What Exactly Is Sinful About Homosexuality?

[Nate13]

To the OP,
Hey I know you weren’t interested in the Bible verses but to answer you question about who pronounced homosexuality to be “unnatural” I suggest this quote from Romans…

Romans 1:26-27
New International Version (NIV)
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

However this biblical verse still leaves the question as to how did they know what was natural and unnatural? I would suggest that it had to do with recognizing that they were designed by God, created in his image, and woman was created to compliment man. Another name for this recognition is natural law, which basically says every part of you is there for a reason and was designed. By understanding the purposes of our bodies and our faculties we can come to know God’s purposes and will. If you think about it, it makes complete sense that God would do this. It would make it so regardless of whether writing exists or language exists we would be capable of knowing much of how to live just by acknowledging how we were made. It also explains a lot of God judgements on his people before they were even given the law, because they were doing things that they should have known were wrong just by the nature of how they were made. It also explains how God could hold pagan peoples responsible for their actions even though the grace of his Word may have never reached them. Those people’s were ignoring the purposes for which they were made.

 

[Elizabeth502]

However, the words “disordered” when used in the context of “homosexuality” are more dark words than when they are applied to other “disordered” inclinations such as greed, jealousy, theft, etc. There is a deeper level of accusation thrown by the word “disordered” when in the context of talking about homosexuality than say for example our inclination to obsess or addiction to power, money, etc.

Amen, brother!

I’m going to disagree with both of you here. Consider, Melinda, your excellent (while personal) interpretation of Church teaching, such as you espoused here in post #20:

Hey I would say that a sin, in essence, is an effacement of the image and likeness of God within the human person. Our fundamental human vocation is to manifest this image to one another and to the world. Sin, …[is] actually just the word for an action which is not good for the person because it leads him away from, rather than towards, union with God. From this, I think that the sinfulness of same-sex sex follows as a fairly straightforward conclusion.

(underlining mine)

But it’s not just the aspect of intention (procreation). Remember that Natural Law (yes, I know, you don’t care for that phrase ) is called ‘natural’ because it’s instinctive to the human person, and most especially when that person has an unclouded view of Self, sexuality, personhood, because of accurate education and a lack of emotional obstacles to that accurate information, and freedom from significant temptations & circumstances away from it.

Fr. Mark Mary said on an episode of Life on the Rock (not, I believe on episodes in which you were the guest, but on another one which dealt somehow with sexuality, if briefly) – that sexual activity (I’m paraphrasing) carries with it a deeply personal quality that is more profound than other categories of behavior (avarice, etc.) He said (I believe, correctly) that it is this psychological aspect of sexual experience that attaches to it greater shame (when violated), and thus greater difficulty confessing.

Both men and women who are not particularly culturally “conditioned” to view homosexual behavior with horror nevertheless are capable of instinctively recoiling at the notion. Not those raised to believe that “gays are going to burn in Hell” type of mentality, but those raised in what we would call ‘liberal’ or open-minded households. I agree with Fr. Mary: it’s deeply personal (instinctive).

 

[Elizabeth502]

Sorry about that slip ( ^ ). I meant Fr. Mark Mary the second time, too. Usually he just goes by Fr. Mark.

 

[TarkanAttila]

I once made a video on the subject. Essentially homosexuality is not a sin in and of itself. It is when it is acted on that it becomes sinful. But it is not a unique sin. Sodomy is just a fancy flavour of the sin of fornication. That’s all. It’s just fornication. Same, old, selfish sin, just with someone of your sex.

 

[twoangels]

a) what is sin?

The word sin comes from an archery term which means “to miss the mark.” We are aiming at something and we miss it. In this manner we are aiming at holiness. Of course, holiness can be seen as an ambigious term as well. I think this part of the discussion could get really long, so let’s try another route.

Sin is a moral evil. First let’s define evil. Evil implies a deficiency in perfection.
from new advent

According to the nature of the perfection which it limits, evil is metaphysical, physical, or moral. Metaphysical evil is not evil properly so called; it is but the negation of a greater good, or the limitation of finite beings by other finite beings. Physical evil deprives the subject affected by it of some natural good, and is adverse to the well-being of the subject, as pain and suffering. Moral evil is found only in intelligent beings; it deprives them of some moral good.

newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

The moral aspect deals with reason and God’s Divine Law. Now, part of what Christ said is that He would write His law on the hearts of humanity. He does not want us to merely arbitarily follows rules. He wants to conform our hearts to His Divine Plan.

This I believe deals with the issue of concupiscence. We all have a fallen nature. Our natural urges are good, but have all been disordered away from God’s original intent. As such, we tend to be attracted to eating in unhealthy manners. While sex should bring husband and wife closer together in loving communion supporting their family, our sexual urges tend to lead us toward things that break the family apart and even negate the value of the human person. …etc etc. All of the seven deadly sins basically relate to 7 drives a human person has. The deadly sins are the drives in their disordered sense. The 7 opposing virtues are the drives in their purified sense. Hense chastity is not a lack of sexual feeling, but our sexual drives purified.

