A Brief Interruption: Reflections on an Outing

[CLeavell] It seems you have bought fully into the concept that our attractions are primarily biological and would put homosexual attraction on the same plane as cancer or other physical deformities.

That’s actually not my view. We have to watch out for binary thinking in the whole matter. What I believe is that in some cases the attractions are mainly biological (much as other temptations to overeat, commit indultry in the mind, etc.) and in some cases they aren’t. When a Christian begins to experience this sort of attraction for the first time as a youth (and after he has become a Christian), he doesn’t fit the Romans 1 scenario very well.

I think, to avoid being really repetitive, I’ll repost a chunk of a post from earlier in the thread.

[Aaron B.] A summary of my view…

1. Some temptations are predicated on physical appetites alone. Others are predicated on our sinful nature alone (pride, malice, etc.), and many (probably most) are predicated on both.
2. A sinful act may be outward or inward.
3. A desire may come upon us unwanted, uninvited and unapproaved of—and we are not sinning when we feel these desires, regardless of their objects.
4. We are sinning if we invite, encourage, or otherwise indulge a desire to do something wrong.
5. Jesus was tempted by the physical desire to eat, but not by any desire to sin. (Though we are sinners, it doesn’t follow that we may not also be tempted by a mere physical desire.)
6. Homosexual desire is unnatural (Rom. 1.26). But the Bible does not teach that a person is sinning when he/she feels it (bearing in mind that I distinguish between feeling it and indulging it, the latter involving choice, the former not).
7. Desires that arise from our sinful nature grow fewer, less intense and less heinous as we grow in Christlikeness.
8. Our ability to resist desires increases as we grow in Christlikeness.
9. Homosexual desire—like many others—may be merely physical for some people, physical and spiritual (ie., arising from sin nature) for others. So some see the desires themselves (i.e., feeling tempted) diminish as they grow in grace.
10. Habit strengthens desire, so resistance to desires can result in less frequent and intense desires over time (I owe somebody else in the thread for this point. I had completely forgotten about that factor until someone posted about it here).
    

Again, the phrase “looketh on a woman to lust after her” does not necessarily indicate a premeditated action.

Nobody has said anything about the action being premeditated. There are two actions in the passage. The first is looking the second is lusting. The first is physical the second is mental. I believe what RES is saying is that the first is done with intention of doing the second: looking in order to lust. This is one of the two possibilities I mentioned up [URL=http://sharperiron.org/article/brief-interruption-reflections-outing#co…] here[/URL].

The actual wording of the text is interesting and some of the commentaries offer surprising possibilities. I don’t personally think it’s that complicated.

ὁ βλέπων (looks) γυναῖκα (at a woman) πρὸς (in order to) τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι (to lust)

pros doesn’t always have to mean “in order to” but it’s not uncommon.

What concerns me most in how we understand and talk about temptation is how it impacts struggling believers and our approach to discipleship.

The implications of blurring all temptation-related desire with commission of sin are nothing to sneeze at.

• creates the expectation in believers that they are failing in some way if temptation A or B (and related desires) don’t completely cease
• encourages guilt feelings in believers who experience momentary attraction/desire to a sin simply because an opportunity they weren’t expecting crossed their path
• sometimes encourages believers to focus their efforts on mysterious inner workings (to make a desire go away) when they ought to focus on ordering their lives away from things that tempt them
• encourages classification of some believers as second class (because they have temptations in some particular area) rather than “such were some of you.”
• may encourage some to think “Well, I’ve desired it. I might as well do it since they’re all sin.”
  

I might add that it also fails to make use of the wisdom offered us in James 1:14-15. In your view, there is no reason James would not simply have said “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted of God’… but each one is tempted when he sins by desiring and sins more by sinning.” But that isn’t what he wrote. The step by step analysis is there for a reason. He is explaining how temptations often work and this is information we are supposed to use.

Aaron, I agree with some of your points, but I think the real problem lies with reductionism in American Christianity. There is an over preoccupation (as demonstrated on this tread) with trying to fit everything into the categories of sin – not sin. The Bible is filled with other criteria for which to examine behavior, attractions, passions, or anything else in the world. Christians should be thinking in terms like edifying or not edifying, sacred or common, eternal or temporal, valuable or worthless, honoring or dishonoring, wise or foolish, natural or unnatural, amiable or distasteful, enduring or useless and the list could go on and on. Reducing every argument into a sin – not sin debate is a good explanation for shallowness of American Christianity. The Christian life is not only about not sinning, it is about loving God properly with all of our heart, soul and mind.

