Are Christians Inconsistent?

The Left is making a very fallacious argument today about the Chick-fil-A controversy, and (sadly) some conservatives are buying it. We’re told our case against same-sex marriage is bogus because we’re inconsistent. That is, because we do not oppose No Fault Divorce with the same fervor we oppose same-sex marriage, our case collapses.

I disagree. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we are inconsistent. What follows—that same-sex marriage is permissible? The Left is making the dubious claim that not speaking against No Fault Divorce makes same-sex marriage justified. The logical conclusion, though, from this line of reasoning is that both SSM and NFD are wrong, not that both are OK. Secular people argue this way all the time. They try to find an inconsistency and then claim that everything is permissible.

An example of this faulty reasoning is justifying bad behavior for women (say, promiscuity) because men get a pass on that same bad beh
avior. But just because men do something immoral, doesn’t justify women doing the same immoral activity. Seems to me that the solution is to hold men to the same standard, rather than lowering standards for women.

Moreover, SSM and NFD are not parallel cases that demand equal responses. No-Fault Divorce does nothing to change the definition of marriage. Rather, it makes leaving a marriage easier—which is regrettable. Same-sex marriage, however, involves roughly six percent of the population forcing the rest of us to radically define marriage to suit it’s tastes. That demands a much stronger response.

Finally, conservatives aren’t inconsistent, only prudent. As Ramesh Ponnuru once said (paraphrase), there’s nothing wrong with preventing the growth of a new evil that you can stop (SSM) rather than fighting an entrenched one that you can’t (NFD).





Scott Klusendorf

Sex and the Mystery of Marriage

Here, Tim Challies discusses further the role of sex within the mystery of marriage.

Sex and the Mystery of Marriage

• Tim Challies
• 02/01/12
• 11

Last week I shared three articles titled A Picture-Perfect Marriage. That short series looked to Ephesians 5 and the great mystery that is marriage. I showed from that text that marriage is, and always has been, a portrait of Christ and his church. But at the end of it all I was left with a question: What is the role of the sexual relationship in this great mystery? I had to take a shot at answering that question at a recent conference and want to share today how I understand it.

We have established that marriage is a portrait of Christ and the church and that both husband and wife have a part to play in this portrait. The wife completes her part when she joyfully submits to the leadership of her husband and the husband completes his part when he joyfully and lovingly gives himself up for his wife. But how does the sexual relationship fit into God’s good design for marriage? I will admit from the outset that the answer isn’t quite as clear in Scripture as I might have expected, but I will give it a try and eagerly await your feedback.

God’s Good Design

It ought to go without saying that the Bible knows no good in sex outside of the marriage relationship. In love God says that within marriage sex is to be enjoyed and to be enjoyed freely and regularly; in love God says that outside marriage, sex of any kind is strictly forbidden. Why? Because God designed sex for a specific purpose and that purpose can only be expressed within marriage. Any other expression of sexuality, whether that is adultery or fornication or any kind of self-centered sex—all of these things ignore God’s design for sex and reinterprets it according to our sinful designs.

To understand why God says that sex is to exist only within marriage, we need to look at the covenantal nature of the marriage relationship. Marriage is a covenant that a husband and wife enter into, a covenant in which they come together before God and before other people and are made one. It is not the rings or the white dress or even the sexual union that makes marriage, but the covenant (which is why, in older times, betrothal was considered as unbreakable as marriage). While husband and wife obviously remain two individuals, two independent life forms, there is now a sense in which God regards them as one entity. Each is now responsible to the other and joined to the other to such an extent that in some mysterious way God now views them as being one. In Ephesians 5 Paul goes all the way back to Genesis 2 and reminds the reader that “a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife and the two shall be one flesh.”

One Flesh

Now Paul was obviously aware that this talk of “one flesh” can be taken literally and is meant to be taken literally. But he goes further and shows that the bond of marriage is more than a physical joining; there is more to marriage and more to the union of husband and wife than sex.

I understand this to mean that it is in the marriage covenant that a husband and wife are joined together as one. The physical sex act is a sign of the union, the consummation of the union, and something that points to what the two have become when joined together in covenant before God and before men. It is the physical component that points to the much greater and much deeper joining.

The Marriage Sacrament

I find it helpful to think of sex as something like a sacrament within marriage (Metaphorically, of course; I use Lord’s Supper as something we are familiar with in order to explain something we may be a little less familiar with). Whatever the sexual relationship is, it is more than the mere joining of flesh. Whatever the Lord’s supper is, it is more than just the eating and drinking of a tiny little piece of bread and a tiny little sip of wine. In both cases, they are more than the sum of their parts, more than they look from the outside.

In the Lord’s Supper we take bread and wine to proclaim that we have been saved by Christ, to proclaim that we are in Christ and to receive his blessing. It is what we call an “ordinary means of grace” through which Christ truly does feed us in some mysterious way. As we participate in the Lord’s Supper we declare, “I am yours. I am yours alone. And I will be found in you at that last day.” The physical component of the Lord’s Supper is a tangible symbol of a much deeper spiritual reality.

In the sexual relationship we proclaim with our spouse that we truly are one and we declare our ongoing love and allegiance to one another. We affirm that we have given ourselves to one another in a whole and complete way. Sex proclaims, “I am yours. I am yours alone. I am committed to you to the end.” It is an ordinary means of grace to marriage through which we truly do strengthen our marriage and our bonds of love.

It is here in the marriage bed that the physical, emotional, the sexual and the spiritual meet in an unparalleled way. It is here that we allow our spouse to see us in the deepest and most vulnerable context. No one else is ever meant to see us here, to see us in this way. This is where we lay ourselves bare, where we are naked and unashamed in all that we are. This is where we abandon pretence and self-love in favor of authenticity and service. This is where we express the kind of commitment to one another that says, “We are working on this portrait together, and by God’s grace we will work on it to the end.”

