Hi Robert-I,

A certain amount of your viewpoint rests on the premise that you're a simple fellow and God is too responsible to the average guy and gal to make conditions that would challenge them.

To clarify, I consider myself "simple" in the "uncomplicated" sense, rather than the "mentally deficient" sense :-)

I wouldn't say that God doesn't challenge us (by making us deal with complicated scenarios). It's more that I see in the world around me, and in God, and in the way He works in my life, an inherent elegance and simplicity. It seems strange to talk about God and His ways like this, but that's how I see it, and I tend to frame my thinking in similar terms. It might help to consider music. People have very different tastes in music, I know, but for me, the most sublime pieces of music often have at their core a very simple musical idea. There is beauty in simplicity! And I feel that idea is, in essence, at the core of God's operation in this world and in our lives. Jesus dying on the cross for our salvation -- while in one sense completely radical and unthinkable -- is also probably the most simple, elegant, solution to the problem of sin that could ever be conceived.

One thing I'll say about God and our understanding of things is that, at least when it comes to nature, things often seem to be almost understandable at a certain level, but then when we get to a deeper level, they become rather strange looking.

I agree. There are different levels at which one can look at an issue, and the more one "drills down", the more potentially complex the issue becomes. But, at the highest level -- when it comes to issues of morality and interpreting Biblical truth -- I believe God can enable people, who are open to the Spirit but are not necessarily "smart", to make correct decisions and interpretations without getting mired in all the messy details. That's not because the underlying issues are not complex, but because complexity, when part of a good, cohesive design, will tend to blend seamlessly into "the big picture" (which will often tend to have, at its core, a very simple, elegant design or idea).

Consider, for a moment, a really good piece of computer software. [Probably something NOT produced by Microsoft.] A good user interface may be incredible complex under the hood, but it will be relatively simple to understand and operate. If a menu option says "Save", one would expect it to save a document. One would NOT expect it to increase the document font size and change the background color to blue. That would be crazy. Similarly, one would NOT expect to have to dig into the programming code to determine what a particular menu option does; if it’s not relatively self-evident, that would be an indicator of poor design.

In a similar way, when talking about morality and other "God things" -- since I believe that He is the designer, and I believe He is a GOOD designer -- I naturally expect His designs to be cohesive. I expect the high-level design to be simple and elegant. And, if at the low level there is great complexity, I still expect that complexity to cohesively serve a basic core purpose (at the high level). What I'm trying to get at is, that the high level informs the low level, and the low level informs the high level. If the two are not consistent, there is a problem. If it is NECESSARY to understand the low-level, mind-numbing detail to understand the big picture -- or if the low-level details paint a DIFFERENT picture from the high level -- something is wrong.

One more comment in summary: I think we need to be very careful to not get lost in the details and miss the "forest for the trees".

I hope the above makes sense. I'm trying to explain how I think, and that's not an easy thing to do :-) [In reading this over again as I review it, I realize it's pretty rambling. Sorry.]

I don't think that divinely blessed loving gay relationships are more difficult to understand than the scanning-tunnelling microscope.

Well that's a relief! :-)

Now, if you're a creationist, then you needn't think about all this: you can just say Adam and Eve were created as they were and everyone who doesn't have sex as they did is a sinner. If you're an intelligent-design person (Bio-Calvinist, one could say), then you can say that God pre-conceived and set in motion the exact evolution of human heterosexuality so that it could be perfect and all the other sexualities that were created as a part of the human evolutionary process could be its incidental errors, akin to malformed limbs and congenital blindness. But if, like me, you believe that God truly created the worlds in a degree of freedom (which connects to why bad things can happen to good people, another essay topic), then heterosexuality emerges as a pure artifact of evolution, no more sacred in its own right than wisdom teeth.

I tend to be some mix of all of the above. I believe that God designed the world we see around us. I believe He designed the male and female genders, and He chose that the two would be attracted to one another and reproduce. But, how He cause that to come about, I leave in His hands. I don't know if He used traditional creation, traditional evolution, or some mix of the two. What I do believe is that God is responsible for the design at the "macro" level. [I would include here that heterosexuality is the only "designed" sexual identity for human beings.] At the "micro" level, I see there being a lot more freedom for change, variation, ... and error. As with your description of Bio-Calvinists, I would see other sexualities as incidental errors introduced into the process. I don't consider myself a Calvinist, though, in that I don't believe that all things are pre-ordained to happen the way they do. I see God taking a "hands off" approach in many situations, and rather than controlling everything that happens, He seems rather to use whatever situations occur to mold and shape us into His image. [In that sense, I have no problem with the idea that bad things can happen to good people -- God did not pre-ordain each and every event, good or bad.]

