Is God unfair?

Often these days the biblical God is said to be unfair.

I say the “biblical” God because that God–and I would say He is the only true God, the God of Israel to whom gentiles are invited–says sex is only for heterosexual marriage.

Recently an old friend suggested that this God is unfair by saying that it is “cruel” to say that people with same-sex desire cannot engage in same-sex sexual relations with one another.

My old friend gave voice to a view that is increasingly common in Western culture and is universal among liberal Christians.  This has put orthodox Christians on the defensive, and made many wonder how they can defend the faith against what they sense is untrue but cannot quite find the reasons and words to respond.

Two helpful points today.  First, we should  remember, as Mark Galli reminds us, that two billion Christians still hold steadfastly to the biblical God and His moral theology of marriage and sexuality.  It is the liberal Western elite and their confused devotees who are the real outliers.

Second, there is a new little book that is a wonderful resource in these confusing and difficult times.  It is a work of catechesis (“church teaching”) that has been produced by the Philadelphia archdiocese of the Catholic Church: Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive. 

Its remarkable clarity and insight go a long way to address the canard that the God of orthodoxy is unfair.

Here are some of the jewels contained therein.

1. The Bible is all about love, and its central metaphor for God’s love is marriage.  God is married to Israel in the Old Testament, and Jesus is married to the Church in the New Testament. (chap. 2)

2. The Bible is not sentimental about love or marriage.  Neither is based on feelings; both can be rocky. Both the Father in His love for Israel and Jesus in His love for the Church keep on loving despite the sins and unfaithfulness of Israel and the Church. (chap 2)

3. Our bodies are not simply “shells” or “raw material” for our souls, or “sensory machines for the brain.”  Instead, “body and spirit are profoundly integrated . . . the body is the temple of the soul.”  So what the body does always is what the soul does.  Sexual acts can never be divorced from the life of the soul. (chap 3)

4. The “two sexes literally enflesh God’s design for human interdependence, community, and openness to new life.”  So the very existence of two different sexes is a sign that point to the facts that a) ultimate reality is a community, b) we are dependent on one another and on God, and c) we are to welcome babies. (chap 3)

5. Sexual difference marks all our relationships, even for the unmarried, since we enter life as a son or daughter, and we are called to be a brother or sister not only to those in our families but also to the needy in our neighborhoods.  Being a son is different from being a daughter, and being a brother is different from being a sister.  We are also called to be a spiritual mother or father to others.  Being a spiritual mother is different from being a spiritual father.  All of these callings are different ways in which sexual difference is important even for the single and unmarried. (chap 3)

6. “Sexual desire shows that we are never self-sufficient . . . sexual intimacy is always in some sense conjugal [points to marriage] because it creates a deep human bond, no matter how unintended.”  (chap 3)

7. Celibacy and marriage are two different callings from God that both do justice to the summons to be male and female in God’s plan.  Both “abstain from sexual acts that use others in conditional or temporary ways.”  Both “offer their sexuality to the community, to the creation of a society which is not premised on concupiscence and exploitation.”  Both impose discipline on their love to reveal the true meaning of love created in the image of God. Both are called to the virtue of chastity.  (chap 3)

So how does all this answer the complaint that orthodox Christianity is unfair in limiting full sexual expression to heterosexual married folks?

By pointing out that both married and unmarried are called to self-discipline and chastity, and by showing that both married and unmarried are called to love in ways that express their creation as male and female.

And by implying that the way of self-giving love is far more fulfilling than sexual expression itself.  Which is why millions of chaste and single Christians throughout history have been happier than the millions who have plunged into sex but remained miserable. Life without sex is not a fate worse than death.