The House of Bishop's Pastoral Study on Human Sexuality - Theological and Scientific Consideration

Introduction

The following essay was published in The Living Church in 1994, a short time after the bishops of the Episcopal Church published their pastoral study on human sexuality.(1) This pastoral study gives a revealing glimpse of the mind of the bishops, or at least the thinking of those to whom they turn for theological counsel. As such, the document is indicative of the intellectual and theological competence that exists at the highest level of the Episcopal Church.

I cannot count the number of times I have heard Episcopal priests and bishops make comments on how our Christian brothers and sisters in the fundamentalist denominations appeal to simplistic answers, to emotion, and to a faith that avoids the tough questions. Behind these comments, overtly or covertly, is the presumption that Anglicans know how to think, in contrast to the fundamentalists whose faith has little intellectual substance.

Frankly, I must say that the bishop's pastoral study on human sexuality was essentially devoid of intellectual substance. Its authors appeared to have little awareness of the scientific or theological matters underlying its superficial content. To but it succinctly, the report was a shambles. As such, I considered it an revelation of the judgment of God, a visible expression of the folly of looking down on our presumably "less educated, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled" brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Living Church had a word limit. As a result, the following essay is rather succinct. I have appended a few additional comments below in order to clarify some of its principle ideas. The essay follows.

The Essay

According to section five of the Bishop's study, the findings of science are directly relevant to moral issues surrounding human sexuality. A scientific discovery of the causes of homosexuality is considered a "vexing question," one that is "integral to the dialogue," and the "political stakes and anxiety levels are high" in regard to "cause" (p. 46). The authors claim that recent scientific research does not suggest that homosexuality is a "choice" (pp. 47-8), and further, that science has "challenged the traditional stance of the Church with regard to human sexuality" (p. 38).

Science is data interpreted by theory. For the behavioral sciences, sexual behaviors such as monogamy, polygamy, homosexuality, rape, incest, pedophilia, and abstinence are data. As data, they mean nothing until interpreted by theory and that theory is only credible if it explicates a wide range of data. If a scientific theory validates a particular behavior, such as homosexuality, then all the behaviors interpreted by the theory much be accepted, both the seemly and the odious, since all are givens in the data. This implication was not recognized by the study.

A brilliant example of a theory interpreting a wide spectrum of data is Donald Symons' The Evolution of Human Sexuality. Among other things, he concludes that there is a genetic disposition among males for adultery, rape, and polygyny, understood as natural selection favoring behaviors that disperse genetic material. He is a perfect example of a scientist interpreting all the data, in spite of it being what he terms a "nightmare from the past" (p. 313). No party in the church, liberal or conservative, would accept his results as morally binding, and therefore, his work challenges the liberal notion that science only challenges "the traditional stance of the Church." Furthermore, Symons recognizes on philosophical grounds that it is a fallacy to convert the "is" of scientific description into the "ought" of ethical discourse (p. 62).

Scientifically speaking, "choice" as a cause of behavior is nonsensical. "Choice" can only be inferred from behavior after the fact, and therefore, cannot be seen as a cause of behavior. Scientific research will not suggest that homosexuality is a "choice" since it will not suggest any behavior is a "choice." In fact, scientifically speaking, all behaviors are caused by variations in the independent variables, such as genetic, pre- natal, and environmental factors, because these are the only forces that affect an organism. Whether homosexuals are born so or are the product of their environment may be "integral to our dialogue," and a "vexing question" for the authors of section five, but scientifically, behaviors caused by our genes are no more determined than those caused by other factors.

Turning to theological considerations, I see no ultimate difference between an appeal to the behavioral sciences and an appeal to the pagan deities. For paganism, the natural phenomena are perceived as personal and numinous and described in myth; for science, they are perceived as impersonal and mundane and described as theory interpreting data. For each, the starting point is a corrupted nature. There are potent theological and biblical arguments which claim that the doctrine of the Trinity denies both as normative for Christian morality. The study shows no awareness of these theological arguments.

Further, let us suppose that science could show that a given behavior was genetic. What grounds are there for believing that God's action is somehow effective at the level of spirit, or soul, or will, but has nothing to do with our genes? Where did this strange dualism come from? Perhaps those who lay great store by our genes aren't dualists. Do they then believe that grace has no effects on any aspect of personality? If so, was that view or the dualist view defended? It was not. Did the study present theological and biblical perspectives that deny these views? No.

What is the theological relevance of the long discussion in section five of sexual experience in America? If experience alone is normative, all ethical questions vanish, we are already doing the good. If experience alone is not normative, what is its relation to Trinity, Christology, Scripture, Tradition? Until these theological questions are addressed, and they were not, an appeal to experience is of dubious value.

