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Well since we will be in a spiritual state in heaven, we won't have physical bodies at least in the way we have now. We won't be having children so there won't be a need for sexual intercourse (the primary reason for it of course is propogation of the species- which is good- but which would not be necessary in heaven.) Neither will hot fudge sundaes or other physical delights of the present :)

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OK, say we are able to enjoy junk food - I am not sure that we will, does that mean there'll be booze and cigarettes in heaven too - that's very enjoyable to many people, but not necessary. The resurrected Jesus ate food, but not junk food that has no nutritional value and nothing to contribute to the body other than pleasure. He ate for the energy necessary for the body to function.
The main function of sex is procreation. The fact that is enjoyable to many people (not to all) is a great benefit - but i don't see why it would be necessary unless we are supposed to be propogating the species in heaven too.

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What the heck - Tigress? You went to every forum to ask people to reply to this? What is such a big deal about it? Sure sex can be great, but it's not the end all be all of human existence - one can live a great life without it - Jesus was celibate - are we to think he's being deprived in heaven b/c he can't get married? Our sex drives are a function of biology - it's important for closeness and intimacy as well - but I've never been upset thinking that I can't have sex in heaven.

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I know I'm acting obsessed about this - maybe it's because I've never had sex before

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Is there something you want to confess to?

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Well since we will be in a spiritual state in heaven, we won't have physical bodies at least in the way we have now. We won't be having children so there won't be a need for sexual intercourse (the primary reason for it of course is propogation of the species- which is good- but which would not be necessary in heaven.) Neither will hot fudge sundaes or other physical delights of the present :)

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I don't believe that's true, though. After Jesus rose from the dead He actually sat down and ate with the disciples, and His disciples were able to touch His scars. His body was a more perfect extension of His inner Spirit. Jesus' resurrected body is the example of what our resurrected bodies will be like. And we know that the Bible says that either before, during or after Jesus' return, all believers will get resurrection bodies to live in the fully established Kingdom of God. Jesus said He'd wait until this time to drink wine and feast with us. These ARE some true physical pleasures of the body. So, I just don't see why the greatest physical pleasure a body can experience (sex) would be something that we're deprived of.

Tigress

The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.
-Psalm 34:7

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Yes, BUT...

To US this is a "mystery." To those saints in heaven it is no longer a mystery, it is experience.

"After Jesus rose from the dead He actually sat down and ate with the disciples, and His disciples were able to touch His scars."

Jesus ALSO walked through walls!

And it it the combination of these two (scars/eating and wall-penetration) that "sketch out" for us--only a sketch--the bare beginnings of a contour that will be known to us "in that day."


Another mystery, that we can take or leave, is the strong affirmation of Church tradition that SOMETHING of marriage remains after the general resurrection. I'm not sure what. And I immediately want to suggest the limitation that it not get in the way of the general communion of all who are in Christ.


On another issue:

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Sex not only creates children, it also contributes to a couple's intimacy and enjoyment of each other.

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So, procreation was not necessary before the fall brought mortality. TRUE ENOUGH! But I do notice that the focus of the above quote, its "goal" is the "intimacy and enjoyment of each other." I can imagine either coitis or not (I said "imagine" and not "understand.") and still appreciate that "intimacy and enjoyment" were Adam and Eve's experience in Eden.

But I also accept the view that their "intimacy and enjoyment" was only immature in those early days. And with maturity (that never happened) it would have become more FULL (qualitatively).


Now, a completely different topic:

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ModesofThought

Here's my thought. Sex is an echo of what God's innertrinitarian relationship is like. Theologians call this "perichoesis" which means interpenetration. Full exposure of each person one to the others. So in this sense. It will be a cosmic orgy without the negative connotations of that here.

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"Coinherance" is the English word, M. the "perichoesis" term has mileage just do to its being foreign; and that makes it a ready recepticle for anything that one wants to put inside it. But the EO theologians I've read say "Coinherance" as the translation. AND THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.


