics? If so, then the human body constitutes a sufficient epistemic warrant for sexual ethics?
How is it that you can say that it is an illicit move for homosexuals to appeal to their own psychology or even biology to underwrite their sexual ethics while at the same time, it is licit for you to use yours to underwrite your own sexual ethics.
That’s just like Greg Koukl in his article on whether or not homosexuals are committing the Is-Ought Fallacy when they appeal to their genetics. Koukl says - correctly - that the homosexual is committing the Is-Ought Fallacy. Then he pivots to Romans 1 & says that Paul’s words mean that human anatomy & physiology (which depend on genetics) serves as a sufficient epistemic warrant for heteronormativity. So, when the homosexual does it, that’s epistemically & therefore logical fallacious, but when you do it, Gagnon does it, & Koukl does that is sound theology, & NOT epistemically & logically fallacious.
The natural teleology (design & function) of the Created Order is to serve as a testimony to ***God’s*** existence, attributes, & authority which alone serves as the necessary, reasoned, & principled epistemic warrant for interpreting reality in a manner congruent with the objectively true state of affairs.
If the word “natural” means “heteronormative” then that necessarily means that the God created human anatomy, physiology, & psychology to serve as an epistemic warrant for us to do worship & sexual ethics —- but the text says that the created order’s purpose is to serve as a testament to God’s existence, attributes, & authority.
5
Rom. 1:21–23 - For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
The text describes the unnatural use of the created order. People, even though in truth they knew God exists, chose to suppress God’s existence, attributes, & authority & substituted their own. The result was idols crafted for pseudodeities that looked like people & animals.
In other words, when the Bible describes the results of using our own image- our bodies & our psychology to underwrite sexual (and worship) ethics, it very clearly calls that idolatry, and that sort of thinking is what led to polytheism in the ancient world.
You are very clearly arguing in your article that the human image constitutes a sufficient epistemic warrant for our sexual ethics & God intended that to be the case. Whereas the Bible calls that idolatry.
The UNNATURAL teleology of the created order looks to human anatomy & physiology to do sexual ethics, & the only road to the tradition-bound view of the word “natural” does exactly that, thus committing 4 epistemic, logical, & exegetical fallacies : Is-Ought, Vicious Circularity, Overspecification, & Category Error.
Your article appeals to Genesis 2 via Matthew 19 in order to draw moral conclusions from God’s decretal will. The twoness of the sexes is an example of God’s decretal will. To draw a moral conclusion from God’s decretal will is a Category Error, insofar as it conflates the properties of 2 separate, yet intersecting domains.
The Moral precept in the Edenic Covenant is “be fruitful & multiply,” but it doesn’t require sexual reproduction to fulfill that command because (a) elsewhere Scripture teaches singleness is blessed & we are not required to marry, & (b) adoption is sufficient to fulfill these terms.
An appeal to the human image to morally warrant ethics is a viciously circular procedure, because in order to arrive at that conclusion you have to assume that there is an embedded telelogical principle in the human body. It conduces to looking in the mirror & saying “Isn’t it obvious?”
Besides that, sexual ethics exist independently of our minds, bodies, souls, & existence. Your appeal to the human image is no different than Hume’s appeal to his own psychology to underwrite his beliefs. His reasoning commits the Naturalistic Fallacy & is viciously circular insofar as his epistemic warrant cannot & does not supply the necessary truth conditions to interpret reality. God’s existence, attributes, & authority do. You accept that authority only insofar as you are willing to use it (incorrectly) warrant your beliefs about marriage & family and sexual ethics via an appeal to human anatomy, physiology, & psychology (the human image) as an authoritative epistemic warrant.
It seems to me that you are tone deaf to the implications of your defense of traditional real marriage. You’re calling your view “real” - not just “traditional” marriage, and you are insinuating that I am of a different theological POV, with no evidence whatsoever, when in fact, I am a TE in a WCF compliant church & denomination where we disagree with your POV wholly & solely on the basis of the exegesis, exposition, & understanding of the pertinent texts. We are not liberals, unless you think that the 95 % of the WCF’s confessional contents qualify as liberal.
