Sex In Heaven?

[Paladin D]

[url="http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.htm"]http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.htm[/url]

He's an orthodox Catholic mind you. I haven't read the entire article, but it seems interesting so far (have to read the rest of it later). What do you think?

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[Quietfire]

Without even reading it, is Mr. Kreeft saying that we will be having sex in heaven?

[let_go_let_God]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Oct 6 2005, 09:12 AM']Without even reading it, is Mr. Kreeft saying that we will be having sex in heaven?
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Yes he is. I read the article and it is quite a mind bender, but it makes sense. Not only does he talk about the physical act of sex, but of the beauty of human sexuality.

I'll wait to post more until more people have commented.

God bless-
LGLG

[dspen2005]

is there any real value in a discussion like this?

[toledo_jesus]

yeah, my big question is: does it really matter? I don't much care what Heaven's like, I just want to get there.

[Paladin D]

[quote name='dspen2005' date='Oct 6 2005, 11:52 AM']is there any real value in a discussion like this?
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I was assuming that there would be any objections to Mr. Kreeft's view.

I really don't care one way or the other, but the article is interesting.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote]We are made complete by such union: "It is not good that the man should be alone."[/quote]

Buzz! Wrong...we are each individually complete.

[quote]If the possibility of intercourse in Heaven is not actualized, it is only for the same reason earthly lovers do not eat candy during intercourse: there is something much better to do.[/quote]

They don't?! What a gyp!


jk :

[quote]I think there will probably be millions of more adequate ways to express love than the clumsy ecstasy of fitting two bodies together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.[/quote]

You heard it here first, folks! Peter Kreeft enjoys the Kama Sutra! :

Anyway, at the conclusion of the article, the point is that our sexuality goes to our identity...it isn't something we do, but something we are. As such, we are always acting in our sexuality...even in heaven. That does not mean, however, that we will be engaging in sexual intercourse...that passion will be realized and superceded by the ecstasy of the Beatific Vision.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Oct 6 2005, 12:10 PM']Buzz! Wrong...we are each individually complete.
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While we are individually complete persons in relationship with God (the whole concept of original solitude), we only completely reflect Trinitarian through the communion of persons -- through the relationship of man and wife. I'm pretty sure this is what he's talking about, given the context of this statement.

[Oik]

[quote]We cannot know what X-in-Heaven is unless we know what X is. We cannot know what sex in Heaven is unless we know what sex is. We cannot know what in Heaven's name sex is unless we know what on earth sex is. [/quote]

Who says there is sex in Heaven in the first place? Does every act on Earth have a corresponding physical ac in Heaven?

[quote]But don't we know? Haven't we been thinking about almost nothing else for years and years? What else dominates our fantasies, waking and sleeping, twenty-four nose-to-the-grindstone hours a day? What else fills our TV shows, novels, plays, gossip columns, self-help books, and psychologies but sex?

No, we do not think too much about sex; we think hardly at all about sex. Dreaming, fantasizing, feeling, experimenting—yes. But honest, look-it-in-the-face thinking?—hardly ever. There is no subject in the world about which there is more heat and less light.[/quote]

Interesting insight, however, I say there is a reductionism of the issue here. This train of though is very minimalistic (it reeks of the sound byte mindset of modern man).

[quote]Therefore I want to begin with four abstract philosophical principles about the nature of sex. They are absolutely necessary not only for sanity about sex in Heaven but also for sanity about sex on earth, a goal at least as distant as Heaven to our sexually suicidal society. The fact that sex is public does not mean it is mature and healthy. The fact that there are thousands of "how to do it" books on the subject does not mean that we know how; in fact, it means the opposite. It is when everybody's pipes are leaking that people buy books on plumbing. [/quote]

Excuse me...what?

Reductionism again.

[b]The fact that there are thousands of "how to do it" books on the subject does not mean that we know how; in fact, it means the opposite. It is when everybody's pipes are leaking that people buy books on plumbing.[/b]

Okay, look here, human beings have been procreating for a loooooooooong time. So what, we don't know how to do it? I think the continuing existence of the human race can AT LEAST say as much.

[quote]If our first principle is accepted, if sexuality is part of our inner essence, then it follows that there is sexuality in Heaven, whether or not we "have sex" and whether or not we have sexually distinct social roles in Heaven.[/quote]

Ummm...I don't see how this follows here. While our maleness and femaleness express a reality about us, how does this then mean we will "have sex."

We grow closer and closer to God in Heaven, why would we then "have sex?"

