Biological Exuberance: The Unnatural Nature

1. What is the popular definition of "natural"?
2. What is your definition of "natural"?
3. What sense of right behavior does that definition imply?

1. Biblical Passages
   • Rom. 1:26-27
     For this God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another...
   • Rom 2:14 (do instinctively)
   • 1 Cor 11:14
     Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him.
   • Gal 2:15 (by birth); 4:8 ("enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods.")
   • Eph 2:3
     All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, Like everyone else.
   • 2 Pe 1:4; 2:12 (divine nature; like irrational animals)
   • Rom 11:21,24 (natural branches; what is by nature)
2. "Physics" in the NT and ancient Greece: Context. Context. Context.
   • linguistic context (Thayer and Liddell & Scott)
     • kata physin = "according to nature"
     • physis (nature)
       1. the nature of things, the force, laws, order, of nature; opp. of monstrous, abnormal, perverse or opp. of what is produced by the art of humans or contrary to the plan of nature
          nature, i.e., natural sense, conviction or knowledge as opp. to what is learned
       2. birth, physical origin
       3. a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature
       4. the sum of innate properties and powers by which one person differs from others, such as natural strength
       5. form, stature
       6. one's nature, natural bend, powers, character; also instinct
       7. nature, universe
       8. creatures, animals
       9. kind, sort, species
       10. sex (i.e., gender)
     • physikos (natural):
       1. produced by nature, inborn
       2. equivalent to nature
       3. governed by (the instincts of) nature
   • historical context
     • pre-scientific; therefore, "Nature" does not have a systematic sense as it does with us
     • contending with a plethora of pagan beliefs (see below)
     • most "science" was pagan Greek
   • socal context: Greek attitudes towards nature
     • one pagan view: Nature is impure and bestial; therefore homosexuality more pure, since does not occur in nature.
     • Paul influenced by Philo (thanx to Russ for this material)
       • The view of homosexuality in first century Jewish minds is revealed by Philo's discussion of the men of Sodom:
         Incapable of bearing such satiety, plunging like cattle, they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied themselves to deep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding and forbidden forms of intercourse. Not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbours, but also men mounted males without respect for the sex nature which the active partner shares with the passive; and so when they tried to beget children they were discovered to be incapable of any but a sterile seed. (On Abraham 135)
       • What is important in this attitude is the progression from excess of wealth to heterosexual promiscuity and adultery and then to homosexual sex.
       • According to Philo, men became homosexual when their sexual appetites could no longer be satisfied by women and they needed more bizarre, erotic stimulation.
       • In another place he writes:
         For where does the wicked man find a season for true rejoicing? He whose every plan is for evil, whose life-mate is folly, with whom everything, tongue, belly and organs of generation, is against what is seasonable . He not only attacks in his fury the marriage-beds of others, but even plays the pederast and forces the male type of nature to debase and convert itself into the feminine form, just to indulge a polluted and accursed passion. (The Special Laws, II 49-50)
       • Paul is, in fact, not writing a treatise on gay sex but on idolatry.
       • "Natural" then is what Paul perceived as right -- not that "natural" defined what is right.
3. Biological Exuberance and Diversity
   • What is "natural" today?
     • Strong overtones of "Nature"
     • But not much from the biblical sense
   • Humanistic Animals, Animalistic Humans: Bagemihl
     • diversity of sexual behaviour
       • same-sex mating
       • female pairs raise young together
       • bisexual
       • transgender: poly gender; sex changing
       • homsexuality occurs >450 species all over the world
       • Nature is NOT exclusively heterosexual
     • nearly all homosexual behaviour in humans is found in animals
     • except animals usually integrate homosexuals into their society
     • Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality
   • Biodiversity and biological exuberance (Nat'l Geo)
     • Nature is diverse
     • God wants it to be diverse
     • Experimental
     • Evolving
4. Moral Nature?
   • Is nature a measure of the moral? Bagemihl, pp76ff
     • occurs in animals = natural = acceptable in humans
     • believe that homosexuality does not occur in animals, then it is unnatural (and contrary to God) [Romantic View]
     • Ergo, if homosexuality does occur in animals, its natural and not contrary to God. NO!
     • Flaws in using "occuring in nature" as a measure:
       • dressing, cooking, making laws, etc are therefore unnatural
       • and cannabolism, polygomy, infanticide, siblicide are natural
     • When animals do what we like, we call it natural
     • When animals do what we don't like, it is animalistic
     • simultaneously natural and animalistic
   • considerations
     • nature and nurture
     • free will
     • divine aim
     • interrelationship
   • the sin of the natural:
     • natural right

References

1. Bagemihl, Bruce; Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity; St. Martin's Press. New York ©1999.
2. Biodiversity: The Fragile Web; National Geographic; Vol 195, No 2; February 1999.
3. Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the NT