Sorry to say, Modes, but the "Open" view on the Trinity strikes me as being a strongly-Tritheistic-leaning view! Your (and others, such as GB) view of "God's innertrinitarian relationship" seems tri-thesistic. And I think that at root it is. (The way Doc left the Trintity thread was.) "Interpenetration" is from separate things into each other. But, in the Liturgy, the Creed is introduced with the words: ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided.’

I WANT TO COME BACK TO THIS. BUT FIRST I WANT TO ADDRESS THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.


I agree, Modes, that "sex is an ECHO of what God's innertrinitarian relationship." And and it is. Whether it was in Eden or not, I just don't know. But I place the EmpHaSiS on the relationship part and not the means. And as part of the RELATIONSHIP it is the diversity of "make and famale," the personal-otherness-in-relationship that I direct my attention to. That is "trinitarian" (adj.). so I understand, also the C.O. comment, and agree--without repeating the phrase.


Now, back to "perichoesis"/"coinherence." The "interpeneration" model in the OV view of "interTrinitarian-suffering-love" is just plain wrong. It is what the OV gets criticized for in public, and rightly.

Let us confess: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided.’


Ware writes:

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. The Father is the source of Godhead, born of none and proceeding from none; the Son is born of the Father from all eternity (‘before all ages,’ as the Creed says); the Spirit proceeds from the Father from all eternity.

It is at this point that Roman Catholic theology begins to disagree. According to Roman theology, the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son; and this means that the Father ceases to be the unique source of Godhead, since the Son also is a source. Since the principle of unity in the Godhead can no longer be the person of the Father, Rome finds its principle of unity in the substance or essence which all three persons share. In Orthodoxy the principle of God’s unity is personal, in Roman Catholicism it is not.
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_2.htm

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One essence in three persons. God is one and God is three: the Holy Trinity is a mystery of unity in diversity, and of diversity in unity. Father, Son, and Spirit are ‘one in essence’ (homoousios), yet each is distinguished from the other two by personal characteristics. ‘The divine is indivisible in its divisions (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 31, 14). for the persons are ‘united yet not confused, distinct yet not divided’ (John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, 1, 8 (P.G. 94, 809A)); ‘both the distinction and the union alike are paradoxical’ (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 25, 17).

But if each of the persons is distinct, what holds the Holy Trinity together? Here the Orthodox Church, following the Cappadocian Fathers, answers that there is one God because there is one Father. In the language of theology, the Father is the ‘cause’ or ‘source’ of Godhead, He is the principle (arche) of unity among the three; and it is in this sense that Orthodoxy talks of the ‘monarchy’ of the Father. The other two persons trace their origin to the Father and are defined in terms of their relation to Him. The Father is the source of Godhead, born of none and proceeding from none; the Son is born of the Father from all eternity (‘before all ages,’ as the Creed says); the Spirit proceeds from the Father from all eternity.

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Orthodox Trinitarian theology has a personal principle of unity, but the west finds its unitary principle in the essence of God. In Latin Scholastic theology, so it seems to Orthodox, the persons are overshadowed by the common nature, and God is thought of not so much in concrete and personal terms, but as an essence in which various relations are distinguished. This way of thinking about God comes to full development in Thomas Aquinas, who went so far as to identify the persons with the relations: personae sunt ipsae relationes (Summa Theologica, 1, question 40, article 2). Orthodox thinkers find this a very meagre idea of personality. The relations, they would say, are not the persons — they are the personal characteristics of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and (as Gregory Palamas put it) ‘personal characteristics do not constitute the person, but they characterize the person’ (Quoted in J. Meyendorff, Introduction à 1’étude de Grégoire Palamas, Paris, 1959, p. 294). The relations, while designating the persons, in no way exhaust the mystery of each.

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And for this reason, I find that the OV embtraces Thomas Aquinas.


(Sorry for posting this here. It is for Modes' eyes. And this offered an opportunity. -pow-)