If I am an unbeliever and take the bread and wine, I am declaring that things are true of me that are not true—that I am a Christian, that I belong to Christ, that I am part of the family of Christians participating in Lord’s Supper with me. I declare that I am proclaiming my joyful confidence in the Lord’s return. And yet if I am not a Christian, all of this is a lie. I am making a mockery of this means of grace and calling down God’s judgment on myself.

In the same way, if I have sex with someone who is not my spouse, I am declaring that I am one with her, that I am committed to her to the end, that I am willing to give up my life for her. And yet because I have not covenanted with her in marriage, I am not truly one with her and am making a mockery of God’s good design for sex. In the same way, I am calling down God’s judgment on myself.

Conclusion

That, then, is how I understand sex within marriage. It is the physical component and a physical reminder—celebration, even—of a much deeper kind of joining. It is a vital part of God’s good design for marriage, which is, in turn, a vital part of God’s good design in calling a people to himself.

Great look at Mark Driscoll's new book by Tim Challies. A must read for anyone interested in Driscoll's book. Stay tuned in a couple days a more in depth look by Denny Burk.

Book Review - Real Marriage

• Tim Challies
• 01/02/12
• 0

It must be intimidating to write a book on marriage. Store shelves are groaning under the weight of titles that claim to have the key to a happy marriage, or a biblical marriage or a gospel-centered marriage. To rise above such a crowded field a book needs to offer something different, something unique, something that distinguishes it from the pack. Mark and Grace Driscoll have jumped into the fray with their new book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Togetherand the distinguishing feature of their book is its gut honesty, its sheer vulnerability. The Driscolls invite the reader deep into their own marriage and attempt to answer difficult, intimate questions—what they say are the questions you’d be too embarrassed to ask your pastor.

What Book Is It?

Before I look at the book’s content, I feel that I need to speak briefly about the book as a book. What quickly becomes clear is that Real Marriage suffers from a lack of clear identity, a problem that may stem from what appears to be rushed or otherwise ineffective editing. I point these things out not to be petty but because they effect the final product.

In the first place, there is a kind of sloppiness and inconsistency to the book. One example of this is the way the chapters vary so much in style, some being very personal with others being abstract and coldly statistical; even the inline subheadings can vary from chapter-to-chapter (e.g. italics in one chapter, all caps in the next). There are also factual errors, like when the Driscolls state that Solomon was the child born of David and Bathsheba’s adultery (when, in fact, that child died and Solomon was born later); there are errors in footnoting, like when a footnote contains no reference to what they have stated; there are errors in punctuation where a statement ends with a question mark, and errors in flow where a chapter references things to come that do not actually come.

Added to the editorial sloppiness is the fact that there is little internal cohesion to the book. Real Marriage reads more like a series of seminars than a cohesive introduction-to-conclusion look at a subject.

Finally, the fact that half of the book focuses on marriage and the other half on sex leads to some confusion as to the nature of the book. Is it a book on marriage or a book on sex? How do these things relate to one another in such a way that they merit equal attention? Obviously marriage is not less than sex, but is the sexual relationship fully half of marriage? Why does it receive such emphasis?

All these things together lead to a book that is disjointed and somewhat frustrating.

Such critiques aside, what about the book’s content?

Marriage

Real Marriage is divided into eleven chapters and three parts. Part 1, which spans the first five chapters, is titled “Marriage.” Chapter 1 is biographical; the Driscolls share many of the challenges they have faced through their marriage and reveal that until very recently their marriage and their sexual relationship were sources of great difficulty. They stayed faithful to one another, but faced great challenges that they’ve only recently learned to overcome. This introduces the kind of transparency and vulnerability that marks the book. Chapter 2 looks at the importance of friendship within marriage while in chapter 3 Mark writes primarily to men and challenges them to take seriously their roles as leaders and providers and to learn to honor their wives. Chapter 4 is geared toward women and Grace focuses on respect, telling women of the importance of obeying the biblical command to respect their husbands. Here and in many other places we see the Driscolls firmly defending a complementarian understanding of gender roles within marriage. The 5th and final chapter in this section looks at the inevitable disagreements within marriage and seeks to model fighting well—moving past disagreement toward peace and reconciliation.

The highlight of what the Driscolls teach on marriage is probably the importance of friendship. This is, indeed, an overlooked topic and experience shows that many of the best marriages are the ones in which the spouses are fast friends. A strange mis-step in this chapter is Mark’s statement that he has asked Grace to be his “functional pastor,” Because he is a pastor and he does not have anyone to pastor him, he has asked Grace to fill that role. This must speak as much to his church’s leadership structure as to the Driscoll’s marriage; it is an unusual position and not one I would want others to emulate.

Noticeably absent in this section is a firm and robust gospel grounding for marriage. Ephesians 5 is referenced only in passing; the marriage relationship as a mystery, a picture of Christ’s relationship to the church, is never clearly offered as the big picture or ultimate purpose of marriage. That gospel foundation is utterly, absolutely critical to an understanding of marriage and it is missing from Real Marriage. This is a tragic oversight. And I say “tragic” because the biblical understanding of marriage influences everything else—everything they discuss from chapter one to chapter eleven.

Sex

Just about 100 pages into the book, Part 2, “Sex,” begins. Chapter 6 is titled “Sex: God, Gross or Gift?” and teaches that sex is a good gift of God given for pleasure, procreation, oneness, knowledge, protection and comfort. Chapter 7, “Disgrace and Grace” looks at sexual abuse and shares Grace’s story of being a victim of such abuse. Chapter 8 turns to pornography, showing the danger it poses. Servanthood and selfishness in the sexual relationship is the subject of chapter 9. Sections on “Ways We Are Selfish Lovers” and “Reasons Why We Are Selfish Lovers” introduce good questions for discussion between a husband and wife, but somehow the chapter veers into an act-by-act exposition of Song of Solomon, ultimately encouraging a wife to be “visually generous” (i.e. strip) for her husband.