What I believe is that in some cases the attractions are mainly biological (much as other temptations to overeat, commit indultry in the mind, etc.) and in some cases they aren’t. When a Christian begins to experience this sort of attraction for the first time as a youth (and after he has become a Christian), he doesn’t fit the Romans 1 scenario very well.

Do you have any biblical or extra-biblical proof of this statement? There are many biblical and extra-biblical reasons to reject this, especially when Romans 1 seems to give an alternate source for these attractions. The point you seem to be making in relation to Romans 1 is that it is not necessarily referring to all homosexual attraction especially in the case of a believer struggling with these attractions.

If you examine the details of Romans 1, I find that they are relevant in the lives of professing believers today. The terrible sin that demands God’s retribution is that of refusal to worship God and be thankful based on how He is revealed in the natural world. Is there anyone here that would seek to defend the state of worship in American Christianity? I sure hope not. When was the last time you heard anyone thank God for the rain that gave life-giving water to grain used to make bread and grass to feed the cattle, as he sits down for a hamburger at Applebee’s? Most would consider it pretentious and even odd. Most people don’t even think about it.

Also, if you connect covetousness with idolatry as Paul does in Colossians 3:5 then Romans 1 applies directly to American Christianity and is a great explanation for its current condition and struggles of individual members.

I think the main difference I have with your point is that I don’t see any real good backing for the concept that homosexual attraction is biological when there are so many other explanations that are both biblical and extra-biblical.

Again, thanks for the challenging discussion.

[CLeavell] Do you have any biblical or extra-biblical proof of this statement? There are many biblical and extra-biblical reasons to reject this, especially when Romans 1 seems to give an alternate source for these attractions. The point you seem to be making in relation to Romans 1 is that it is not necessarily referring to all homosexual attraction especially in the case of a believer struggling with these attractions.

If you examine the details of Romans 1, I find that they are relevant in the lives of professing believers today. The terrible sin that demands God’s retribution is that of refusal to worship God and be thankful based on how He is revealed in the natural world. Is there anyone here that would seek to defend the state of worship in American Christianity? I sure hope not.

I’m not sure i understand the point here about the state of worship in American Christianity. Are you saying that my son’s same sex attractions are caused by the state of worship in American Christianity? Is he being punished with these attractions because of the way other people are worshipping?

My son was saved as a child and has tried to live for the Lord. When he first started feeling same sex attractions, they made him feel so dirty. He knew homosexuality was wrong, and there is no way he would choose it. He was sick with guilt, and he prayed and prayed that God would remove the attractions. God didn’t do it. He even got himself a girlfriend, even though he didn’t have any real attraction to her. He didn’t feel any of the nervous excitement someone might have when they are first dating, or the sweaty palms, or the “flutters” in the stomach. Yet he would feel those things around guys, and he didn’t want those feelings. He didn’t choose them. Can someone just decide to get sweaty palms and “flutters’ when they are with someone? Those are biological responses, and no matter how much my son prayed that they would be removed, God hasn’t removed them. So what should I tell my son? Should I tell him that he is still rebellious against God, or he wouldn’t be sinning by having these attractions?

What i have told him is that no matter what his biological attractions may be, he is still required by God to live Biblically, as are all people who are attracted to anyone. And i’ve told him i will never give up hope that someday God will remove those attractions from him.

Roland: about your most recent post on James 1:14-15. I don’t think there’s much there that I need to answer. “It must be there for a reason” is a conviction every skilled exegete takes to a text. It is a necessary inference from inspiration. God chose to give James these particular words and no others. So the exegete’s job is to identify “What does it mean?” and a huge part of that is “Why did the writer write it?”

And the form of argument that says “Interpretation A of a passage cannot be correct because it fails to explain why the writer did not write A,” is also a well established approach to interpreting texts.

[CLeavell]…reductionism in American Christianity. There is an over preoccupation (as demonstrated on this tread) with trying to fit everything into the categories of sin – not sin. The Bible is filled with other criteria for which to examine behavior, attractions, passions, or anything else in the world. Christians should be thinking in terms like edifying or not edifying, sacred or common, eternal or temporal, valuable or worthless, honoring or dishonoring, wise or foolish, natural or unnatural, amiable or distasteful, enduring or useless and the list could go on and on. Reducing every argument into a sin – not sin debate is a good explanation for shallowness of American Christianity

A couple things about that.

One, I agree that using more descriptive words is important. However, the negative half of each of your pairs here is—when chosen instead of the better half—sin. Two, I’d suggest that on your shallowness point, the opposite is the case. That is, we do not talk about sin enough or characterize our choices in terms of “sin or not sin” enough. It’s fairly comfortable to say “When I did B it was not edifying.” It’s much more disturbing—and still true—to say “When I did B I sinned.” Why? Because “sin” is a God word. It has no meaning apart from Him. So, rightly understood, when we talk about sin vs. not, we are talking about choices that love or fail to love God. The other terms emphasize other qualities less directly related to God. I’m still for using them because they reveal the nature of the sins involved, which is important to correction, reproof and instruction in righteousness.