[quote]The two most popular philosophies of sexuality today seem totally opposed to each other; yet at a most basic level they are in agreement and are equally mistaken. The two philosophies are the old chauvinism and the new egalitarianism; and they seem totally opposed. For chauvinism (a) sees one sex as superior to the other, "second", sex. This is usually the male, but there are increasingly many strident female chauvinist voices in the current cacophony. This presupposes (b) that the sexes are intrinsically different, different by nature not social convention. Egalitarianism tries to disagree with (a) totally; it thinks that to do so it has to disagree with (b) as well. But this means that it agrees with chauvinism on ©, the unstated but assumed premise that all dfferences must be dfferences in value, or, correlatively, that the only way for two things to be equal in value is for them to be equal in nature. Both philosophies see sameness or superiority as the only options. It is from this assumption (that differences are differences in value) that the chauvinist argues that the sexes are different in nature, therefore they are different in value. And it is from the same assumption that the egalitarian argues that the sexes are not different in value, therefore they are not different in nature.

Chauvinism: Egalitarianism:       
©
and (b)
therefore (a) ©
and not (a)
therefore not (b)     

Once this premise is smoked out, it is easy to see how foolish both arguments are. Of course not all differences are differences in value. Are dogs better than cats, or cats than dogs? Or are they different only by convention, not by nature? Chauvinist and egalitarian should both read the poets, songwriters, and mythmakers to find a third philosophy of sexuality that is both more sane and infinitely more interesting. It denies neither the obvious rational truth that the sexes are equal in value (as the chauvinist does) nor the equally obvious instinctive truth that they are innately different (as the egalitarian does). It revels in both, and in their difference: vive la difference!

If sexual differences are natural, they are preserved in Heaven, for "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it" If sexual differences are only humanly and socially conventional, Heaven will remove them as it will remove economics and penology and politics. (Not many of us have job security after death. That is one advantage of being a philosopher.) All these things came after and because of the Fall, but sexuality came as part of God's original package: "be fruitful and multiply". God may unmake what we make, but He does not unmake what He makes. God made sex, and God makes no mistakes.

Saint Paul's frequently quoted statement that "in Christ. there is neither male nor female" does not mean there is no sex in Heaven. For it refers not just to Heaven but also to earth: we are "in Christ" now. (In fact, if we are not "in Christ" now there is no hope of Heaven for us!) But we are male or female now. His point is that our sex does not determine our "in-Christness"; God is an equal opportunity employer. But He employs the men and women He created, not the neuters of our imagination.

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Righty-O! except this:
a. If sexual differences are natural, they are preserved in Heaven, for "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it"

b. God may unmake what we make, but He does not unmake what He makes. God made sex, and God makes no mistakes.

Here's the problem: what does "perfecst it" mean?

[quote]That does not mean "vaguely pious, ethereal, and idealistic". "Spiritual" means "a matter of the spirit", or soul, or psyche, not just the body. Sex is between the ears before it's between the legs. We have sexual souls.

For some strange reason people are shocked at the notion of sexual souls. They not only disagree; the idea seems utterly crude, superstitious, repugnant, and incredible to them. Why? We can answer this question only by first answering the opposite one: why is the idea reasonable, enlightened, and even necessary?

The idea is the only alternative to either materialism or dualism. If you are a materialist, there is simply no soul for sex to be a quality of If you are a dualist, if you split body and soul completely, if you see a person as a ghost in a machine, then one half of the person can be totally different from the other: the body can be sexual without the soul being sexual. The machine is sexed, the ghost is not. (This is almost the exact opposite of the truth: ghosts, having once been persons, have sexual identity from their personalities, their souls. Machines do not.)

No empirical psychologist can be a dualist; the evidence for psychosomatic unity is overwhelming. No pervasive feature of either body or soul is insulated from the other; every sound in the soul echoes in the body, and every sound in the body echoes in the soul. Let the rejection of dualism be Premise One of our argument.

Premise Two is the even more obvious fact that biological sexuality is innate, natural, and in fact pervasive to every cell in the body. It is not socially conditioned, or conventional, or environmental; it is hereditary.

The inevitable conclusion from these two premises is that sexuality is innate, natural, and pervasive to the whole person, soul as well as body. The only way to avoid the conclusion is to deny one of the two premises that logically necessitate it-to deny psychosomatic unity or to deny innate somatic sexuality.

In the light of this simple and overwhelming argument, why is the conclusion not only unfamiliar but shocking to so many people in our society? I can think of only two reasons. The first is a mere misunderstanding, the second a serious and substantial mistake.