Chapter 10 is easily the most controversial chapter and the place that the Driscolls ask and answer the “Can We _______?” questions within the sexual relationship. They cover a long list of specific sexual acts and introduce a grid from 1 Corinthians 6:12. I have already discussed the shortcomings of this grid elsewhere and would encourage you not to use it in the way they teach. (Click here to find those articles) Here’s the thing: The greatest, most enduring, most ultimate purpose of marriage is that it is meant to draw our eyes and hearts and minds to what Christ has done. Thus when faced with the “Can We _______?” questions we do not go first to law and ask, “Does the Bible forbid this?” Instead we go straight to the gospel and ask, “Is this a reflection of Christ and his church? Does this come from a heart that has been radically altered by the gospel?” This gospel focus is missing from their evaluation.

Allow me to make a few observations about these chapters.

The first is that in at least two places the Driscolls refer to a man’s sexual desire as a “need.” This is a difficult term that begs further definition and one that needs to be understood in reference to the gospel, the message that proclaims our deepest needs have already been met in Christ. A man does not “need” to have sex—not in the sense he needs to eat or sleep or have Christ as his Savior. At one point Mark writes about “testosterone-induced depression,” a condition that can arise when sexual needs are not met. That form of depression may exist and there is a sense in which a man’s body craves sex. But these things cannot be properly understood without the wider context of the gospel. This context is absent and it’s a significant oversight.

Another observation is that the book is graphic. In the “Can We _______?” chapter the Driscolls look at a long list of very intimate sexual acts. A chapter earlier they look to Song of Solomon and state that each verse points to a very specific sexual act. There is no subtlety in describing sexual deeds and misdeeds; rather, everything is explained in detail. Some of these acts are so intimate (perhaps invasive is also an appropriate word) that many readers will never have considered that they even exist. As a husband I would not want my wife to read some of what this chapter contains. This is not prudishness but protection. It is one thing to address specific questions that have arisen within the marriage relationship; it’s another thing altogether to introduce those questions to the marriage relationship.

Finally, Mark’s abuse of The Song of Solomon has been widely noted and discussed, but he continues to treat it as a graphic sex manual. To treat it this way is to utterly miss the point. As Carl Trueman says, turning the Song of Solomon “primarily into a sex manual is arguably a greater act of reductionism than jumping straight from the text to Christ and the church.” (See John MacArthur and Carl Trueman for more)

There is much more I could say. On the one level I appreciate what the Driscolls were trying to accomplish here. They were seeking to build credibility with the reader by opening up their marriage and they were seeking to answer the kinds of questions people have asked them. I get that. But the result is a disjointed effort that misses the mark because it is not firmly and sufficiently grounded in the gospel. The section culminates in the “Can We _______?” questions, but answers to these questions will inevitably miss the mark if we don’t begin with the heart of marriage. How can we evaluate any action in marriage if we haven’t first talked at length about the actions of our Savior and our desire to model him?

The Rest

Part 3 is a single chapter titled “Reverse-Engineering Your Life and Marriage.” The stuff of marriage seminars, this is a long homework assignment for a husband and wife to complete together to help them understand their marriage, put together goals, and finish well.

It is worth mentioning that the e-book version of Real Marriage also contains five appendices. The most notable of them may be the one that speaks of divorce. The Driscolls teach that there are six legitimate grounds for divorce: 1) Death (Rom. 7:2-4; 1 Cor. 7:39); 2) Adultery (Deut. 22:22; Matt. 5:32); 3) Non-Christian files for divorce and leaves (1 Cor. 7:10-24) 4) Sexual immorality/porneia (Matt. 5:32; 19:9); 5) Treachery or treasonous betrayal (Mal. 2:14-16); 6) Hardness of heart (Matt. 19:8; Mark 10:5). They then give the example of an abusive husband saying that if he is unrepentant for his abuse, a woman could divorce him using grounds 5 and 6. I know of no legitimate theologians who teach that these are all legitimate grounds for divorce and very few that would allow divorce under the circumstances given.

Conclusion

I said from the outset that in order to distinguish itself in a crowded field, a book on marriage needs an angle, something unique. The Driscolls chose to make their angle vulnerability and answers to the toughest questions. What they haven’t done is laid a solid gospel foundation for marriage; they haven’t looked at these questions in the fullest context of gospel-centeredness and the rich biblical theology of marriage. This is near-fatal because it leads to a book that is not firmly rooted in what matters most.

Having read the book through two times, I’ve found myself wondering how to best measure or evaluate it, but perhaps these criteria are useful: Would I want to read it with my wife or would I encourage her to read it on her own? Would I recommend it to the people in my church? In both cases the answer is no. This is not to say that the book is entirely without merit; Real Marriage does have things to commend it. But in my assessment the negatives far outweigh the positives. Its disjointed nature, the way it is unhinged from the gospel, the way it evaluates sexual acts through an improper grid—in all these ways and more it inadvertently lowers marriage rather than elevates it. With so many good books on marriage available to us, I see no reason to recommend this one.

Real Marriage: Some Questions Part 3

Here is the third part of Challies' discussion questioning Driscoll's use of 1 Corinthians 6:12

Can We ______? & the 1 Corinthians 6:12 Grid

• Tim Challies
• 12/19/11
• 0

I am hoping that this will be my final article on the Driscolls and Real Marriage, at least for the time being. I do not want this subject to dominate my web site, but I do have one more thing to say. Before I say it, I want to review a few things I haven’t said. I have seen several things in the comments and out in the blogosphere attributed to me that I haven’t actually said, so let me take a moment to refocus the conversation.

1. I have not said that any particular sex act is wrong. The purpose of writing this little series is not to point to any single act and say, “That is wrong.”
2. I have not said that Real Marriage is all about sex or sex acts or sexual deviancy or that the book has no value. There are several parts of the book that are actually quite helpful; I will cover these in a review closer to the release date.
3. I don’t hate Mark Driscoll.