[Quote=CLeavell]

[Aaron] What I believe is that in some cases the attractions are mainly biological (much as other temptations to overeat, commit indultry in the mind, etc.) and in some cases they aren’t. When a Christian begins to experience this sort of attraction for the first time as a youth (and after he has become a Christian), he doesn’t fit the Romans 1 scenario very well.

Do you have any biblical or extra-biblical proof of this statement? There are many biblical and extra-biblical reasons to reject this, especially when Romans 1 seems to give an alternate source for these attractions. The point you seem to be making in relation to Romans 1 is that it is not necessarily referring to all homosexual attraction especially in the case of a believer struggling with these attractions. The closes thing to biblical proof is evidence that physical attractions can be distinct from our sin nature and yet still be a basis for temptation. This is my argument from the temptation of Jesus, who was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin (ie without a sin nature). So, my argument on that point is that as a bodily appetite, sexual desire can be merely physical (vs. spiritual and physical.. it is always at least physical).

I do not characterize this as “proof,” but I offer it as evidence.

External: I have counseled believers who grew up in Christian homes with godly parents and upright lifestyles who began being tempted by homosexual desires as young teenagers. They did not invite these experiences, did not approve of them when they happened and, indeed, did not understand why they happened (since they were told the Romans 1 route is the only way to “get that way.”)

[CLeavell]

If you examine the details of Romans 1, I find that they are relevant in the lives of professing believers today.

Relevant, certainly. Relevance takes many forms. We see sins in that section of Romans that have forms and parallels in believers’ lives. However, the context is quite clear that he is referring to people who rejected God and chose idolatry (quite literally) instead. And what happened to them was the expression of God’s wrath. It is not possible for a regenerate child of God (redundancy intentional there for emphasis) to reject God and we are completely released from His wrath (1 Thess 5:9). Would God chasten His adopted child by abandoning him to self-degrading desires? Perhaps (though I think not), but Romans 1 is not about that scenario.

• “20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
  
  24 Therefore God…”
  

One last thought on the concept of homosexual attraction being biological. I believe it is always helpful to look back and see what Christians over the last two thousand years have thought on a subject. Even though Christians have dealt extensively with homosexuality (especially in the early church) nowhere can I find anyone that believed that the source of homosexual attraction is primarily biological.

[URL=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.vii.vi.html Here is John Chrysostom [/URL] (c. 347-407) on Romans 1 for an example of early church thinking on the subject.

Roland, I really have no desire to go rounds on the “rationalism card.” I mean no personal attack by saying this, but this is a card you pull out and use when you are faced with an argument you can’t answer. When you choose, you reason from Scripture and about Scripture and use reason to understand what it means. When you don’t like where the use of reason leads in the interpretation of a passage, you label it rationalism and dismiss the argument.

You’re entirely free to do that. We don’t have any rules against it. But if I can, I want to help any who might be confused recognize this for what it is.

The principle of “authorial intent” in the interpretation of Scripture is a bedrock idea in all forms of sound exegesis. It has nothing to do with rationalism any more than reading itself does.

I think an important thing to remember when looking at historical lit. on passages is that, quite often, nobody was asking the question we’re asking now. Consequently, distinctions are missing that today’s questions bring into focus. At the time, nobody cared, so as a matter of application of Scripture to life—it didn’t matter much to anybody. Matters now.

You are judging my motives

That was’t my intention. I probably put my point too broadly. My intention was just to point out that you’ve employed reason in this discussion frequently without hesitation, but then—when I offered an argument that is very difficult to counter—your response was to label the reasoning “rationalism” and dismiss it. The argument was “If James didn’t mean what he said, then why didn’t he say what he meant?” There is no special kind of reasoning here. It’s the same kind we’ve both been using in this entire discussion. So suddenly declaring reasoning out of bounds is not a very strong answer. So I inferred that you do not have a better answer. If you do, I’d be interested in hearing it.

I am concerned about the plain, literal, commonsense meaning of the text, not some reasoned “authorial intent.”

“Authorial intent” is just a way of expressing the principle that words mean things and the meaning is what the writer intended them to mean. In the case of inspired words, the writer also intended what the Spirit intended. (Of course, in the case of recorded statements by God, the writer “intends” to record what God said, whether he understands it or not.)