The first reason would be a reaction against what is wrongly seen as monosexual soul-stereotyping. A wholly male soul, whatever maleness means, or a wholly female soul, sounds unreal and oversimplified. But that is not what sexual souls implies. Rather, in every soul there is—to use Jungian terms—anima and animus, femaleness and maleness; just as in the body, one predominates but the other is also present. If the dominant sex of soul is not the same as that of the body, we have a sexual misfit, a candidate for a sex change operation of body or of soul, earthly or Heavenly. Perhaps Heaven supplies such changes just as it supplies all other needed forms of healing. In any case, the resurrection body perfectly expresses its soul, and since souls are innately sexual, that body will perfectly express its soul's true sexual identity.

A second reason why the notion of sexual souls sounds strange to many people may be that they really hold a pantheistic rather than a theistic view of spirit as undifferentiated, or even infinite. They think of spirit as simply overwhelming, or leaving behind, all the distinctions known to the body and the senses. But this is not the Christian notion of spirit, nor of infinity. Infinity itself is not undifferentiated in God. To call God infinite is not to say He is everything in general and nothing in particular: that is confusing God with The Blob! God's infinity means that each of His positive and definite attributes, such as love, wisdom, power, justice, and fidelity, is unlimited.

Spirit is no less differentiated, articulated, structured, or formed than matter. The fact that our own spirit can suffer and rejoice far more, more delicately and exquisitely, and in a far greater variety of ways, than can the body-this fact should be evidence of spirit's complexity. So should the fact that psychology is nowhere near an exact science, as anatomy

Differences in general, and sexual differences in particular, increase rather than decrease as you move up the cosmic hierarchy. (Yes, there is a cosmic hierarchy, unless you can honestly believe that oysters have as much right to eat you as you have to eat them.) Angels are as superior to us in differentiation as we are to animals. God is infinitely differentiated, for He is the Author of all differences, all forms.

Each act of creation in Genesis is an act of differentiation—light from darkness, land from sea, animals from plants, and so on. Creating is forming, and forming is differentiating. Materialism believes differences in form are ultimately illusory appearance; the only root reality is matter. Pantheism also believes differences in form are ultimately illusory; the only root reality is one universal Spirit. But theism believes form is real because God created it. And whatever positive reality is in the creation must have its model in the Creator. We shall ultimately have to predicate sexuality of God Himself, as we shall see next.
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One question: If souls are "sexual," then how do they have sex? Ironically it seems that here to say that sexuality rests in the soul is actually to apply the very same dualism that it rejected in the article. Or maybe it is to say that sex is soul and body.


[quote]Even the most satisfying earthly intercourse between spouses cannot perfectly express all their love.[/quote]

Right. See above where Kreeft says "Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it."

Um...it's simple. Grace is God and so here we can say that God peerfects our love, not sex.

[quote]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.[/quote]

Whoa...step a way from the analogy...step a way from the analogy.

I understand here that Kreeft means "intercourse" for sex, but call God "the sexual being" is a bit...well...yeeeeaaah.

God is I AM WHO AM. Are we perhaps seeing an anthropomorphism (sp) here?


[quote]And this earthly love is so passionate because Heaven is full of passion, of energy and dynamism. We correctly deny that God has passions in the passive sense, being moved, driven, or conditioned by them, as we are. But 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". And that consuming fire of love is our destined Husband, according to His own promise. 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.[/quote]

Maybe I just don't get it...

[Chester]

There is no need for sex in heaven. God is our reward.

[White Knight]

No, since theres no breeding, theres no reason for it. Sex is for Procreation, and theres no need for it in that Most Perfect, Holy Place.

[Dreamweaver]

Wow, thats an interesting article. A lot of psychology for my poor brain.

Who knows if there will be sexual intercourse in heaven. I've heard (Pope JP2? I think) that sexual intercourse on heaven is just a foretaste of what we'll experience in heaven. I mean, we'll be living there with God and the saints. I'd imagine that would be cooler than anything you could experience in this life.

[dspen2005]

i find the entire proposition of discussing this point to be obnoxious. I find it hard to believe that the level of theological discussion has collapsed into the notion of whether or not sex occurs in Paradise

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='White Knight' date='Oct 6 2005, 01:22 PM']No, since theres no breeding, theres no reason for it. Sex is for Procreation, and theres no need for it in that Most Perfect, Holy Place.
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I think this has been covered in the 'sex during pregnancy' thread. Go there & read it so you can educate yourself on why the statement "Sex is for Procreation" is misguided.

[avemaria40]

wow! That article is awesome