Grace & Peace!
Again -
Can one act according to disordered inclinations or attractions? And it be “ordered”? Does order come from disorder?
I am not just meaning the big unchaste acts that get pointed to. I am meaning other lesser acts than those- which still come from and are acting according to a disordered attraction.
For a guy to engage in “kissing” in a romantic way another guy–* is to act according to that disordered attraction is it not? *
(ordered attraction is male for female and the other way around)
Any attraction that is ordered is an attraction ordered to a specific and good object. An attraction to a man or to a woman is quite orderly as both men and women are goods. An attraction to an immoral act, however, is an attraction which has as it’s object something immoral–it is therefore an objectively disordered attraction.
In what way does that not make sense?
Here’s the difficulty we run into, though, when we try to say that being attracted to a person (as opposed to a genital act) of the same sex is objectively disordered: we imply that a man is a good object for a woman and vice versa, but a man is an immoral object for another man, a woman an immoral object for another woman. How is that a difficulty? Well, for one, it suggests that what is moral is at least in part
relative to biological sex–what is moral for me as a man to be attracted to is (or can be) immoral for a woman. This implies that there is a separate morality for men and women.
Now, it may be true that men and woman have different roles to play in life and can assume various responsibilities with greater or lesser ease by virtue of being a man or woman. But when we start to believe that there are separate moralities for men and women, then morality is, in fact, relativized. Such a relativization suggests at its core that there is not one human nature, but two: a male and a female, and what is moral for one (i.e., a man’s attraction to a woman) is immoral to the other (i.e., a woman’s attraction to a woman). That’s very problematic if we actually want to talk about morality as if it were all of a piece.
But it’s even more problematic in terms of things like soteriology, because the consequence of affirming that there are two human natures (as opposed to two biological expressions of one nature) is to say that Jesus, as a man, cannot be a woman’s savior. Because what is not assumed is not saved, as the Fathers have told us, if Jesus did not assume a female human nature, then the female human nature is not saved. That’s obviously absurd, however. So there must be a problem with thinking that men and woman have two different human natures, two different moralities relative to their natures as male or female.
We must affirm, then: given that men and women are goods in themselves, that their goodness is intrinsic and completely independent of the biological sex of an observer, an attraction to either (again, regardless of one’s own biological sex) is ordered to a good object.
So much of the back and forth here seems to me to be about sensibilities or socio-political values and not so much about Catholicism or morality. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that what’s at stake here is how our understanding of ourselves as moral or good people is construed or constructed. For instance, it is clear to me that some folks have a personal stake in a vision of same-sex attracted people that is characterized by an overwhelming negativity. It’s important for these folks that homosexuals occupy a very particular niche in the moral universe–they must be willing and happy to be moral scapegoats. For whatever reason, for these folks it’s important that homosexuals must come to the conclusion that their moral life begins when they adopt a vision of themselves which sees their capacities to give and receive love as fundamentally broken and therefore worthless. Any perception of any value in those capacities, any good feeling that might come from them, any sense of positive worth in them must be seen as completely untrustworthy. They must adopt this vision of themselves because somehow it is perceived as being for their own good. In fact, however, I would argue that this vision informs the personal sense of “goodness” of those who support it, and not the good of those on whom it is thrust.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
) forward here and do not in any way mean any offense in so doing.