The reason I am writing these articles is to (hopefully) show that the grid the Driscolls use to evaluate sex acts that are right or wrong is faulty and that introducing that grid to a marriage could be very harmful. In my last article I showed that the grid does not do an adequate job of evaluating heart motives. Today I want to show that the Driscolls seem to have misunderstood the very passage they use to construct their grid.

By way of review, here is the method they teach to evaluate which sex acts are right and which are wrong. Speaking of 1 Corinthians, they write:

Paul answered their questions, but he also went further. In addition to teaching them what to think, he taught them how to think. In 1 Corinthians 6:12, amid his teaching on sex, Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”

This simple taxonomy is brilliantly helpful because it is simultaneously simple enough to remember and broad enough to apply to every sexual question.

From this taxonomy they draw three questions which they apply to a list of specific sexual acts. Is it lawful? seeks to ascertain whether an act violates the laws of government or the laws of God; Is it helpful? seeks to ascertain whether that act draws a couple together as one or pushes them apart as two; and Is it enslaving?seeks to ascertain whether that act could become obsessive, out of control, or addictive.

1 Corinthians 6:12

The Driscolls are seeking to help pastor people through difficult issues—issues too difficult to take to your own pastor. Yet it seems that they miss the point of the passage. They look at Paul’s statement “All things are lawful for me” as a foundational understanding of Christian freedom. But most commentators—all of the ones I looked at—disagree that this is what Paul is driving at. Gordon Fee says, “‘Everything is permissible for me’ is almost certainly a Corinthian theological slogan. This is confirmed by the way Paul cites it again in 10:23; in both cases he qualifies it so sharply as to negate it—at least as a theological absolute.” The Corinthians may have made up this phrase or they may have taken something Paul once said in a narrow context and turned it into an absolute slogan. “If so, their error would lie in making absolute what for Paul would always been been qualified by his ‘in Christ’ perspective.” In other words, Paul is not teaching, “All things are lawful.” He is either directly contradicting that statement or qualifying it so strongly that it ceases to have any real value. Leon Morris agrees, as do Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner along with David Prior. All of these commentators agree that “all things are lawful” is not the point of what Paul is teaching.

This then impacts the first question the Driscolls ask: Is it forbidden by the Bible or the laws of the land? This was not what Paul wanted the Corinthians to take away from “All things are lawful.” He did not mean for them to understand that anything not strictly forbidden may be acceptable. Instead, Paul teaches that “truly Christian conduct is not predicated on whether I have the right to do something, but whether my conduct is helpful to those around me.” Paul’s first thought is not, “Am I forbidden from doing this?” but “Is this how I can best express love?” He was saying, “All things are lawful…but who cares! It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a strict command forbidding it; the important considerations are whether this is profitable and whether it is enslaving.”

Within the context of marriage, we know that our love is to reflect the love Christ has for the church. Our marriage, including the sexual relationship, is meant to flow from and point to Christ’s love for his people. How did Christ love? He laid aside his own desires—what we might even call needs; he considered his own comfort and desires far less important than doing the will of his Father and serving the people he loved; he died to self; he laid down his life. This kind of love needs to inform and motivate us. It needs to be in our hearts and minds as we consider what we think is a need; it needs to be in our hearts and minds as we consider asking any of the “Can We ________?” questions.

Here’s the thing: Christian freedom is not just the freedom to do, but the freedomnot to do. You don’t understand freedom until you willingly and joyfully deny yourself what is technically lawful (or not expressly forbidden in the Bible) but contextually unwise or inappropriate. Commentator David Prior says it well: “In chapters 8-10 we shall see Paul arguing passionately and persuasively that the essential Christian freedom is the freedom not to be free, i.e. a deliberate choice to restrain my freedom for the sake of the gospel. The man who has to express his freedom is actually in bondage to the need to show he is a free man. The genuinely free man has nothing to prove.” He has nothing to prove and understands that even though he has technical freedom in some areas, those things do not promote love and true intimacy. The Christians at Corinth were glorying in their rights and freedom and using this to express themselves sexually. Never mind love! They had freedom—freedom to gratify their desires. But freedom, if not properly understood and applied, can be used to express allegiance to idols just as easily as it can be used to pursue noble ends. It turns out that there is a counterfeit kind of freedom that is actually slavery.

What the Driscolls miss, at least in their teaching on this passage, is the wider gospel context. This grid is not meant to be taken on its own and it is not given as a grid we are use to evaluate what is acceptable or forbidden within marriage. The freedom to have is not the point; rather, it is the freedom to love by not having. You need to read more than this one verse to see this. We are not meant to read this verse and walk away with a list of ways a spouse might have his own sexual needs met. If anything spouse should read this and walk away with the determination to seek only the how he might serve his spouse. And this is where the gospel is truly lived out, not in celebrating the freedom to enjoy this or that sexual act, but in the freedom to deny yourself, trusting that not every desire or “need” actually needs to be met in order to be beautifully satisfied and fulfilled.

All of which is to say, this grid, drawn from 1 Corinthians 6, is just too simplistic, it is inadequate. It does not call you to examine and even doubt your motives and it does not call you to ensure that your actions are a display of a life that has been radically transformed by the gospel. It does not call you to the deepest kind of Christian freedom—the freedom not to do.

Real Marriage: Some Questions Part 2

Here is the continued discussion from yesterday.

Real Marriage: Can We _______?

• Tim Challies
• 12/16/11
• 0

Yesterday I began a discussion of Real Marriage, the new book by Mark and Grace Driscoll (to be released on January 3). This was not a review as much as an attempt to think through the issues raised in the one chapter that is bound to be the source of the most controversy. I wanted to think about whether certain issues need to be discussed and the manner in which they are discussed. The context is the “Can We ________?” questions that pertain to the marriage bed. Today I want to move to a related discussion and show how the Driscolls attempt to answer such questions.

As the Driscolls answer the common “Can We ________?” questions, they apply a grid they have drawn from 1 Corinthians. The city of Corinth was a city known for its debauchery and sexual excess, and even the Christians there were indulging in all manner of sexual sin. They had apparently written to Paul with some of their questions, and what we call the book of 1 Corinthians is his letter of response.