The article you published ought to have looked like an examination of the pertinent texts via an exposition of each independently then a section harmonizing them. Instead, it’s a defense of Ecclesiastical Tradition that winds up stating that the human image is a sufficient & authoritative epistemic warrant for sexual ethics. It can be summarized as “Heteronormativity is what the Bible teaches via directly teaching that human anatomy & physiology, & psychology constitutes a proper, sufficient, & authoritative epistemic warrant for sexual ethics, & the human condition proves it along with centuries of Ecclesiastical Tradition. Where is the biblical exposition to underwrite that claim?
This is what the Bible actually teaches, & it avoids logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies: https://thepropheticpresbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/03/romans-118-32-leviticus-18.html?m=1
and
https://thepropheticpresbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/03/i-corinthians-6-9-11.html
These are the logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies bound up in your own point of view:
https://thepropheticpresbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/03/favorite-fallacies-homosexuality.html?m=1
I'm just not interested in getting into this debate. You're certainly free to promote your own perspective on these issues in whatever venues you have available. This will be my last word on the matter.
I didn’t think you would be. TBH, my target isn’t just you — it’s your readers.
The truth of the matter is that the traditional view you articulate in your article has been with the churches for 2000 + years, and Ecclesiastical Tradition — which is not our Rule of Faith — is a powerful tool of both the LORD & the Enemy. After all, although the Bible clearly teaches Justification by Faith, it took 1500 years for a critical mass of people to rise up & clearly articulate it.
I’d like to point out, while we are here, that I am not doing anything in my critique of your perspective that we Protestants haven’t been doing since the Reformation. When we debate or critique the Roman Catholic view of Justification, it’s not at all uncommon to point out the exegetical fallacies (Semantic Incest, Semantic Inflation) that are involved in the Roman Catholic defense of their perspective. If an institution's or an individual's defense/articulation of their point of view runs through a number of exegetical fallacies, they ought to rethink their position &/or reformulate their defense.
The truth of the matter is that the principles of sound reasoning & the rules of biblical hermeneutics inhere in the mind of God, & the only reason God reasons from Is to Ought Himself is because He is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable with respect to all of His attributes. Whereas if your POV involves you — a finite, morally flawed individual or institution — reasoning from Is to Ought so that you draw abstract moral precepts from human anatomy, physiology, & psychology, you are engaging in a project that the Bible presents as humanly iffy at best & iniquitous at worst (Romans 1:18 - 32).
You & your readers ought to know & understand that the traditional view, without fail, runs through a misuse of Natural Theology. It’s one thing to say that the created order points us to God via moving us to inquiry — but it’s quite another to use the created order as an authoritative & sufficient epistemic warrant for doctrinal & ethical propositions. The Bible frowns on that sort of thing.
These are the fallacies through which the traditional view runs: Is-Ought, Vicious Circularity, Overspecification, Special Pleading, & Category Mistake/Error. You yourself committed 4 of these fallacies openly/directly. You committed a 5th one (Overspecification) tacitly/indirectly, insofar as any discussion of this issue inevitably involves the proper referent for the terms, “natural” and “unnatural” in Romans 1, & the two terms Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6, which are drawn from Leviticus 18, for which Romans 1:18 - 32 provides in inerrant & infallible suzerain covenantal form.
( More on that here: https://thepropheticpresbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/03/favorite-fallacies-homosexuality.html?m=1 )
If an institution’s or an individual’s faith & practice (theology & ethics) is built on that sort of foundation, then, like the Roman Catholic view of Justification, it ought to be rejected, reformulated, and rearticulated correctly. Your readers deserve to know & understand that fact.
Avoiding all logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies results in God prohibiting cultic homosexuality not *all* homosexuality. In addition, since 1 Cor. 6 is related to Lev. 18 & Rom. 1 is an inerrant & infallible commentary on Lev. 18, it too, as well as I Tim. 1 - refers to *cultic* homosexuality not *all* homosexuality.
May God bless us all, each & every one, & may we go & sin no more.
Excellent defense of the Christian (Biblical) view of marriage, Chris! This should be shared throughout the churches.
Thanks, Mark, I appreciate the kind words!
Thank You Christopher for the clarity regarding 'following my heart'; and what man and woman do to clarify the Image of God for us.
Thanks, Kelly!