Saint Thomas Aquinas, as a philosopher,
wrote several works that justified Christianity in a philosophical context,
taking cue on Aristotle's old
writings. Naturally, Aquinas took up on
the Church's "ultra-conservative" views on sexuality and worked to
rationalize them through his own theory
of natural law. Aquinas argues against
any form of sex where the intention to produce children is not involved. He
explains this through his theory
of natural law, where sex is purely for
the purpose of reproduction to ensure the continuance of the human race, only
in the context of a
monogamous relationship, and not for
simple physical pleasure. There are many laws that Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks
of, such as eternal law,
human law, divine law, and natural law.
All humans are part of "God's plan" and therefore subject to eternal
law, where we are guided to God's
"supernatural end in a higher
way" (47). According to Aquinas, humans in particular follow God's eternal
law through a natural law, and inborn
instinct to do good. Something is said
to be part of natural law if "there is a natural inclination to it"
and if "nature does not produce the contrary,"
(51-52). Natural law includes such ideas
as self-preservation, union of the male and the female, and education of the
young, which is easily found
in nature. Humans also have a unique
knowledge of God and were meant to live in a society. Aquinas explains that
even though concepts such as
slavery and personal possessions are not
found alone in nature, they were created by human reason, and in such cases
"the law of nature was not
changed but added to" (52). Because
we can do such things, we are separated from the rest of God's creatures. After
explaining his theory of
natural law, Aquinas goes on to explain
sexuality in the context of it. According to him, "promiscuity is contrary
to the nature of man" because "to
bring up a child requires both the care
of the mother who nourishes him and even more the care of the father to train
and defend him and to
develop him in internal and external
endowments" (78). Therefore, he finds fornification to be a mortal sin
because "it is contrary to the good of the
upbringing of the offspring" (79).
Curiously, though, he does not bring up the more likely scenario where
fornification does not result in the
impregnation of the woman. His reasoning
makes much better sense in the case of adultery. Not only does it upset one's
obligations to his family,
but also because the Ten Commandments
specifically condemn adultery as a great sin. The Ten Commandments are God's
laws and are not
relative, so there is no disputing their
validity. However, Aquinas' argument that monogamy is "natural" for
humans is not easily justified. If we look
carefully at nature, most mammals have
to be raised by their parents just as humans are, but only for a few years.
Also, in many cases, the mother
may raise her young with a different
male, or on her own altogether. Therefore, this makes it harder for Aquinas to
appeal to natural law to prove
his case for monogamy and life-long
relationships. Also, Aquinas does not agree that a male should have the option
of leaving a female who has
had a child even if it is properly
provided for, making an indirect case against divorce (79). Curiously, in
Islam, the Koran allows divorce and
remarriage, and it is based for the most
part on the very same Bible that Aquinas defended. Aquinas makes clear that sex
is right only when it is for
the purpose of reproduction and it
should only be between a male and female in a monogamous relationship; all
other forms are sinful. However,
he brings up a very striking exception.
The acts of fornification or adultery are not considered sins at all if they
are performed under the command
of God (52). This is simply a case of
common sense, but it explains clearly any such indiscrepancies to natural law
in the Bible. Aquinas goes on to
define more serious mortal sins which he
refers to as indecent sex. This includes homosexuality and bestiality. He
quotes bestiality from the Bible:
"'[Joseph] accused his brothers of
the worst sin… they had relations with cattle'" (80). Perhaps he is right,
but homosexuality, on the other hand,
was accepted in societies even before
Aquinas' time. For instance, the ancient Greeks accepted intercourse between a
younger and older man as a
higher form love. Even if Aquinas tried
to invoke the "natural law" argument, he could've been shown evidence
of homosexuality in nature, even
though it is not very common. This is
interesting in the sense that considering animals lack reason, they aren't
capable of sin because they have no
real knowledge of distinguishing between
moral right and wrong. In that case, there seems to be a loophole in Aquinas'
theory, if natural law seems
to prove homosexuality not to be a
mortal sin. Thomas Aquinas takes his arguments concerning sexuality even
further. He goes on to condemn
situations even where no sexual
intercourse is in involved, pointing out still more mortal sins. By his
reasoning, lustful kisses and caresses are
actually mortal sins, because of the
mere purpose behind them, since they show consent to the idea of sex, in forms
like fornification. Drunkenness
can also be a mortal sin in that way, if
one drinks in order to purposely lose his sense of reason and put himself in
danger of sinning (77). Aquinas
turns to virginity as something worthy
of praise because it frees the mind of unclean thoughts to focus on
"contemplation of the divine." He quotes
the Apostle Paul, saying "'The
unmarried woman who is a virgin thinks of the things of the Lord so that she
may be holy in body and spirit. The
woman who is married thinks of things of
the world and how to please her husband'" (78). This "holy
virginity" is the rationale behind the priests'
and nuns' vows of celibacy. As much as
it did when Aquinas wrote his works, the views of the Church and Aquinas on
sexuality are one and the
same. The Church today officially does
not allow pre-marital sex, homosexuality, and even artificial birth control,
though it does not literally enforce
its policies on Church followers. Still,
it is interesting to consider the effects of such regression on a society.
While lust is not considered part of
natural law because it is deemed as
unique to us as humans as punishment for Adam and Eve's fall from grace, it
seems to be a powerfully "natural"
inclination for us all. If we turn to
Freud, we see that virtually everything we do has an underlying sexual purpose.
By Freud's logic, any contact we
make with the opposite sex has some
underlying sexual motive, no matter how sublime it is. The only way someone can
put aside his or her sexual
aggressions is by finding another outlet
for such passions. Sports, music, art, and virtually any hobby that we can
enjoy works as an outlet for
sexual aggressions. For those who work
for the Church, that passion is obviously channeled into worshiping the divine.
Obviously, there are times
when people must "relieve"
themselves. Fortunately Aquinas did classify the severity of such mortal sins;
bestiality being the worst, and
"uncleanliness" being the
mildest (80). Therefore there are "levels" of transgression, so these
require different levels of penance. Of course we are
to believe that God will forgive us if
we are truly sorry for committing such moral sins, or else we will burn in
hell. Certainly we do not have to
agree with all of Aquinas' arguments, as
many may seem unnecessarily harsh. We can follow him on many points but not
all. Surely we can agree
that sex is something that should be
treated with respect, and obscene acts like bestiality upset that. Adultery is
also a sinful thing because it is
specifically condemned in the Ten
Commandments and it disrupts family life. One might also view homosexuality and
say that it defeats the whole
purpose of sex. Other things don't seem
quite as bad, and acts like lustful kisses and purposely getting drunk are much
too trivial to be considered
mortal sins. Another theme that clearly
arises from sexuality in the perspective of the divine is our role on earth
altogether. Often there seem to be
only two trains of thought, either the
pursuit of happiness or strictly living a life of following God. In the
Christian viewpoint, it seems that if we are
to follow God, any happiness we come
upon is more coincidental since it is not a goal for this lifetime.
Theoretically, true happiness can only be
found in the afterlife, and that's only
if one is received into heaven. In that sense, life is only one long test, one
that we might not always enjoy
taking, but one that we need to pass
while taking the longest time possible in finishing it.
Word Count: 1510
No comments:
Post a Comment