The Driscolls write:

Paul answered their questions, but he also went further. In addition to teaching them what to think, he taught them how to think. In 1 Corinthians 6:12, amid his teaching on sex, Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”

This simple taxonomy is brilliantly helpful because it is simultaneously simple enough to remember and broad enough to apply to every sexual question.

From this taxonomy they draw three questions which they apply to a list of specific sexual acts. Is it lawful? seeks to ascertain whether an act violates the laws of government or the laws of God; Is it helpful? seeks to ascertain whether that act draws a couple together as one or pushes them apart as two; and Is it enslaving?seeks to ascertain whether that act could become obsessive, out of control, or addictive.

Before they get to questions and answers they make it clear that “we are explaining what a married couple may do, not what they must do. The Bible often gives more freedom than our consciences can accept, and we then choose not to use all our freedoms.” While I appreciate that they seek to allow conscience to play a determinative role, for many of us there can be a kind of pressure that comes from an authoritative source saying, “This act is good.” I believe many of these questions are best addressed in the context of marriage instead of coming from an outside authority. That relieves the pressure of thinking, “Maybe I need to ignore my conscience or change my conscience because this person says this act is acceptable and good.” We need to be very careful anytime we determine what is lawful and acceptable for other people. Our freedom can apply unfair pressure to them which has the potential to cause great difficulties for marriages in which one spouse is scandalized by certain activities and the other one is not.

Some of the things the Driscolls pass through the grid are more controversial than others. Some are more obviously related to our time and our culture (cybersex being a clear example since no generation before our own has ever had to consider it). It is worth pointing out that in the end the only acts they deem unworthy of Christians are those that are explicitly forbidden by the Bible (abortive birth control and sexual assault). Everything they put through the grid, except the two that are clearly forbidden in the Bible, are found to be acceptable. That includes a range of acts from some most Christians would consider acceptable to ones that many or most Christians would find repugnant.

Obviously there is value in using a biblical grid to evaluate issues like this one. My concern is that this particular grid has at least two fundamental flaws: (1) it does not adequately account for heart motives, and (2) it reflects a serious exegetical misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 6:12. In what follows, I want to focus on the first flaw (related to motives), and next time I will return to the exegetical issue.

How the Grid Works in Actual Practice

Let’s use their example of cosmetic surgery, since it clearly displays the shortcomings of the grid and because it relieves some of the tension we would feel with the more controversial acts. Here is how they evaluate cosmetic surgery:

Is it lawful? The Driscolls say, “It is legal to have cosmetic surgery. Furthermore, it is not forbidden in Scripture, because it is a more recent medical invention.” They go on to provide some statistics showing who tends to have the most cosmetic surgery and which procedures are most popular.

It is helpful? They say, “There are many reasons cosmetic surgery may be beneficial. It can make us more attractive to our spouses. And if our appearance is improved, we feel more comfortable being seen naked by our spouses, which can increase our freedom in lovemaking.” They also point to four negatives: (1) the danger of death or disfigurement, (2) cost factors, (3) the desire to attract sexual attention from someone other than your spouse or (4) the desire to have your spouse change his or her appearance in order to look like someone else.

Is it enslaving? Here they point to the danger of being obsessed with achieving some kind of elusive perfect appearance and the danger of Body Dismorphic Disorder in which you can become dangerously enslaved by body image.

Thus cosmetic surgery passes through this grid. But did you notice what was never addressed? Heart motivation. This may be the motivation of the wife who wants to have her breasts enlarged—she may feel that she will only ever be attractive if she goes up a cup size or two. It may be the motivation of the husband who believes that his wife will be far more appealing to him if her breasts are a bit larger or her tummy a bit flatter.

This is not the time to head to the surgeon; it is the time to evaluate the heart. Why is it that you want to undergo plastic surgery? What is it that you believe it will accomplish? What is it about this procedure that will give you greater sexual freedom? Why is it that in your current condition you cannot be “naked and unashamed?” Is this surgery addressing a genuine issue or is it actually exposing idolatry? And what of the gospel? How can we send a person to the surgeon without first making sure that he or she knows the source of identity and acceptance, who he or she is in Christ?

There will always be motives—heart motives—behind that desire to have surgery. There are times those motives may be good; there are times those motives may be bad. When it comes to cosmetic surgery, it is quite likely the motives will be poor or a mixture of good and poor. At the very least, motive merits serious, prayerful consideration. If you have the surgery based on idolatrous motives, it will never—it can never—deliver the results you are hoping for.

I am not saying that cosmetic surgery is inherently sinful or that it is always wrong. But at the very least we have to see that it very often is sinful. It often—if not always—arises from sinful desires rather than good ones. It is often meant to feed sinful lusts and desires. This grid the Driscolls provide does nothing to address the heart issues. Without looking first to the heart, that breast augmentation will simply be the feeding of idols. And that may also be true of any other sexual act.

What is true of cosmetic surgery will also be true of anything else related to sex and sexuality—there are motives at play. Those motives may be good, and they may be bad. They may be self-centered, and they may be spouse-centered. And this is what any grid needs to include. Why do I want to do this act? What do I think this act will accomplish? What kind of fulfillment will it bring me? Is this first and foremost an act of love? Does this reflect that relationship of Christ to the church that my marriage is meant to image?

The problem with the grid—quite apart from the exegesis (which we’ll look at next time)—is that it allows virtually anything that Scripture does not explicitly and expressly forbid. In fact, it is difficult to imagine any act or desire, except those clearly forbidden in Scripture, that wouldn’t make it through this grid. In practical use, the only acts it filters out are the ones overruled by the first question.

Real Marriage: Some Questions

This is Tim Challies' pre review of Mark Driscoll's book, Real Marriage. Stay tuned for the next installment tomorrow.

