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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Biblical talk about "sexual identity and orientation" | Forum Quick Jump
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/4/2006 11:35 PM (GMT -6) |   | Oh my Lord. You people have GOT to read this...
Is There Sex In Heaven
by Peter Kreeft
www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/sexnheaven.html
Wow.
Just wow.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/4/2006 11:54 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/4/2006 11:56 PM (GMT -6) | |
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 2/4/2006 10:59:25 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:01 AM (GMT -6) | | I can't stop smelling this rat...
Sexuality differences and sexual reproduction ANTEDATE modern human beings...and any hominids for that matter.
I don't see HOW this doesn't affect how we see sexuality as a whole. As weird as Kreeft's ideas are, they at least try to deal with this idea (He says that sexuality is cosmic...all the way down to quantum particles! Sheesh) He starts with the Imago Dei, takes God to be "a sexual being, the most sexual of all beings"...and says that we get that from God. Even our spirits have sexual distinction. (I would ask Kreeft if our spirits have ethnic distinction as well...but whatever)
Instead of us just saying that sexuality and sexual reproduction are just things that exist in the animal world (we ARE members of the animal kingdom, yes!) that are CONTEXTUALIZED by our sapience and sentience...we have to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to affirm that sexuality was a completely intention design and gift for MODERN HUMANKIND (homo sapiens sapiens).
And why? Because of the Creation narratives and how they have been used by biblical characters and how those insights have been pondered by the Church.
Hmmm...
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:12 AM (GMT -6) | | How can you NOT agree with that article Mephi?
I toldja a long time ago there was going to be sex in heaven. Come on!
Sometimes I think you are just being difficult 
that was a kick awesome article... hats off mr kreeft!
snippet:
Everything on earth is analogous to something in Heaven. Heaven neither simply removes nor simply continues earthly things. If we apply this principle to sexual intercourse, we get the conclusion that intercourse on earth is a shadow or symbol of intercourse in Heaven. Could we speculate about what that could be?
It could certainly be spiritual intercourse--and, remember, that includes sexual intercourse because sex is spiritual. This spiritual intercourse would mean something more specific than universal charity. It would be special communion with the sexually complementary; something a man can have only with a woman and a woman only with a man. We are made complete by such union: ``It is not good that the man should be alone."[25] And God does not simply rip up His design for human fulfillment.
...
This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly intercourse, physical or spiritual. It is the ultimate reason why sexual passion is so strong, so different from other passions, so heavy with suggestions of profound meanings that just elude our grasp. No mere practical needs account for it. No mere animal drive explains it. No animal falls in love, writes profound romantic poetry, or sees sex as a symbol of the ultimate meaning of life because no animal is made in the image of God. Human sexuality is that image, and human sexuality is a foretaste of that self-giving, that losing and finding the self, that oneness-in-manyness that is the heart of the life and joy of the Trinity. That is what we long for; that is why we tremble to stand outside ourselves in the other, to give our whole selves, body and soul: because we are images of God the sexual being. We love the other sex because God loves God.
And this earthly love is so passionate because Heaven is full of passion, of energy and dynamism. ... to think of the love that made the worlds, the love that became human, suffered alienation from itself and died to save us rebels, the love that gleams through the fanatic joy of Jesus' obedience to the will of His Father and that shines in the eyes and lives of the saints--to think of this love as any less passionate than our temporary and conditioned passions ``is a most disastrous fantasy''.[33] And that consuming fire of love is our destined Husband, according to His own promise.[34] Sex in Heaven? Indeed, and no pale, abstract, merely mental shadow of it either. Earthly sex is the shadow, and our lives are a process of thickening so that we can share in the substance, becoming Heavenly fire so that we can endure and rejoice in the Heavenly fire.
can I hear an amen? 
Blessings,
selahPost Edited (selah) : 2/4/2006 11:24:26 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:18 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
the question:
what do you think of where they say "to affirm the gift of singleness and welcome singles into the full life of the congregation"?
My answer:
It makes sense the way they are talking about it. And I see that THAT's how they would affirm people with homosexual impulses who are non-practicing who have chosen lives of singleness as opposed to acting upon their impulses.
Uh...and notice how I give STRAIGHT, to-the-point answers.  
The answer you gave is yours, but it is ONLY PART of what they were talking about!
Notice that they did not single-out homosexually tempted people.
So, they are talking about FAR more than your own answer addresses. They are also talking about people to SEEK a "gift of singleness." (A colleague of mine in a Free Methodist school wrote a book called "Free to Be Single".)
FIRST, figure out what's that all about, and then fit ALL tempted people WITHIN that answer.
And stop trying to single-out homosexually tempted people.
They are just regular folks like you and me. 
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 2/4/2006 11:34:48 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:20 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
The answer you gave is yours, but it is ONLY PART of what they were talking about!
Notice that they did not single-out homosexually tempted people.
So, they are talking about FAR more than your own answer addresses. They are also talking about people to SEEK a "gift of singleness." (A colleague of mine in a Free Methodist school wrote a book called "Free to Be Single".)