How can Bishop Spong's Living in Sin? and Countryman's Dirt, Greed, and Sex interpret Scripture so differently from the traditional view in section four of the Bishop's Report? Against the heretics, who always quoted Scripture, the early church claimed the regula, ultimately formulated in the Creeds, as the key to the church's interpretation of Scripture. In my view, Spong does not distinguish Father and Son. His exegetical and ethical norm is the "Word of God in creation" (chapter 10), and therefore, the "maker of heaven and earth" functions as the "eternally begotten." The House of Bishop's study offers no creedal or theological analysis of differing biblical interpretations of sexual matters.

In short, the study shows no real grasp of the implications and limits of science, nor does it theologically address matters of consequence. These are serious defects, since science, experience, and biblical exegesis, formed the heart of the study.

The real issue here is paganism, and the battle over sexuality is but a minor skirmish. The high gods of our culture are unlimited material accumulation and war, the goddess of love is not yet ascendent. I would suggest we review the struggle of the church under Hitler, especially the writings of Karl Barth. The Nazi program was theologically justified by an appeal to the "Word of God in creation," blood and soil. That was the issue, then as now. I also suggest we hold to our Anglican heritage. Anglicanism does not relish prying into people's private lives or making our own public. It gives us the freedom to come before the altar in continual weakness and sin, without our morality or lack of it becoming such a public matter.

Additional Comments

Scientific Considerations

There is a story that Isaac Newton was once sitting under a apple tree. Suddenly, he was hit on the head by a falling apple. As a result, he was able to formulate his laws of motion and gravity. Of course, this didn't really happen as told. What did happen, however, is that he observed a vast array of objects in motion. As he studied their movements, he was able to formulate a few simple laws that applied to all moving objects. Among other things, his laws applied to falling objects, objects on inclined planes, the rotation of the planets, and more. These were his famous laws of motion.

These laws were breathtaking in their comprehensiveness and simplicity. It was amazing that these few simple laws could be applied to all moving objects. With the passing of time, the idea developed that an adequate scientific theory should apply to all the phenomena in its range of study. If it did not, then a given theory would be in doubt. For example, if Newton's laws could not account from some moving objects, then his laws would not have been considered fully valid. Or, to put it another way, if there were motions that the theory could not account for, then the theory as a whole would be in doubt.(2)

Eventually, in the modern era, it was noticed that Newton's laws did not apply to certain motions. At very high velocities, objects did not conform to Newton's laws. This led to Einstein's famous theory of relativity. This theory agreed with Newton at low speeds, but improved Newton's theories at speeds approaching the speed of light. For that reason, Newton was replaced by Einstein.

With respect to the study of sexuality, similar results hold. A theory describing human sexual behavior does not explain just one thing, just as Newton's theory didn't just explain why apples fall off trees. For a theory to be valid, it has to explain a wide range of events in its field of study. For that reason, it cannot be said that science will discover the cause of homosexuality alone, as if that cause could be unearthed in isolation from discovering the causes of other human sexual behaviors. Whatever theory of sexual behavior is advanced will not be considered a significant theory unless it covers a wide range of sexual behaviors. Among human sexual behaviors, to quote the essay above, we have such things as "monogamy, polygamy, homosexuality, rape, incest, pedophilia, and abstinence." A good theory will shed light on all these behaviors, and it will give causes for all of them and not just one of them. If the causes of homosexuality are discovered, the causes of other sexual behaviors will be found as well. Or, to put it another way, if homosexuality is found to be caused by various factors, these same factors in different arrangements will also cause other sexual behaviors. That is what science does, it elucidates the causes of many things in networks, not just few things in isolation. Therefore, if homosexuality is considered legitimate because its causes are discovered, then "monogamy, polygamy, homosexuality, rape, incest, pedophilia, and abstinence" will be legitimate as well because they, as well as homosexuality, will be addressed by the same theory.

Some years ago I read in Time Magazine about a book on human sexuality, considered to be a classic, the definitive work in the field. Its title was The Evolution of Human Sexuality by Donald Symons.(3) I got the book and read it. It amasses a vast amount of data from many fields, all pertaining to human sexuality. Symons also proposed a theory, and like any good theory, it sheds light on a wide variety of sexual behaviors.