The Driscolls and Real Marriage

• Tim Challies
• 12/15/11
• 0

Mark Driscoll will be all over the news in the new year. Not only is he set to be a participant at the controversial Elephant Room conference on January 25, but January 3 will also mark the release of his newest book—the one that is bound to become his most controversial yet: Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship &Life Together. Co-authored with his wife Grace, the book is being marketed as a down-to-earth and no-holds-barred look at marriage and sex. Especially sex.

Though Real Marriage weighs in at over 200 pages and 11 chapters, there is one chapter that is going to generate the vast majority of the buzz. I plan to write a review of the whole book closer to the release date. For now, though, I want to reflect on that one chapter.

Before I go any farther I need to warn you that the contents of this blog post and any that follow are going to deal with topics that are uncomfortable for many people (myself included!)—particularly in the older generation. They have to. What the Driscolls deal with in this chapter, and what they deem biblical, are not only sex acts, but acts considered sexually deviant by many. If you are young or if you simply do not want to read a discussion of such matters, please just stop reading now; there is no shame in doing so. I would prefer not to write about this at all, but now that the questions are being asked and answered, I believe there needs to be some kind of further response and discussion. Having said that, I will try to be as discreet as I can without sacrificing clarity.

Chapter 10 is titled simply “Can We________?” This is where the Driscolls answer what they say are the sex questions people want to know but are too embarrassed to ask their own pastors. The questions span self-stimulation to the use of sex toys and forms of cybersex. The most provocative of all involves sodomy within marriage. Early in the chapter they provide a grid that they say can be used to answer any question of this nature and then simply pass each act through that grid. They find that each of these, and several others, are legitimate forms of sexual expression within marriage.

This offers many areas we could consider, but I want to focus in on just a couple. The first thing I want to do is look at the Driscolls’ rationale for addressing these questions. Should we have such frank and public discussions of even the most intimate and potentially deviant sexual acts? Is the best way of answering these questions to address them head-on with a clear yes or no? In a subsequent article I want to take a look at the grid they use to determine what is right and what is wrong within the sexual relationship.

Should We Talk About It?

Here are the introductory words from this chapter:

Before we answer the most common and controversial questions, a bit of preface will be helpful. If you are older, from a highly conservative background, live far away from a major city, do not spend much time on the Internet, or do not have cable television, the odds are that you will want to read this chapter while sitting down with the medics ready on speed dial.

If you are one of those people who do not know that the world has changed sexually, read this chapter not to argue or fight, but rather to learn about how to be a good missionary in this sexualized culture, able to answer people’s questions without blushing. For parents, grandparents, and those in caring professions such as teachers, pastors, ministry leaders, and counselors, this task is all the more urgent.

The questions today are different, and if people don’t get answers from pastors and parents, they will find them in dark, depraved places. The truth is that almost every married couple has a list of questions regarding what they can and cannot do. You likely have a list of these questions too. Some of them will, hopefully, be answered in this book.

In summary, the Driscolls say that the world has changed and people are now asking new and more frank questions. It falls to us, as Christians, to be ready with answers. If we do not answer them well, people will find worse answers elsewhere.

It is certainly true that the world has changed and that people are asking new questions. My little book Sexual Detox arose from these kinds of frank questions, though I went about answering in a very different way. I heard young men discussing subjects and came to realize that what they knew of sex, they must have learned largely from pornography and they were now wondering if they could act out porn on their wives. Though I do not say so in the book, it was the issue of sodomy within marriage that particularly shocked me. Young men were eager to try this particular act with their wives and I realized that the reason they wanted to try it is because they had seen it acted out so often in pornography. And yes, they actually discussed it without much shame or hesitation. The Driscolls see it the same way: “Likely due to the increase in pornography and sexualized nature of our culture, [this act] is increasingly more commonly discussed, accepted, and practiced by both men and women, single and married. This explains why most grandmothers and grandfathers rarely, if ever, consider this act, which many of their granddaughters and grandsons are participating in.”

Statistically and based on my own research this is exactly the case. Young people are accepting this act as part of a normal sexual relationship. What previous generations regarded as deviant is now considered normal. This pertains to more than this one act; there are many things now considered acceptable that previous generations would balk at. So in this way the Driscolls are right—for good or for ill, this is a contemporary issue. People really do want to know if certain acts are legitimate forms of sexual expression within marriage. And often times people have already found the answers in the pornography that, at least for a time, has consumed them. It is a scary fact that today’s most widely-used sexual education curriculum is countless hours of hard-core pornography.

But questions remain, and they are difficult to answer. Should we feel an obligation to speak to this issue and others like it? Is it important, as the Driscolls suggest, that every parent, grandparent and pastor equip himself to speak to this issue and others without shame? And is a book on marriage the right place to address such things? A loud, emotional and immediate answer to this question is simple enough. A thoughtful one is more difficult to generate.

I am not at all convinced that every discussion needs to be had. Let me share how I’ve thought this through.

First, I see this explicitly in the Bible. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5 that some things are so unfruitful and dark and perverse that even to speak of them is shameful (verses 11-14). This shows that, at least in some cases, we do not need to speak of particular acts. Even if everyone else in the world is discussing them, we may need to avoid them or speak of them discreetly rather than blatantly. Some things are so dark and so obviously sinful that it is actually destructive to discuss them. Whether the particular topics discussed in Real Marriage fall into this category is up for debate, I suppose.

Second, I see Paul modelling this. The Driscolls model their engagement with the issues on the book of 1 Corinthians, and 6:12 in particular. It strikes me that this letter to the Corinthians is frank at times, but nowhere near as frank as Real Marriage, even though Paul, too, sought to deal with difficult issues. It must be noted that the nature of the answers Paul gave to the church at Corinth is very different from the answers the Driscolls offer. Paul did not proceed through a list of specific acts and state which are acceptable and which are not. 1 Corinthians is not lascivious; even when dealing with the most base issue, it is discreet. You can read it before your children without shame. Not so Real Marriage; in fact I will make sure that my children do not ever find this book. The Driscolls take a much more graphic approach in which each act is described, defined and measured with statistics. Ironically, Real Marriage is not consistent in tone with the passage it is supposed to be based on.