Granted make no mistake, in this world we strive to virtue. We tend to struggle against our vices and grow in virtue. However at the point that we can truly call ourselves virtueous is the point where we can call ourselves saints.

b) how does homosexuality meet those definitions of sin

Homosexual feelings is one of the many effects of concupscience on our sexual urges. The drives are out of order motivating the value of certain aspects of the sexual urge while negating the others. Its like if a plant were growing roots, but the plant holder had a bunch of stuff in it that cause some of the roots to twist and turn in funny ways so that some of the roots pointed up out of the ground and hindered the growth of the tree in one way or another. Perhaps the tree is still getting some nourishment and the tree can even be found useful for wood and what not. But it ultimately is not a part of God’s design.

and c) how disordered is homosexuality?

What is shares with heterosexual lust

1. It values human sexual love/ romantic love over love of God. Frequently heterosexuals put God below even their marital relationships. They turn romantic love into an idol, and often this leads to disappointment and temptations for infidelity.
2. It devalues the procreative purpose of human sexuality by so doing treats human beings as commodities, not as gifts. Children start existing merely because people want them, not because God gave them to us.

How it is unquely disordered

1. It negates the beauty of true sexual diversity: that is the reality that we are male and female. Male and female is reduced to mere physical characteristics. The sexes are neutered of their differences and the beauty of their complimentarity. Suddenly complimentarity doesn’t matter. There is no union of the sexes bringing that divide between men and women together and calling us to contemplate what it means to be male or female. Instead sexuality is reduced to the urge to engage in erotic behaviors. I mean, sex refers to whether or not you’re male or female. The sexual union is that specific unique act that occurs between the sexes. Now we simply call that act sex and because of homosexuality, we reduce “sex” to erotic behaviors. The entire meaning is lost.

However, I’d say in regards to the homosexual issues, the hardest part of the message to embrace is getting people to reject the idoltry of romantic love. Heterosexuals can live for a long time not even realizing they’re worshiping an idol, because in english “love” is a very ambigious term.

 

[Melinda_Selmys]

But it’s not just the aspect of intention (procreation). Remember that Natural Law (yes, I know, you don’t care for that phrase ) is called ‘natural’ because it’s instinctive to the human person, and most especially when that person has an unclouded view of Self, sexuality, personhood, because of accurate education and a lack of emotional obstacles to that accurate information, and freedom from significant temptations & circumstances away from it.

Fr. Mark Mary said on an episode of Life on the Rock (not, I believe on episodes in which you were the guest, but on another one which dealt somehow with sexuality, if briefly) – that sexual activity (I’m paraphrasing) carries with it a deeply personal quality that is more profound than other categories of behavior (avarice, etc.) He said (I believe, correctly) that it is this psychological aspect of sexual experience that attaches to it greater shame (when violated), and thus greater difficulty confessing.

Both men and women who are not particularly culturally “conditioned” to view homosexual behavior with horror nevertheless are capable of instinctively recoiling at the notion. Not those raised to believe that “gays are going to burn in Hell” type of mentality, but those raised in what we would call ‘liberal’ or open-minded households. I agree with Fr. Mary: it’s deeply personal (instinctive).

Elizabeth,

There is definitely a sense in which sexual sin strikes at a deeper part of the human person than a behaviour like avarice, and that’s definitely worth taking into account when you’re thinking about shame. It’s certainly true that people have more trouble confessing sexual sins – part of that is just because of the private nature of the sexual act, and part of it is because these sins often have a deeply compulsive element that people are ashamed of. It’s one thing to walk into the confessional and say “I cheated on my taxes,” it’s another to go in and try to confess to something that’s deeply personal, that you did without quite entirely meaning to do it, that felt really beautiful at the time, that seemed like an expression of genuine love, or that you did because you’re suffering from a deeply humiliating addiction. There’s also the fear of judgment: people are often sickened by other people’s sexual sins in a way that they’re just not sickened by things like drunkenness or vandalism. That said, I know that any category of sin can become profoundly shameful if it has a compulsive element: kleptomaniacs feel very differently about confessing to a theft than people who do it voluntarily.
On the other hand, sexual sins do not do the most damage in terms of effacing the image of god in the human person. Any reading of Scripture makes it obvious that the worst effacement of the imago dei occurs through the sin of pride, when one makes of oneself an idol. One of the consequences of this is that as soon as anyone plays the “your sin is worse than mine” game, they’re more or less immediately committing a sin that’s worse than whatever sin they wanted to judge.

 

[Leegal]

Before jumping to conclusion on my question and before getting into “because the Bible tells me so” arguement, or “its always been a sin according to the teaching of the church” arguement. I want people to focus on a) what is sin? b) how does homosexuality meet those definitions of sin and c) how disordered is homosexuality?