It’s not speculation, but based on how grammar works. We reason authorial intent whenever we read. “This is a verb… let’s see, who is doing the action? … ah, the subject.” This is reasoning. We usually do it intuitively, but in exegesis, we ask these questions very intentionally. The entire goal is to discern what the writer intended to communicate.

So here’s some “plain, literal, commonsense meaning.”

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, obrings forth death.

Verse 14

- What is “each one” experiencing? Temptation

- How does the temptation proceed?

• a drawing away by desire
• an enticing
  

- Where is the word “sin” in verse 14? Nowhere

Verse 15

- How does the sin occur? Desire gives birth to it.

- What does sin do next? Grows up

- And then? Brings death

Now if words mean anything, James’ intent is not to say that the person being tempted has sinned at some point prior to the birth of sin in v.15. As far the experience of temptation goes, everything before the birth is distinct from the thing born. This is the “plain, literal, common sense meaning.”

Any view that asserts that James meant something quite different—such as “When we’re tempted, we sin by desiring, and then sin more when we sin,” has to explain why he did not say what he meant (i.e., why he detailed this step by step progression if no progression from one thing to another was intended.)

If we abandon authorial intent, exegesis really has no goal and you or I or anybody can just read it and say “I feel that it means ___” and insert whatever we like. The pursuit of authorial intent is not “based on modernist epistemology.” If you can prove that it is, I’d be very interested in seeing that!

[Aaron Blumer] I think an important thing to remember when looking at historical lit. on passages is that, quite often, nobody was asking the question we’re asking now. Consequently, distinctions are missing that today’s questions bring into focus. At the time, nobody cared, so as a matter of application of Scripture to life—it didn’t matter much to anybody. Matters now.

In relation to Romans 1, what questions are we asking now that they were not asking then? Why would those questions matter now but not matter then?

[RP] You’ve read the literature and should know “authorial intent” is often an euphemism for psychologizing and going behind the words to ascertain motives and other things within the author’s mental state….

I don’t recall ever seeing the term used that way.

Some observations on the subject that are typical…

“God’s meaninga and revelatory-intention in any passage of Scripture may be accurately and confidently ascertained only by studying the verbal meanings of the divinely delegated and inspired human writers.” “The Single Intent of Scripture” Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. inThe Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? ed. G. K. Beale. p. 66

[On the book of Judges] On the primacy of the authorial intent in determining meaning see E. D. Hirsch, The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976); id., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967); R. Stein, Playing by the Rules (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994). This approach differs radically from the “reader response” hermeneutic that characterizes many contemporary “metacritical” and feminist readings of Judges, which assume the meaning of a text is never fixed but depends upon the values imposed upon it by the reader. See, e.g., P. Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984)

Block, D. I. (2001). Vol. 6: Judges, Ruth (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Whether preaching thematically, theologically, historically, or biographically, the bottom line is that the Scriptures must be the primary resource and contextual guidelines must be observed. They are the expositor’s chief source of spiritual insight and teaching, the place to which he turns first before studying the many available helps. And once in the Scriptures, the expositor must take great pains to utilize them in a fashion that will reflect the authorial intent.

MacArthur, J. (1997). Rediscovering expository preaching (272). Dallas: Word Pub.

Our fifth and final commitment is the dividing line between the hard-core, committed expositor and the expositor of convenience. This commitment means that we are never welcome to preach a meaning from a text other than the one the author had or that was shown elsewhere in Scripture that referred to that text. We limit ourselves to authorial intent because we believe that words have real meaning.

York, H. W., & Decker, B. (2003). Preaching with Bold Assurance : A Solid and Enduring Approach to Engaging Exposition (28). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Abuse may occur at each stage. We must always check our motives, biases, techniques, and applications. But how do we check them if there are no boundaries to interpretations, no limits, no criteria? This is where authorial intent and textual structure provide me with some criteria for limiting the scope of possible valid interpretations.

Utley, R. J. D. (1998). Vol. Volume 5: The Gospel According to Paul: Romans. Study Guide Commentary Series. Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.

This one is especially important…

While historical-critical biblical interpreters differ from traditional interpreters on the issue of the nature of Scripture, they do hold in common the belief that the goal of interpretation is to understand what the author(s) intended to say. The fact that one can never establish this with certainty does not mean that the goal is not valid and important. In recent years this assumption has been called into question by postmodernists. It is interesting that philosophers as different as Jacques Derrida and W. V. Quine have come to this conclusion. Both Derrida and Quine acknowledge that meaning is a useful pragmatic concept. Yet they, for different reasons, hold that the meaning in semantics or hermeneutics lacks explanatory power. Our common-sense understanding of meaning leads us to give it the kind of reality that physical objects have, but meaning as a kind of entity does not exist.