Third, the Driscolls explicitly seek to answer questions that stir up shame. In doing this they suppose that the shame you feel in asking a question of your pastor is necessarily a bad kind of shame. It is important to note, though, that we should not immediately dismiss the feeling of shame. There is, after all, a kind of beneficial shame (just like there is a beneficial kind of pain). Destructive shame keeps you locked in the guilt of your sin even when you have been forgiven by God. Destructive shame can also make you feel ashamed of things that are pure and holy. But shame is not quite as easy as that. You may also feel shame when you are seeking to do something sinful or when you have done something sinful and are refusing to own your sin. In this case shame accomplishes a good purpose by pointing you to sin. The shame you feel in addressing a particular act with your pastor is not necessarily that bad and destructive kind of shame. If there is shame in going to your pastor and discussing your desire to do a particular sexual act with your wife, it may well be that your conscience is warning you away from sin. You do not need to talk to your pastor to find warrant for what you want to do; you need to repent of what you want to do.

Finally, I think there is a much better way. I am not saying that having this kind of discussion is necessarily sinful, but I am not convinced that it is wise. There is a way of avoiding this kind of discussion altogether. Maybe it is better to say that there is a way of elevating the discussion, not avoiding it. And I think that is where I will have to go in my next article. Even in an extremely sexualized culture in which most men are learning about sex primarily through pornography, can we provide real, helpful, biblical answers without being as frank as what Real Marriage offers? We can! There is something we can do that avoids the extremes of explicit discussion and head-in-the-sand avoidance. That’s what I hope to address next.

AP: "Pope: Marriage is not an absolute right"

Ripped from Yahoo!, the article partly reads as follows:

«VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told priests Saturday to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding.

Benedict made the comments in his annual speech to the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments. An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.

Benedict acknowledged that the problems that would allow for a marriage to be annulled cannot always be identified beforehand. But he said better pre-marriage counseling, which the Catholic Church requires of the faithful, could help avoid a "vicious circle" of invalid marriages.»

One could say a number a things about the title of the article itself, and Joseph Ratzinger overall is at least half-correct here.

The Trinity, Marriage, and Relative Identity

Submitted for your reading pleasure, for Thanksgiving break...

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So, let’s go back to two earlier issues that have arisen in this blog. Let’s also do this by way of a common path in addressing the matter of relative identity. Because if it is true that the relation of identity is not absolutely subject to the rule of transitivity, and if it is true that it is possible for objects X and Y to be the same object F but not same object G, then certain matters of Christian and biblical theology just became that easier to grasp.

To establish some context, the reader may recall the following past blog entries:

Monday, April 19, 2010
“Challenge for Trinitarians”
http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2010/04/challenge-for-trinitarians.html

(Cf. Monday, April 26, 2010
“Challenge for Anti-Trinitarians, Part 1”
http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2010/04/challenge-for-anti-trinitarians-part-1.html

Monday, May 03, 2010
“Challenge for Anti-Trinitarians, Part 2”
http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2010/05/challenge-for-anti-trinitarians-part-2.html)

Saturday, October 02, 2010
“About David's Census”
http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-davids-census.html

Linked to:
SEP: “Relative Identity¨
First published Mon Apr 22, 2002; substantive revision Mon Nov 5, 2007
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/

Wednesday, October 27, 2010
“A Difficult Teaching”
http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2010/10/difficult-teaching.html

The two issues in question are: 1) the supposed logical and metaphysical impossibility of the biblical teaching of the divinity and co-distinctiveness of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and 2) the bodies of a man and his wife being one in number. The would-be downfall of the doctrine of the Trinity and of the difficult marital teaching was this: the Rule of Transitivity of the relation of identity.

The Scriptures apparently hold that each of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the names of whom we will abbreviate as F, S, H, respectively) is distinct from the other and that each is God, where the noun phrase “God” is a subject complement and not a camouflaged adjective of any sort. What do we know about identity? If an A is C, and if B is C, then A is B. Again, if les États-Unis are the United States and if los Estados Unidos are the United States, then les États-Unis are los Estados Unidos: this is something which is perfectly clear to see. So where we abbreviate the name “God” with “G,” if F is G and if S is G--and don’t lie to yourself--then F is S according to the transitivity rule of identity.

The same problem arises with married couples. Christ said that a man and wife are no longer two but one, and if we are to take the words of Christ at face value or are to take his words literally--as is required in any hermeneutic enterprise until the possibilities that words were meant to be taken literally are exhausted--then we have a problem. For it is clear that when the body of Barack Obama stands behind a teleprompter to give a speech while the bodies of wife and children have every appearance of being located elsewhere on the stage or on the earth, there are two distinct objects involved, even two distinct bodies. Leibniz’s Law of the Indiscernibility of Identicals creates the problem, because if Barry is Michelle and if Barry is behind the teleprompter, then according to the rule it must be that Michelle is behind the teleprompter. However, we will see later that the law is quite possibly defeasible in instances of this sort if we want to hold to the idea that the bodies of a man and his wife are one in number and not two.

**************

So once again, what are some facts of identity or something’s being identical with something else?

(1) A is A.
(In other words, everything is identical with itself.)

(2) If A is identical with B, then every property of A is a property of B, and vice versa.
(In other words, if A and B are the same thing, then whatever is true of A is true of B, and vice versa; likewise, whatever quality A possesses is also possessed by B, and vice versa.)

(3) (Except where subject to qualification) The relation of identity is transitive. If A is C, and if B is C, then A is B.
(In other words, if Jesus’ Father is God, and if Jesus is God, then apparently Jesus is Jesus’s Father.)

(1) is the Law of Identity and its validity is incontrovertible. (2) is pretty much Leibniz’s Law of the Indiscernibility of Identicals and it supports (3). (3) is the rule of transitivity which is thought to bind or govern the identity relation.

