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But my immediate question is, "What is the purpose of the question?"

I see three proper purposes:
1) Society must assess penalities for crimes.

2) we have to access whether the harm being done by a person should be stopped by us or not.

3) sometimes its healthy to see one course of action as less harmful than another to avoid an "all-or-nothing" mindset (e.g. if a sort of grading isn't done, then (for example) a young person might conclude that if they masturbate, they may as well have premarital sex , indulge in pornography etc...).

But ASIDE FROM THESE specific issues, what POINT could there possibly be in grading sin?

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I agree entirely that we shouldn't use this "grading system" as a tool for hubris. But to get rid of it entirely, to "debunk" it, is dangerous, as you pointed out in point 3. Possibly leading, as Lewis said, to the Abolition of Man.

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Which is precisely the reason why I have issues with:

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The main question I ask in regard to sexual relationships is one of motive...is love seeking to be conveyed? The more it does, the closer to the ideal it is.

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For it seems to, in effect, modify the standard, thereby getting rid of it entirely.



Brandon
"Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it."--Todd Flanders/ Pascal: Talkin' 'bout My Generation

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The main question I ask in regard to sexual relationships is one of motive...is love seeking to be conveyed? The more it does, the closer to the ideal it is.

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To “debunk” an ethical system such as “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” to say instead that “love is the only law,” is to say (it seems to me) nothing of considerable value. All you are doing is changing the explicit to the ambiguous…making it an easy slide into moral relativism, in my opinion. Granted, ethics (“right and wrong”) makes it an easy slide into legalism…but apparently that is the way God chose to do it. People slipped into legalism, and so He sent Christ not to abolish the law but to complete it – to make people realize that if they obey the law but have not love, it is not good.

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To “debunk” an ethical system such as “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” to say instead that “love is the only law,” is to say (it seems to me) nothing of considerable value.

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It seems that some people are highly uncomfortable with any level of grayness or ambiguity and must have absolute black and white standards...anything less than that they will label "relativism." It's an unfortunate misunderstanding.

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Is all sin created equal?

No.

My sin is not nearly as bad as your sin.

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Might-be-don...you're pathetic.

To Miss E,

Your distinction seems to be more social than theological. Of course, again, as I stated before (on the “Sex. What is it good for?” which we STILL have to get back to), I think you are pitting a best case scenario against a worse case scenario. In that case, you would be right. However I don't follow that line of reasoning. On that thread in your last post you said:

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You misunderstood me here. I am not saying that might makes right. Moreover, I am proposing that the ideal standard can NEVER be modified. All we can hope for is that God will redeem many of our non-ideal ways of living and behaving. All things will fall somewhere in relation to or short of the ideal, but the ideal remains nonetheless. I am not saying that pre-marital sex between people who love one another has become the ideal or right; I'm saying that it falls short of the ideal, but no more short than manipulative or emotionally empty sex between a married couple. The ideal never changes, but different behaviors fall in different places along the spectrum of ideal versus non-ideal.

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And then, in the next paragraph, THE MODIFICATION

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Again, I think you misunderstood me. I am not making a logical jump in comparing a best case to worst case scenario to one another as though they were equal scenarios. My point in comparing a less ideal to a lesser ideal was to show that we cannot make black and white rulings about sexual behavior. The ideal will ALWAYS remain: "loving sex between a man and woman in the covenant of marriage." However, just because homosexual or premarital sex falls short of the ideal does not mean that unloving sex within marriage is any closer to that ideal….

And

For a person who is incapable, for any reason, of experiencing sex according to the ideal, I believe God can still redeem their sexual experiences. Those less than ideal experiences may be the "best" that person can experience in this lifetime too.

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It really seems, by capitulating to “second best,” you are IN EFFECT MODIFYING THE IDEAL! Listen, no one here would really argue:

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just because homosexual or premarital sex falls short of the ideal does not mean that unloving sex within marriage is any closer to that ideal….

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That is a red herring argument. If God’s has told us that something is a sin, that is not culturally located, then it will not only be a sin for all time, for all places, and for all people, but God expects us, no matter how fallen we are, to live up to that standard or ideal.

Now I will tell you, Craig Keener has made me think about “the ideal vs non ideal” in his, “The Bible Background Commentary.” For instance he talks about how when missionaries go into foreign countries and evangelize certain people groups living in polygamous relationships where they have ‘bout two dozen kids or so, some of these missionaires think those relationships should not be maintained. But one, that would be destructive to those people, the wives, the mothers, the children, and the heads of those homes, the male figure. Secondly, it may be that culturally, and ultimately, come the next generation, that could be changed where they live according to the one man/one women relationship, and so, in some instances, there may be a need for “second best.” But there is much here that I am holding to tentatively at the moment.


Brandon
"Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it."--Todd Flanders/ Pascal: Talkin' 'bout My Generation

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As I pointed out in my first post today, there is a kind of sin that has nothing to do with whether or not it is love, but it does have to do with misdirected love. We are not to love money the way we love God (i.e., placing our hope and security in money instead of God). Why? Because that is the Tao, they created order.

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Two points...

1. I agree that there can be misdirected love, but I would not agree that we can speak of the "love of money" as an example of misdirected love but merely idolatry. In my view, the problem with the "love of money" is that it leads to not loving one's neighbor. In my understanding the root of all sin is in failing to love either God, neighbor, or self, and failing to do so leads to idolatry and sin. That is why Jesus can summarize the whole law and prophets as loving God, self, and neighbor. My starting point is always love...and that is the ultimate standard.

2. It seems that from your comments above your starting point and standard is not love but of a "created order of things" or the "Tao." (Btw, I would define the Tao quite differently from my experience with Taoism.) I find this method and standard to be problematic ultimately because what constitutes the proper "created order" is continually defined and re-defined by current culture; historically this "order" has simply been a highly hierarchical structure in which the poor, women, and children always figure at the bottom.

hand_carved said:

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I'm not saying that grayness IS relativism. I said that it easily SLIPS into relativism.

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When I said "some people are highly uncomfortable with any level of grayness" I wasn't actually referring to you but to this particular phenomenon among some people; it wasn't meant as a double message! I don't actually percieve you as having this discomfort at all.

Thanks for your comments!

Brandon said:

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Listen, no one here would really argue:
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just because homosexual or premarital sex falls short of the ideal does not mean that unloving sex within marriage is any closer to that ideal….
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That is a red herring argument.

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It would only be a red herring argument if I was actually saying someone here was arguing this. You misunderstood me here, this point was made merely for the point of clarification of my OWN position on this issue, it was not in reference to anyone else's position at all. This is clear when you read it in context.

Brandon said:

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Secondly, it may be that culturally, and ultimately, come the next generation, that could be changed where they live according to the one man/one women relationship, and so, in some instances, there may be a need for “second best.”

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I don't really see that I'm saying anything other than your statement here, so I'm not sure where the disagreement is.

Thanks!

Peace,
~E



Edited by - Empiress on 12/14/2002 02:57:03 AM

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Re: I agree that there can be misdirected love, but I would not agree that we can speak of the "love of money" as an example of misdirected love but merely idolatry. In my view, the problem with the "love of money" is that it leads to not loving one's neighbor.

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What is idolatry?

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