Symons is a sociobiologist. Sociobiology studies the biological roots of social behavior. Symon's basic theory is rather straightforward. Over millions of years human behavior evolved, and our genes carry the capacity and disposition to carry out the behaviors that did evolve. Further, only those behaviors that enabled genes to be reproduced were encoded in the genes. This is logical, since behaviors that didn't enhance genetic reproduction would terminate genetic reproduction and therefore wouldn't be carried by the genes. As a result, our genes effect dispositions toward certain behaviors, and those behaviors enable human beings to pass on their genes. Human genes carry dispositions for the following behaviors: 1. warfare by males for sexual access to females, 2. males raping females, 3. polygyny as the most common reproductive arrangement, 4. male inclination toward prostitution and pornography, 5. gay men having very high numbers of sexual partners as compared to lesbians and heterosexuals, 6. attraction by heterosexual men of all ages to young women, 7. female attraction to success, wealth, and power, 8. high male tendency toward adultery and dissatisfaction with only one wife.(4)

The bishop's study document apparently believes that science can tell us what causes homosexuality, and once that cause is known, then homosexuality will be morally acceptable. What the report fails to grasp is that science will discern the causes of large numbers of sexual behaviors, and all will be described by the same theory. Symons is an example of this. He has unified a large number of human behaviors in light of one overall theory. If one wants to accept this theory as legitimizing a specific human behavior, then every one of the eight behaviors just given is morally right.

My argument here, however, does not depend upon Symons being right. Sociobiological theory may be right or it may be wrong. It is merely an example of a theory that sheds light on the data. If it is wrong, and if science does successfully advance a theory of sexual behavior, whatever theory that is advanced will explain the causes of a vast array of sexual behaviors, including the eight behaviors given above.

The same idea can be presented in another form. For any science of human behavior, behaviors are data. The eight behaviors described by Symons started out as data. As data, they will be not be contradicted by a theory, rather, the theory will give their causes. If science is used to justify the morality of a specific behavior, then science can be used to claim any behavior is moral because science assumes all behaviors as its starting point. It would follow that whatever humans beings did was perfectly moral because what human beings do is what a theory explains. No one in their right mind can claim this. It would spell the end of any form of moral life. Symons is perfectly aware of this. He accepts Hume's argument that is does not imply ought.(5) In fact, Symons is hoping that human beings will stop doing what we are doing and do something different. He ends his book with these words, "Perhaps it is not excessively naive to hope that a creature capable of perceiving the plowshare in the sword is also capable of freeing itself from the nightmare of the past."(6)

Nor is Symons a genetic determinist. He does not, for example, believe that the decision to have sex with someone is determined by the genes apart from other considerations. He uses the term "disposition," meaning that human beings have tendency toward certain behaviors and these tendencies are programmed by the genes. How those tendencies work themselves out, however, depends upon other factors.

This does not mean, however, that Symons, from a scientific perspective, would say that various behaviors are a "choice." He might use the term "choice" to subjectively describe himself in the moment of acting, but that is not a scientific concept. This was one of the odd things about the bishop's study document. It seemed to imply that science might show that homosexuality is not a choice, with the implication that science might show that other behaviors are a choice. This is nonsensical. No science of human behavior will ever show that anything is a choice.

Let me give an example. Suppose a cigarette company wants to know what makes young people smoke cigarettes. They hire someone to amass data and to formulate some causal relations. This person carries out a number of surveys, sampling young people who have begun to smoke. None of these surveys will have a question asking young people if they smoke because they choose to. Of course they chose to. Choice expresses a decision, but the causes of that decision are what the survey is seeking to discover. The cause is not the decision itself. The causes of smoking are things such as peer pressure, the need to feel grown up, and so forth. The notion that science will show something a choice is absurd. Were science to say that a human behavior is caused by choice, that would be the end of science. Science looks for antecedent causes to explain choice, and choice is not one of them since choice is not its own cause.

Further, the study document has a inadequate understanding of the nature versus nurture debate. The study implies that if homosexuality is caused by something that happened in the womb, rather than by upbringing and nurture, then it would then be beyond the control of the individual and therefore moral. This reasoning fails to understand some of the complexities relating nature and nurture. They are not two autonomous realms, with one causing behavior that must be accepted as moral while the other does not.

Symons knows this. He doesn't separate nature from nurture. He gives a helpful example that sheds light on the nature versus nurture debate. There is a species of duck. I forgot to name the species in my notes, so let us call it species X. Let the eggs of species X be incubated by a duck of species Y, and let the ducklings be raised by the Y female who hatched them. Upon maturity, all the males of species X will seek to copulate with females of species Y, while all the females of species X will seek to copulate only with species X. In other words, the females of species X were genetically hard wired to accept sex only from males of their species. The males, on the other hand, were genetically hard wired to seek sex only with the females of the species that raised them. As a result, the females were determined by nature, the males by nurture. The males, however, were determined by nature to be determined by nurture. The dichotomy between nature and nurture is a false one.

The bishops' report seems to imply that nature and nurture are two separate realms. If however, the two realms are related, it makes no sense to imply that causes stemming from events in the womb are more determinative than causes stemming from nurture. Animals are genetically disposed to learn and be shaped by their environments. The evidence for this is overwhelming. Nature and nurture determine together. The report seems to be operating with the mind-set brought on by Descartes, the "ghost in the machine" perspective.

