Sexuality, Sociobiology, and Recapitulation

Introduction

Some years ago, I read Donald Symons' brilliant work, The Evolution of Human Sexuality. It got me thinking, and so I wrote two companion pieces for the Plenteous Harvest. Symons also informed my thinking in response to the Bishops Pastoral Study on Human Sexuality. The two pieces follow.

The Evolution of Human Sexuality

According to Time magazine, Donald Symons' book, The Evolution of Human Sexuality, is considered a classic among sociobiologists. He surveys virtually all the data on human sexuality and locates his conclusions in the widest possible context -- that of animal sexuality as shaped by evolution. He believes that our genes are not the only factor in behavior, but they are a powerful factor. In his view, behaviors that promote the survival of offspring are genetically carried to subsequent generations. We may look briefly at his results.

Since young mammals develop in their mother's bodies and require nursing, mammalian females have few offspring and must insure the survival of each. Therefore, females tend not to be promiscuous. They approach sex cautiously, only mating with superior males. For the human species, male superiority is expressed in power and wealth as these contribute to a child's survival. For the vast majority of animal species, the young are produced by almost all the females mating with a much smaller group of superior males. For humans, polygyny has been the norm for most human societies.

Unlike females, males of almost all species can reproduce with little or no investment beyond the sex act itself. Therefore, males are promiscuous, seeking immediate sex with willing, or even unwilling, females (rape). They compete with other males for females and have a large body size adaptive for fighting. For the human male, warfare, killing, control of territory and resources, are important means of securing females. These behaviors have a strong biological basis. The command of Moses in Numbers 31:17 to kill everyone but the virgins makes good genetic sense. Men don't seek women of power and wealth. They seek women who are young, healthy, and fertile, since a healthy uterus and the ability to nurse and care for offspring are critical for a child's survival.

Since men and women pursue different sexual strategies, heterosexual relations are always a matter of compromise. For homosexuals, however, sexual strategies coincide and "the sexual activities of homosexuals of both sexes appear to be especially intense, varied, and satisfying." (Symons, p. 298). Further, since strategies coincide, female homosexuality reveals how females in general approach sex, male homosexuality the male approach. Lesbians have few sexual partners, tend to be faithful, and value affection and intimacy. By contrast, homosexual males are highly promiscuous. Among North Americans for example, 75% of homosexual men have over 75 partners in a lifetime, while 72% of heterosexual men have less than eight partners. (Symons, p. 299) These differences are not primarily cultural, but genetic. Men, straight or otherwise, seek many partners. Women don't. If women were as promiscuous as men, heterosexual men would have as many partners as homosexual men.

Symons' results are part of a growing scientific effort to discern the biological roots of human behavior. The picture that emerges from these studies has little relation to Christian ethics. But Christian ethics is not grounded in genetics, or nurture, or culture, but in revelation. Monogamy is a good example. According to Symons, "Nothing in male sexuality . . . hints of an adaption to monogamy." (p. 292) But monogamy is commanded by Scripture and tradition. It limits successful aggressive males to one female and makes it possible for all women, not just the young and lovely, to enjoy the attention and love of a man. Similar limits are placed on wealth and the use of power. These biblical injunctions seek to distribute all resources, wealth, power, sexual intimacy and children, to the entire population rather than the "successful" few. But our culture, our economic system, our sexual ethic, our Church, are leaving all this behind. (Plenteous Harvest, September, 1997)

Sociobiology and Recapitulation

In my last article I devoted considerable space to sociobiologist Donald Symons' views on the genetic basis of sexuality. I did so because many people in the Church think genetics can tell us whether certain sexual behaviors are genetically determined. If determined, a behavior must be moral because one has no choice. The article should make clear that an ethic based on genetics will be utterly alien to anything remotely Christian. In fact, Symons himself calls our genetic legacy a "nightmare from the past." (p. 313)

Symons' results are only part of a larger picture painted by sociobiologists. It isn't all a pretty picture. For example, one result of sociobiology is that humans have a have a strong genetic disposition toward territoriality. This could explain and justify war and conquest. Or, it has been noted that the vast majority of social mammals have dominance hierarchies with males dominating females. Hence patriarchy.

There have been objections to these views. I think, however, their general drift will stand. The presuppositions of our age require it. Since the seventeenth century the West has generally believed the materialist dogma that matter is ultimate. Our genes are bits of matter which evolved over millions of years to enable us to survive by getting the better of those around us. If that entailed killing and conquering territory, so be it.

Materialism is not new, it is very old. Lucretius (100 BC) held that human traits were inherited from both parents by a mixing of their "seeds." He was an atomist in the tradition of the Greek atomists. The early Church rejected this form of materialism. Their norm was Scripture, not biology. There they discovered that God originally created humanity good. Adam then sinned. As a result of sin his body and soul were both corrupted. This corruption was then passed on to successive generations by sexual reproduction as well as culture. To redeem humanity God the Son became enfleshed in the man Jesus who did not sin. Therefore, he never suffered corruption. His body was not corrupted in the tomb and he was raised bodily from the dead. (Acts 2:27, 31, 13:34-5, Apostles' Creed, BCP p. 96) Through faith in him the corruption of body and soul is reversed, beginning in this life and completed in the world to come.

This belief in an original goodness, sin and resultant corruption, and redemption in Christ was called the doctrine of recapitulation. With varying emphases and expression it has been the tradition of the Church. Irenaeus believed it. Athanasius believed it. Augustine believed it. The heretic Pelagius didn't. He thought we were born without original sin. Thomas Aquinas believed it. In the Summa he states, "What is genetically transmitted in the semen is human nature and, together with that nature, its sickness." (Summa Theologiae, A Concise Translation, edited by Timothy McDermott, p. 264) Our Articles of Religion maintain it, Article IX, BCP p. 869. Calvin held similar views, as did Karl Barth in this century. None of these theologians believed that matter was unaffected by grace. All believed in the bodily resurrection. From this perspective, there is nothing surprising about sociobiology. It simply confirms what the Church has always known. The whole person, body and soul, is corrupt from the start.

There are implications. Christ redeems the whole person and that includes our genes. Ethical norms cannot be based on a corrupted genetic inheritance, they are given in Christ. A Church disposed to follow its genes, i.e., its deepest wants and needs, will get there soon enough, the nightmare from the past. (Plenteous Harvest, October, 1997)

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
June, 2003