In Catholic circles, I think we always try to walk that fine line between “homosexuality as a sin” and the “dignity of the human person” and we try to read these two paradigms in context of each other…we “love the sinner but hate the sin” or “we try to understand moral questions on how to relate to gay people within the context of Jesus’ stronger message of love:”

What I want to ask is “what exactly is sinful about homosexuality”? I ask you to stay away from the classical arguements on the side of homophobia or “its a sin” and you will rot in hell arguements…what is in the nature of homosexuality that separates us from God?

What is the full teaching of the church…not the positioning of right versus left on this issue?

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster

The Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation (not a sin) and the acts (sin).

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

If heterosexuals are prohibited against pre-marital relations, it would be no different for homosexuals. Without a consecrated marriage, the sin is in the physical act. Further, the physical act of homosexuality is “disordered” – the person is not. We must be careful not to judge. What separates us from God is not the orientation, but what you choose to do that can be outside of God’s law.

“The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.” (quoted from the link).

We are more than our sexual orientation, but if one chooses to act on the orientation outside of Church’s teaching, it is sin – as it would be for heterosexual couples outside of a sacramental marriage.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I know that any category of sin can become profoundly shameful if it has a compulsive element: kleptomaniacs feel very differently about confessing to a theft than people who do it voluntarily.
On the other hand, sexual sins do not do the most damage in terms of effacing the image of god in the human person. Any reading of Scripture makes it obvious that the worst effacement of the imago dei occurs through the sin of pride, when one makes of oneself an idol.

Except that in Catholic and even other Christian spirituality, it’s not so simple to make categorical statements like ‘pride is the worst sin.’ Pride is probably the most universal tendency when it comes to personal corruption, given the nature of humanity. We don’t generally confess “pride” as an individual sin occasion, so much as the underlying reason for commiting indvidual sins. However, any thing (such as an object, an actiivty), any person (such as Self) can become an idol. There are 7 Capital Sins (or Vices, root motivators), of which pride is only one. It depends on the person, the level of attachment (or informally, “addiction”) that person has to any of those capital sins, as well as the combination of any of those 7 vices, and their possible acceleration within any given person. It depends on how fundamentally that sinner’s very personality has become intertwined with the vice, so that the two have become virtually inseparable (without radical grace and extended transformation).

The capital sins are very much misunderstood by most lay people who have not done considerable study of them An intense attachment to any particular capital sin can snowball to the point where it consumes the person. Thus, lust, properly understood, is not just a consuming interest in sexual (genital) activity; rather, it describes a state of mind, heart, and soul which often leads to murder: murder of the object of lust and/or murder of the competitor for that object. (This was also discussed fairly recently on either Women of Grace or The Abundant Life.) Lust can combine with the capital sin of Anger, just as pride can combine with it. And lust is equally capable of developing in both the homosexual and the heterosexual.

Doctrinally, there is no hierarchy when it comes to the Capital Sins (pride being one of those 7 capital sins). That was not my meaning in my previous post. Rather, I was distinguishing between misuse (such as fornication) of a proper (ordered) sexual faculty and a violation of that very faculty. The Church does not call homosexual activity disordered only because it is closed to procreation (which is what you tend to emphasize) but also because it violates the nature of the human person by directly opposing the complementarity of male and female.

And the ‘instinctive’ nature of response to the situation is something that I have touched upon on a couple of other occasions on this forum: that has to do with the violation of natural boundaries. For example, long before pedophilia became such a national news sensation (and I am not speaking about Church cases here, but rather epidemics of kidnapping, trafficking, and the general public awareness of that, including educating children in how to recognize ‘bad touches’), healthy, non-exploited children have always recoiled at such invasions of their persons; it’s instinctive, not social or intellectual. And homosexual adult relationships also violate natural boundaries: the integrity of non-erotic friendship between two members of the same sex. Fornication and adultery do not do that, even though they are also gravely sinful.

Again, I’m speaking of legitimate instinctive reactions. I am not making comparative judgements about the state of souls of strangers (be they of whatever orientation).

 

[Mudgely]

And homosexual adult relationships also violate natural boundaries: the integrity of non-erotic friendship between two members of the same sex. Fornication and adultery do not do that, even though they are also gravely sinful.

Absolute balderdash wrapped in psuedo-intellectuality. Elizabeth, you need to come clean about your fascination with homosexuality, and why you make such spurious and ill-founded statements. Are you a lesbian?

 

[Leegal]

Absolute balderdash wrapped in psuedo-intellectuality. Elizabeth, you need to come clean about your fascination with homosexuality, and why you make such spurious and ill-founded statements. Are you a lesbian?

While E’s statement was confusing, your response was disrepecful and unnecessary. It is also a violation of the terms of service for you to make an accusation, or ask such a question of another member.