Symons does have a concept of "closer to the genes."(7) By this it is meant that nature plays larger and smaller roles in the formation of specific behaviors. Nurture played a larger role in the sexual behavior of the males of species X than it did in the female behavior. Having said this, the males were just as determined as the females. Regardless of how nature and nurture influence, from a scientific point of view, there is nothing intrinsic in nurture that makes it less causal than nature.

Finally, Symons is not a strict determinist. From a scientific point of view, one assumes determinism as a working hypothesis since the aim of science is to seek prior causes. But seeking prior causes does not imply that all will be found, or that once found, they will completely determine behavior. And that is especially true in the case of human beings. As everyone knows, no one has to have sex with anyone else, although many have very powerful dispositions along the lines proposed by Symon. But to say that our behaviors are determined is to abandon ethics entirely. In fact, it is impossible to live as if we are determined. Such a life cannot be imagined. Everyone makes choices. The mind formulates them, and it is not clear that the mind simply manifests what is given by its neural activity. In Symon's view, mind evolved to make choices that aren't completely determined by the brain.(8) Without that, we would have no moral life.

A Few Theological Considerations

Theologically, the study document apparently assumes that God can act on a person's thoughts or feelings, but have no effect on the body as in physical healing. There is no biblical support for such a concept. It is essentially a gnostic idea, as if salvation does not affect the body. If the body is beyond God's redemptive activity, including how genes govern behavior, then the soul should be impervious to grace as well. Or, to put it another way, if the soul is open to grace, why shouldn't the body be open as well? Does anyone really believe that God can effect the soul, but is powerless to affect the body? Schleiermacher was astute enough to recognize that denying that God can have effects on the body should entail denying that God can affect the soul. As a result, he formulated a theology in which God has no effect on the mind or the body. I consider this approach a heresy and have discussed it elsewhere.

At one point I made the comment that "I see no ultimate difference between an appeal to the behavioral sciences and an appeal to the pagan deities." Paganism is the personification and worship of the forces of life, and the pagan deities spent their lives doing what humans do, the genetically influenced dispositions listed above. Claiming that such behaviors are moral because they are done by the gods is similar to claiming they are moral as described by science. From a Christian perspective, such behaviors express a corrupted human nature rather than a universal moral law.

There is, of course, a form of natural law that begins with nature, and its results are "higher" than the violent and lascivious acts carried out by the pagan deities. But natural law did not accept all human behaviors as morally right. Further, when this tradition was accepted into Christianity, the acceptance was not uncritical. It was always believed that revelation took priority over the natural law. Hooker is a perfect example.

More could be said theologically, but the report had so little reflective theological content that it is best to leave it alone, and deal with something more substantial in other essays.

Finally, my essay ended with this comment: "It gives us the freedom to come before the altar in continual weakness and sin, without our morality or lack of it becoming such a public matter." This phrase was added because there are those who apparently think that taking a moral stance is tantamount to forming a vice squad dedicated to ferreting out iniquity. That isn't Anglicanism, but Anglicanism does believe there is a moral law and that all are required to keep it.

Endnotes

1. The Bishop's Pastoral Document is entitled Continuing the Dialogue: A Pastoral Study Document of the House of Bishops to the Church as the Church Considers Issues of Human Sexuality. It was written by the bishops of the Episcopal Church as part of their responsibility to guide the faithful into the way of Truth. The study document was originally published by Forward in Faith Publishers. Apparently it is now out of print. Any of the libraries of the Episcopal seminaries should have it.
2. That fact that a theory cannot account for everything in its domain, does not mean that it is automatically abandoned. It is, however, placed in doubt, and every effort is made to find a satisfactory theory that accounts for all the data. Kuhn, in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has examined these matters in detail.
3. Symons, Donald. The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
4. The pages for the points just made can be found in Symons as follows: 1. p. 148. 2. p. 253. 3. p. 25. 4. p. 253. 5. p. 299. 6. p. 190. 7. p. 201. 8. p. 239.
5. Symons, p. 62.
6. Symons, 313. Where did Symons get the ideas that our past is "a nightmare?" By what norm does he make that claim? He certainly didn't get it from life as presently lived. The century just ended was filled with nightmares of the worse kind, and if life as lived be normative, then the wars and slaughters we recently suffered are not nightmares at all, but normal activities. He certainly didn't get it from pagan religion. In their ancient forms they considered rape, incest, murder, and war perfectly normal. Left unchecked, their modern forms will eventually return to type. He must have gotten the idea from somewhere else. In fact, it is hard to escape the conclusion that he absorbed it from our culture, a culture whose values have been profoundly affected by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the light of the world. By means of his life it is possible to know when something is "a nightmare from the past."
7. Symons, pp. 166-7.
8. Symons, p. 39.

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The House of Bishop's Pastoral Study on Human Sexuality - Theological and Scientific Consideration

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