Like everyone else, we Christians have always known about human sexuality. We have not always given it careful thought, however. Christian discussions of sexual ethics over the centuries have suffered in quantity and quality when compared to Christian studies of, say, military ethics.

The good news is that a consensus is emerging that we need to overcome three types of ethical dualism that have plagued us in the past: (1) body versus soul, (2) man versus woman, (3) pleasure versus procreation. Although in The Good of Marriage Augustine of Hippo wrote against the dualistic Manichaens, who held that marriage is evil, he did not wholly escape such thinking. This is partly because of his own background and partly because he was also writing against the Jovinians. They held that marriage is so good that in God’s sight it can be as acceptable as sexual abstinence. Augustine disagreed with both schools of thought. He therefore wrote that marriage is good (against the Manichaens) but that abstinence is better (against the Jovinians).

Despite this growing consensus, a number of difficult issues remain. One of these concerns the relative importance of nature and history in human sexual life. This includes the "nature versus nurture" debate, but much more. Here are the questions: To what extent are the ways we arrange our sexual lives already decided for us by the kinds of beings we naturally are? To what extent are we historical beings who can structure things very differently?

These questions clearly erupt when we ponder the proper roles of men and women. They also surface when we examine contraception and the newer methods of human procreation: artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and surrogate gestation. These questions also burst forth when we ponder how to view heterosexual and homosexual orientations.

Didn’t David Hume teach us in the eighteenth century that we cannot deduce a moral "ought" exclusively from a factual "is"? In the twentieth century, didn’t Joseph Fletcher, known to many as the father of "situation ethics" even though he earned his living as a pioneer in the field of bioethics, enjoy startling audiences by declaring, "The more artificially we do something, the more humanly we do it"?

This issue has come to the fore in our time for several serious reasons. One of these is that, partly as a rejection of the Nazi misuse of these concepts, natural theology theories and natural law theories were on the defensive for much of the twentieth century. During that time theologians often said that the Bible depicts God at work primarily in history, not nature. Another factor is that, as more and more people traveled around the world, they often concluded that what seemed "natural" and "universal" about human beings when they were at home seemed less so when they were elsewhere. A third factor is that, in the twentieth century when people examined the so-called "natural" roles of men and women, many of these assignments turned out to be contrived, usually to benefit the rich and powerful.

A fourth consideration is that the idea that reality is "socially constructed," and that we are the ones who construct it, has gained much momentum in recent decades. Fifth, we are developing greater humility about what we human beings can actually know about the way things are in and of themselves. A final consideration is that many now hold, with considerable justification, that nature itself has a history, making the old divide between the two seem less helpful. Although other factors also brought us to where we are today, these six strike me as especially important.

We now face a puzzling irony. On the one hand, many thoughtful people today assert that our lives are determined by factors over which we have little or no control. On the other hand, many thoughtful people hold that there is no such thing as "human nature," that as a species we humans possess no nature, only history. Some thoughtful people assert both things, apparently without sensing any tension between them.

To my way of thinking, we cannot have it both ways completely and simultaneously. If our lives are determined by factors over which we have no control, we humans have a nature but no history, given that "history" means a process that we can alter at least to some extent. On the other hand, if reality, or at least our own reality, is wholly and solely constructed by us, we do have a history but no nature, given that "nature" is something we cannot change.

Surely both extremes are mistaken; we humans are both "natural" and "historical." Furthermore, the precise degree to which we are one or the other varies from topic to topic. This balance has to be struck afresh and anew with each specific question we face in Christian sexual ethics. What a challenge!

Generally speaking, however, I do not think we need to be as hesitant as we sometimes have been of late to say that some options are ethically disheartening to us as Christians because they are not natural. To say this is not to make a statistical report about how many people do or do not exercise this option. Neither is it to condemn all innovations as contrary to human nature. It is to say that it is our nature as humans to be in positive relationships with each other and with our Maker and that our bodies are structured to make these relationships possible. Anything that enhances these connections is ethically appropriate and that anything that doesn’t is ethically disappointing. Anything!

Surprising though it may seem, we can still learn something from Augustine. Instead of saying that some sexual options are right and that others are wrong, he established a hierarchy of sexual alternatives and said that some are better and some are worse. The hierarchy we develop should differ from his; however, developing one of our own strikes me as a good idea. Let’s get started!

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