The implication of this for biblical interpretation is that not only can we not be sure when we have the correct interpretation of a text, but there is no correct interpretation of the text. There is no authorial intent to be wrong or right about.

Brand, C., Draper, C., England, A., Bond, S., Clendenen, E. R., Butler, T. C., & Latta, B. (2003). Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (206). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

I’m sure I have better stuff in my hermeneutics texts, but I don’t have them in electronic form and indexed for quick searching.

[CLeavell]

[Aaron Blumer] I think an important thing to remember when looking at historical lit. on passages is that, quite often, nobody was asking the question we’re asking now. Consequently, distinctions are missing that today’s questions bring into focus. At the time, nobody cared, so as a matter of application of Scripture to life—it didn’t matter much to anybody. Matters now.

In relation to Romans 1, what questions are we asking now that they were not asking then? Why would those questions matter now but not matter then?

Good questions.

What were they not asking? Well a central question related to Kevin’s essay, for one: is it possible to have homosexual desires without having chosen to walk down some depraved path first? Or, another variation, do people have genetic predispositions to one form of sin or another and could these include homosexuality?

(Bear in mind that I absolutely do not believe we have to obey our predispositions. I do believe we all have ‘em, though.)

But even the broader question: “Do we have ‘innocent’ desires that can be leveraged in temptation—‘innocent’ meaning, desires we are not personally responsible for or desires that are distinct from sinful acts?” It has been considered over the years, but it’s not so easy to find. I suspect there might be a gold mine of info on it in the Puritan writings.

But my view is that James is answering that question (in part—his larger question is “Where do temptations come from?”) in the text Roland and I have been going circles on.

Why would it matter now and not matter then? I believe it mattered then, too, but it hadn’t come up. It’s a bit like the history of doctrine. Nobody formulated the details of the Christology we believe in today for a few centuries after Christ because nobody was asking the questions that lead to those formulations. Until guys like Arius said Jesus was human but not divine, etc.

The Fathers are really vague and contradictory on baptism and “eaucharist,” as well. Some of these things, though clear to us in Scripture today, were not clear in the writings of Bible students until the Reformation or later.

So, doctrine does develop and how it develops has alot to do with what’s going on around us and our efforts to apply Scripture to changing circumstances.

(This is also the case with the preservation debate, btw. Many of the ancient and Reformation era writers ignored questions we consider important today. They are important today because some have chosen one translation and declared it to be the preserved Bible. So we have some relatively new questions to answer in bibliology.)

In inspiration, there is no difference between the author’s intended meaning and God’s intended meaning.

But fleeing from “author’s meaning” to “God’s meaning” does not solve the problem for you with respect to James 1. An interpreter sill has to observe the actual words and their relationships to one another and the grammar involved. In other words, he must reason. And if the interpreter is going to assert that the text means something other than what it says, he must explain why “God” said something different from what He meant.

Let me give you an example. Towards the end of Luke and, I believe, Matthew, Jesus is having the last Passover with His disciples. He takes the bread and says “this is My body.” Later, He takes the after-supper cup and says “this is My blood.” The rules of grammar alone would point toward the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation. So those who interpret the passage differently are obligated to explain why Jesus said something other than what He meant. Answers come in many forms, but Stallard’s article on the front page today does a good job.

My quick and simple would be

a) Jesus said “I am [something] ” many times. Metaphorical language was common for Him.

b) On the occasion of the Passover, His disciples knew that He was not speaking literally

c) He put the way He did because the message is more poignant and memorable (and remembering is clearly heavy on His mind in the context)

Anyway, if Jesus’ intent is not the goal, there is absolutely nothing for an interpreter to do with that text. Might as well say “Jesus was talking about World Cup soccer.”

I briefly alluded that part of things in an earlier post, though I can’t find it now. A prophet who is relating a vision or statement from God intends to communicate what God said or showed him. He does not have to understand it all.

But James 1:14-15 is not prophecy, so it isn’t really relevant, anyway.

Let’s suppose for sake of argument that authorial intent does not exhaust the meaning of even non-prophetic texts. The texts still must convey at least the author’s intended meaning and the author’s meaning is not contrary to God’s meaning.

But even if I grant for the sake of argument that James was some kind of pen-wielding shell with a blank mind when he wrote James 1:14-15, questions remain that are a problem for what you’ve been asserting:

1) How do we determine what God meant in a text? Does it have anything to do with the words and the grammar?

2) If God did not mean what He inspired in James 1:14-15, why didn’t He say what He meant?

3) Or, to put it another way, how does your alternative view of the passage make sense of the actual wording?