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The Hebrew bible also view sexual relations as highly divine (Isaak, 1998). Some suggest that Paul preferred that "Christians remain unmarried" and that sexuality and sexual activity may be akin to human weakness, even though Jesus accepted the "institution of marriage" (Isaak, 1998). The predominant theme in these texts suggest that intercourse outside of marriage is wrong, and as such homosexuality is wrong because it is not conducive to sex in marriage (Isaak, 1998).
Paul basis his distaste of homosexuality on statements in the bible suggesting that the act of men committing sexual relations with men is vile, filthy, dirty and unnatural. The bible clearly states that God gave mankind an instinctual ability to have relations with women and that any other relations were inherently wrong.
Inherent in the bible is a link to marriage and family as "the embodiment of the divine purpose of human sexuality," particularly in the New Testament (Hanigan, 54). Even in the first few chapters of the bible including in Genesis 19 and 38, Ruth 4, King 11 and Leviticus, particularly in chapter 18 the practice of moral sexuality is harkened and marriage and family is considered vital to mankind's well being (Hanigan, 1998). The Old Testament and New Testament both suggest that man has a duty to use sexuality responsibly as part of mans covenant with God (Hanigan, 1998).
Paul is arguing in Romans I about mans responsibility to embody the diving purpose as God has dictated which includes a proper use of human sexuality (Hanigan, 1998). Illicit sexual behavior is not akin to "the mystery of Christ's union with the church to the human marital union" (Hanigan, 54). The "normative setting for human sexuality as created by God...
Human sexuality was created for the "well being of the human species" (Hanigan, 54).
Anything unnatural and contrary to nature during Paul's time is that which does not promote the social good and continuing existence of mankind; it is anything that might dissolve marriage or create conditions that would harm a stable family, proper birthing and "rearing of children" (Jung & Smith, 207). Natural institutions are those which include responsible actions which ensure the proper "social ordering of family life to serve the common good of society" as well as the "well being of its next generation of citizens" (Hanigan, 54).
Anything unnatural is that in violation of the "obvious, divinely created, social nature of sexuality and the natural end of sexual intercourse" which was of course human creation (Hays, 184; Hanigan, 54).
References
Hanigan, J.P. "The centrality of marriage: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic
Argument." The Ecumenical Review, 50(1): 1998, p. 54.
Hays, R.B. "Relations natural and unnatural: A response to John Boswell's exegensis of Romans 1." Journal of Religious Ethics, 14(1): 1986, pp. 184-215.
Isaak, P.J. "Homosexuality: Dimensions of the issue in church and society in Namibia."
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1302
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