FIRST, figure out what's that all about, and then fit ALL tempted people WITHIN that answer.
And stop trying to single-out homosexually tempted people.
Well friggin DUH, man. I understand this perfectly well. I was just making a point.
What is your problem, B.?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
How can you NOT agree with that article Mephi?
I toldja a long time ago there was going to be sex in heaven. Come on!
Sometimes I think you are just being difficult.
Um...I don't disagree with the speculative idea that there may be sex in heaven. (Doc talked about the "orgy of love" in heaven, remember?  ) However, I do think Kreeft's idea of sexuality 1) being pervasive cosmically and 2) being integral in spirituality is damn near ludicrous. Only if someone takes sexuality as being merely "complementary difference where synergistic operation can bring forth more than the sum of it's parts" would this idea make any sense. But if that's how he would mean it than sexuality would extend WAY beyond "masculinity" and "femininity" My opinion.
It would be nice to know what Kreeft's idea of "masculinity" and "femininity" are.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:30 AM (GMT -6) | |
POW:
Notice that they did not single-out homosexually tempted people.
So, they are talking about FAR more than your own answer addresses. They are also talking about people to SEEK a "gift of singleness." (A colleague of mine in a Free Methodist school wrote a book called "Free to Be Single".)
FIRST, figure out what's that all about, and then fit ALL tempted people WITHIN that answer.
.
MephEternal said...
Well friggin DUH, man. I understand this perfectly well. I was just making a point.
What is your problem, B.?
.....................................................................................
YOU WERE THE ONE THAT WANTED A CONCRETE EXAMPLE. HERE IT IS.
I don't have a problem. Do you?
Yes, your answer was very nice. Nicely put. And as it went "perfectly well" too.
But it did not go as far as the authors of that Covenant church document took it.
And in my pointing that out, I illustrated for you -- as you'd been asking -- how one thing fit inside another.
Since the thesis-post of this thread that is what I've been harping on.......
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:36 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
And in my pointing that out, I illustrated for you -- as you'd been asking -- how one thing fit inside another.
Since the thesis-post of this thread that is what I've been harping on.......
Um...thanks for the example.
I understand that the sexuality question (an anthropological question, in my mind) fits WITHIN the larger questions of theology and cosmology. What I'm trying to grasp is how what we discover about our world AFFECTS our theology and cosmology...and therefore our ideas about sexuality.
Clear as mud?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:42 AM (GMT -6) | | And something about Kreeft. He presents a false dilemma. Has he never heard of the idea of "conditional unity"?? There is no reason to say that the spirit is "sexed." It's a ludicrous notion. Part of him may already know this...
Even if sex were not spiritual, there would be sex in Heaven because of the resurrection of the body. The body is not a mistake to be unmade or a prison cell to be freed from, but a divine work of arto designed to show forth the soul as the soul is to show forth God, in splendor and glory and overflow of generous superfluity.
That's LOTS better. It's better to talk about the eternal endurance of sexuality based on the resurrection of sexual BODIES than to try to claim the spirits are indexed by sex.
Sheesh.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:42 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
I understand that the sexuality question (an anthropological question, in my mind) fits WITHIN the larger questions of theology and cosmology. What I'm trying to grasp is how what we discover about our world AFFECTS our theology and cosmology...and therefore our ideas about sexuality.
Clear as mud?
Well, abstractions--the theologian in a library...making things up--never helped anyone.
But hymns might. And testimonies. Those are the protestant's icons.
Ask those who have "gone before" you!
Most of the ideas I've come up with for you while driving around town have been preserved in hymns.
But YOU need to get your own collection, as unless they are close to the heart they aren't worth much.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:45 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 12:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Nighty night, B.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/5/2006 1:34 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/5/2006 9:39 PM (GMT -6) | |
In Genesis, part of the verse about ruling over the animals and fishes is that it means that mankind is not meant to just be an animal. Sex, for humans, is derivative of our FULL humanity, and that is derivative of our office.
And not the other way around.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 2/6/2006 9:58:56 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/6/2006 10:57 AM (GMT -6) | |
Same-Sex Attraction Today
Fr. Thomas Hopko
06/11/2005
..............................................................................
STREAMING RADIO (saved program)
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/7/2006 8:21 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
Same-Sex Attraction Today
Fr. Thomas Hopko
06/11/2005
http://www.receive.org/index.php?menu=3&submenu=23&id=352
Really good stuff. It would go hand with the warfare worldview. (Actually, it IS the warfare worldview, pretty much.
I loved the way Fr. Hopko mentioned how we are in this fallen world ("in the hands of the demons" ...and we are NOT Adam and Eve in Paradise...that we are born outside of Paradise. We are having predispositions that we didn't choose.
That the whole thing deals FUNDAMENTALLY with the fallen world. The world fallen from the way things were originally created. The implications of that are quite interesting.
Interesting indeed.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 3/31/2006 11:11 PM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
I'd love to read these, if I could. Is there any way that you could scan the articles into PDF format for us?
Its ALL online now:
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