Homosexuality: Against Nature?

1. Does Paul think homosexuality is "against nature"? What would this mean?

• physis in Paul: Rom 1:26; 2:14, 27; 11:21, 24a,b; 1 Cor 11:14; Gal 2:15; 4:8; Eph 2:3 (cf. James 3:7a, b; 2 Pet 1:4)
  • Rom 11:21,24 - natural branches are those that grow without human intervention; grafting one branch into another tree is contrary to nature
  • 1 Cor 11:14 - nature teaches what is fitting and appropriate hair style (?); is this an appeal to "the way things are" (NIV)? Is Paul using nature to refer to "the natural feelings of their contemporary culture" (Fee, 527)?
• physis in Stoicism: cosmic divine reason, the universal order of things
  • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

4.23 Everything which is in tune with you, O Universe, is in tune with me. Nothing which happens at the right time for you is early or later for me. Everything, O Nature [physis], which your seasons produce is fruit to me. All things come from you, exist in you, and will return to you.
5.8 You must consider the doing and perfecting of what the universal Nature decrees in the same light as your health, and welcome all that happens, even if it seems harsh, because it leads to the health of the universe, the welfare and well-being of Zeus. For he would not have allotted this to anyone if it were not beneficial to the Whole. No sort of nature brings anything to pass which does not contribute to that which it governs. You must therefore welcome with love what happens to you, for two reasons: first, because it happens to you, is prescribed for you, is related to you, a fate spun for you from above by the most venerable of causes; second, because whatever comes to an individual is a cause of the well-being and the welfare, indeed of the permanence, of that which governs the Whole. (trans. G. M. A. Grube)

• Epictetus Discourses

1.16.9-14 Come, let us leave the chief works of nature [physis], and consider merely what she does in passing. Can anything be more useless than the hairs on a chin? Well, what then? Has not nature used even these in the most suitable way possible? Has she not by these means distinguished between the male and the female? Does not the nature [physis] of each one among us cry aloud forthwith from afar, "I am a man; on this understanding approach me, on this understanding talk with me; ask for nothing further; behold the signs"? Again, in the case of women, just as nature has mingled in their voice a certain softer note, so likewise she has taken the hair from their chins. Not so, you say; on the contrary the human animal ought to have been left without distinguishing features, and each of us ought to proclaim by word of mouth, "I am a man." Nay, but how fair and becoming and dignified the sign is! How much more fair than the cock's comb, how much more magnificent than the lion's mane! Wherefore, we ought to preserve the signs which God has given; we ought not to throw them away; we ought not, so far as in us lies, to confuse the sexes which have been distinguished in this fashion. (cf. 3.1.27-30; Loeb ed.; trans. W. A. Oldfather)

• physis in Philo: combines Jewish understanding of Law with Greek concept of nature

And let the man who is devoted to the love of boys submit to the same punishment, since he pursues that pleasure which is contrary to nature, and since, as far as depends upon him, he would make the cities desolate, and void, and empty of all inhabitants, wasting his power of propagating his species, and moreover, being a guide and teacher of those greatest of all evils, unmanliness and effeminate lust. . . (Special Laws 3.39; trans. C. D. Yonge)

• nature in contemporary discussion: is it appropriate to appeal to nature or the way things are or the natural order of things in the current debate about homosexuality? Is nature a guide to what ought to be or only to what is? Can nature serve as a ground (basis, foundation) for an ethical appeal? See Hays, MVNT 395.

2. Are homosexuals the modern counterpart to first century Samaritans or the Gentiles?

If the (predominantly Jewish) early church needed to welcome "unclean" Gentiles on equal terms, why shouldn't it welcome members of the gay community? See Hays, MVNT, 395-396.

3. What role should experience play in interpreting and applying the Scriptures on this issue? (See Hays, MVNT, 398-399)

4. How might the church promote "vigorous moral debate" on this issue, while still preserving mutual respect and unity?

5. Should struggling homosexuals hope for "healing"?

"Perhaps for many the best outcome that is attainable in this time between the times will be a life of disciplined abstinence, free from obsessive lust" (Hays, MVNT, 403).