Why sexuality evolved is an ongoing scientific question, since asexual reproduction is more efficient, but the consensus at the moment seems to be that it helps to "drown out" bad mutations and, by making everyone genetically different, tends to outmaneuver the evolution of parasites.

We clearly have a very different view on this. How such a major aspect of who we are as human beings -- our reproductive system; and even more than that, love and intimate relationships -- can be nothing more than some evolutionary construct, is beyond me. You seem to think we might just as easily have developed as asexual beings. Where is God in all of this? Do you not believe that He made any decisions in who we are as human beings? Did He leave it entirely up to evolutionary chance?

What God contributes by communicating to humankind, in this view, is certain Godly ideas of how we evolved beings can best use our freedom: God inspires us as to how we can love each other and, where necessary, restrain ourselves in order to bring peace and joy to the lives of all of us.

OK, but what role did He play in us becoming "evolved beings" to start with? It seems, if I'm understanding your view, very little. Is it possible we might never have existed (if evolution somehow didn't materialize the way it did)?

Part of this plan is indeed to lay out the best working of the most common sexuality, heterosexuality, with guidelines against errors that tend to produce grief, such as adultery.

I understand what you're saying, but this doesn't fit with my view that He was highly involved in the design of who we are as human beings. [Not necessarily you and me individually, but the human race at a macro level.]

Love is a big, wide, much-abused word and I did realize at one point what might convince you that there were applications of this word that applied to gay relationships but not to zoophilia. We agree as Christians that the holy spirit is given as a counsellor to those who have accepted Jesus Christ. Much of the counsel of the Holy Spirit relates to how to treat people with love and with the justice that love commends. Animals, however, are not likely to interact with the Holy Spirit, as far as we know, or at least, they have not accepted Jesus Christ, as far as we know. Let's define a Christian loving sexual partnership as a partnership where both members have accepted Jesus Christ and can call upon the Lord in prayer for aid with their relationship, and can receive the counsel of the holy spirit to help raise their love to the level that God's grace makes possible for them.

Again, I understand what you're saying, but I don't see how this definition of "Christian loving sexual partnership" advances the discussion. If we're going to talk about what is acceptable or not acceptable, we can NOT have such a discussion and exclude the billions of non-Christian, non-Holy-Spirit-based loving sexual partnerships out there. The definition of "Christian loving sexual partnership" may make sense in some contexts -- and it conveniently eliminates zoophilia as a valid option (and retains homosexuality as valid) -- but, by examining only a subset of sexualities, and ignoring the "big picture", we can't trust the conclusions we reach. I believe we need to consider all expressions of sexual relationship together -- and apply the same rules across the board -- to determine what is morally right and what is morally wrong. We can't just look at specific scenarios outside of the larger context.

This is a level of love that can be achieved in heterosexual marriages and gay partnerships but that can't be achieved in zoophilic relationships.

Just because zoophilic relationships can't achieve this ideal level of spiritual communion, does that make them wrong?

[For anyone who hasn't been following the discussion, I don't support zoophilia. I'm just playing "devil's advocate", as I believe that the same rules and arguments used to determine if heterosexuality and homosexuality are morally right or wrong, should be applied equally to zoophilia. Because, if we conclude that zoophilia is morally wrong, but homosexuality is morally right, there has got to be a fundamental difference between the two sexualities to account for the different conclusions, otherwise one of the two conclusions is wrong.]

I know that some would say that as soon as you have gay sex, God hangs up the phone and the two partners might as well be animals to each other; such folks would cite I Corinthians for authority. Not only is that not my experience, but also, it goes against salvation through grace.

Like Cat, I don't believe this, either.

I wrote most of this fairly late at night, and as I read it again, I'm concerned that it is not as clear as it could be. Still, I don't have time to rewrite it, so please do your best to make sense of it all. I must say, it takes me ages to write something like this. Robert-I, I just don't know that I can keep up this pace -- without quitting my job and becoming a recluse. Anyway, we'll see how it goes :-)

Blessings,
Rainboy