Grace & Peace!
Biggie, I’ve been wanting to respond substantially to your last (and very gracious) post to me, but finding the time has been difficult. In the meantime, I wanted to address the thought above.
I think the danger of associating homosexuality with pedophilia is in the confusion that it creates between a potential site of good and a site of known evil. In other words, you are basically saying: Because homosexual desire (like heterosexual desire) is capable of poor expression or evil use, it (unlike heterosexual desire) is therefore analogous to every evil use to which it can be put.
That’s a ludicrous thing to say. It’s like saying heterosexual desire is analogous to the desire to serially rape people.
The point is, it is possible for homosexuality and heterosexuality to fall victim to some sort of pathology. But to identify the orientation with the pathology would be analogous to killing the patient to destroy his disease. In other words, identifying an orientation with a pathology to which it can become prey is an instance of injustice, plain and simple, because it represents intellectual complicity in the degradation of a good or a potential good.
Even if pedophilia is shown to have a foundation in some sort of natural biological circumstance, as we know heterosexuality is and as we are discovering homosexuality to be, a couple things would need to be demonstrated: 1–Is it possible for two pedophiles to be in relationship? It is taken for granted that an honest, non-predatory homosexual relationship or heterosexual relationship occurs between people who share the same sexual orientation. Is it possible for an adult pedophile to be in relationship with a child pedophile? (Seems a bit ludicrous to me, but…)
2–if it is possible, is such a relationship capable of producing the fruits of the spirit as heterosexual and homosexual relationships have?
Even if pedophilia is biological in the same way heterosexuality is, for instance, it still has a long way to go to show that it can be expressed in a morally positive way. Evidence seems to suggest, however, that unlike homosexuality or heterosexuality, pedophilia is a pathological condition occurring within the expression of either homosexuality or heterosexuality.
The idea that you suggest–that homosexuality is chosen, as is pedophilia–would again reduce homosexuality to a heterosexual pathology or a subset of heterosexual desire. I do not believe this idea is anywhere part of church teaching, nor is it a part of our current understanding of human sexuality. (Also, I’ve addressed why this position is untenable in previous posts.)
Finally, simply because homosexuality is likely to have a biological origin does not make homosexual expression any more compulsive than heterosexual expression. (What it requires is a moral understanding of homosexuality which helps homosexuals flourish with their sexuality, not in spite of it.) In both cases, expression is not necessarily compulsion. The presence of compulsion (heterosexual or homosexual) is more than likely revelatory of a problem than it is revelatory of a healthy sexuality. But neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality are indicative of fundamentally compulsive behaviors. Your remarks make me wonder: are you reading statements like, “I can’t help it if I’m gay,” as “I can’t help having sex in deviant ways?” If you are, I think you’re misreading something, as well as missing an important point.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
Hey, Mark. Yes, you’re right, this is real work.
In response, as you may have guessed, I do not personally find any relationship between pedophilia and homosexuality or heterosexuality, for that matter, other than the fact that sexuality is the instrument considered. I do, however, believe that the posture of the current homosexual argument includes logic that inevitably leads to the comparison. It is, in the final analysis, the logic that I continue to struggle with.
Within the context of the assertion that homosexuality is genetically selected is the logic that other sexual preferences (and beyond, other behaviors in general) are genetically selected, a possibility you allowed for in your response as to Pedophilia. Neither I, nor apparently you, believe the science is there yet if it ever will be to fully assert that genetics accounts for sexuality. We are therefore left with scant knowledge, anecdotal accounts and the logic of argument. Logically, if you are staking everything on the belief that the specific behavior of the homosexual has been selected for him, you have no basis to conversely say that the specific behavior of the pedophile or any other behavior has not been genetically selected.
If it were somehow able to be shown that behavior is genetically determined, there would no longer be a basis for punishment or guilt, no longer a need for redemption, but also no basis for freedom, justice, love. It is, in the final analysis, dehumanizing.
Perhaps it is a question of what part of the homosexual or heterosexual behavioral complex is inherited, but that limitation does not prove satisfactory in the light of appeals similar to those of our friend Fits in this thread. I.E., I would not doubt that something in the same / opposite sex attraction is selected; if you would insist all of the attraction is selected, I might doubt it but accept the statement out of courtesy. But that would still leave the act that follows from the attraction, which I would assert is within the control of the actor, whether to perform it or not, which Fits is appealing that he wouldn’t have chosen if he could choose. So you and I may agree that the compulsion to perform the act doesn’t exist, but that appears to be insufficient to satifsy the expectations of the homosexual argument.
As the ability to chose or reject the act exists, so to does responsibilty for the act exist, and culpability if you accept the act as evil. And as I indicated earlier, I accept culpability exists in concupiscence, not simply in homosexual conduct. Even at the beginning, for example, the faithful heterosexual holds himself culpable for impure thoughts on which he dwells.
That, I suspect, is the rub. The desire to be viewed as a class, among other motives, not the least of which is guilt, propels the argument that like skin color or ethnicity, homosexuality as a complex of emotions and behaviors is selected. If the behavior can be avoided, then the notion of class as well as innocence vanishes.
You, yourself, first reject the idea that homosexuality is chosen asserting that such a condition would make it a subset of heterosexuality. You later, however, deny that it is compulsion. I would clarify by saying that choice makes it a subset of concupiscence, even as hetersexuality is except within a specific context.
So the question might remain if one can avoid homosexual behavior given homosexual desire, why should one? Here you freely switch from condition to effect to demonstrate the difference between behaviors, using as your standard the subjective measure of “flourishing”. Something becomes good if it can be expressed in a “morally positive” way. I could not agree that something becomes good because of its effect. Weeds flourish, though undesireable, and experience teaches that evil does not necessarily fail nor does good necessarily succeed.
We had a disconnect in a prior post over this, with my assertion that something can be a good even if all visible evidence is to the contrary. It would follow also that something can be an evil, even if all visible evidence is to the contrary. Humility and self sacrifice may lead to a base life of poverty. Selfishness and pride may lead to success and wealth.
Goodness does not follow from effect.