The validity of the transitivity rule is to be granted. For starters, remember that language is a matter of the signifier and the signified. With that said, consider the statement “A is B.” If the name “A” refers only and precisely to an object φ and if the name “B” refers only and precisely to an object φ, then there just is only one denotation of the two names: φ. In other words, A necessarily is B and B necessarily is A since A and B are I-related (i.e., identity-related) in that there is precisely, only, and commonly one object which they denote.

Because the transitivity rule of identity is to be granted, guess what you get with the following sentences:

(4) The Father is God.
(5) The Son is God.
(6) The Spirit is God.

Or if any trinitarian will not admit that there is trouble for trinitarianism here, let’s reduce those sentences to symbolic logic, with the attendant reminder, for example, that the Bible apparently affirms not merely that Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus are equal with God but identical, as in John 1.4 or Acts 5.3-4:

(4') F = G
(5') S = G
(6') H = G

On the transitivity rule, F = S = H, which clearly is not orthodox.

**************

In philosophy it is often useful to examine language and the ways in which we speak of different matters of ontology, mereology, epistemology, and so forth. In fact, it is useful to think of the identity relation as being a linguistic or semiotic relation, but only up to a certain point. The foregoing account of trinitarian doctrine and the transitivity of identity is a semiotic one, and there are shortcomings in a mere semiotic account of identity.

[DB, Semiotics contrasts with semantics in being the study of the words and such that convey meanings or connotations. ;) ]

Number one, how does a mere semiotic account explain the Law of Identity? After all, when we stop to contemplate the Law of Identity and affirm it we are not asserting that a name, N, refers to what it refers to. To the contrary, it is clear that in those instances what we have in mind is that an object, φ, is φ--our concern is one of raw metaphysics and not language.

Number two, suppose you point at two physical objects (such as two coffee mugs) resting on your desktop and assert that one is the other. Regardless of whether your assertion is veridical or jibes with reality, it is clear that your concern in this case is not a semiotic one and also that you are not employing any novel or unconventional concept of identity in the process.

Number three, a mere semiotic account of identity reduces the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to mere names of a common object, something which is hardly supported by the entirety of the Scriptures.

Having considered these problems, what would it mean to point to a physical object with your right hand and to assert that it is another physical object that you point out with your left hand? Transitivity could not begin to apply to the two physical objects, as it were, or to any additional and third object if the assertion were true. This is because Leibniz’s law, which is metaphysical and concerned with the properties of objects, still holds true such that you have no diversity or plurality of objects to which transitivity could apply.

What all of this means is that the transitivity rule of identity apparently holds in language and symbolic logic, but not beyond language and symbolic logic. In terms of the realities of raw metaphysics or ontology, which are the foundation of language in the first place, the rule binds nothing.

**************

So the transitivity rule of identity apparently cannot rightly be used to deny the doctrines of the Trinity. It remains entirely possible that F = G and S = G while F ≠ S. Of course, if one affirms that F = G and S = G while F ≠ S then he affirms the idea of relative identity, according to which X and Y can be the same φ though not the same ψ. Someone might invoke Occam’s razor to claim that the Scriptures themselves are proof that relative identity exists, at least in the case of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Apart from that, strong proofs of the existence of relative identity seem rather elusive. However, a tentative case can be made with the paradox of constitution.

Take a piece of clay that has no remarkable or special shape or form. Now take that entire quantity of clay and fashion it such that the piece of clay that now has a shape exactly like that of a man, with various constituent atoms or matter in various locations relative to one another: the piece of clay is now a statue. Now take a mallet and smash the statue. By doing so, you will have destroyed the statue, but it bears noting that at the same time you have not destroyed the piece of clay.

The piece of clay is the piece of clay. The statue is the piece of clay. The piece of clay is the statue. The statue is an object, O, which the piece of clay is not. Stated in another way:

C = C
S = C
S = O
C ≠ O

Compare:

F = G
S = G
H = G
F = O1 (“O1” meaning an object which S and H are not)
S = O2
H = O3
F ≠ S; S ≠ H; F ≠ H

Notice that the thought experiment of the piece of clay is carefully worded. The piece of clay does not merely take the form of a man or of a statue. To the contrary, in virtue of the piece of clay’s having a shape exactly like that of a man it just is a statue. Meanwhile, it is clear that a statue is destroyed when it is smashed with a mallet. At the same time, it bears noting that in the thought experiment the piece of clay begins as an object which has no remarkable or special shape or form and persists even after it obtains a special shape. Therefore, the piece of clay is not destroyed by any stroke of a mallet, though the statue is. Consequently, it seems difficult to conceive that the thought experiment or its conclusions suffer from some sort of language defect or some sort of “vague” or “misleading” use of vernacular speech. No, the vernacular means of speaking of destruction and constitution seems quite straightforward in this instance, and so there seems to be at least one intuitive example of relative identity.

So with a dismissal of the transitivity rule of identity in matters of metaphysics or ontology, we discovered what we already knew to begin with: that it is entirely possible that each of F, S, H is G while F, S, H are distinct from each other. With the would-be paradox of constitution, we see again that it is entirely possible that each of F, S, H is G while F, S, H are distinct from each other. Of course, no one believes that either F, S, or H is a physical or mental construct of any sort, yet the paradox only bolsters and supports the re-evaluation of the transitivity rule.

Now let’s see what happens if we try to account for trinitarian proof texts by means of the concept of relative identity. In the ontological realm, when two objects are I-related--and let’s stop right there, because there can be no naïve relation of identity between two distinct objects in extra-linguistic world; instead, identity by definition means having only one object in question though it may carry two different names. Then again, in the ontological realm when objects are R-related (i.e., when the relation of relative identity obtains between the objects) A and B will be the same X, but not the same Y. Again, A and B will be the same X, but not the same Y.

A and B will be identical with some common object (this object perhaps being either A, or B, or some third object), though at the same time there is at least one object A is though B is not or at least one object B is though A is not. In the case of the piece of clay, the piece of clay was the statue and vice versa, though apparently the statue was something which the piece of clay was not, for one object was destroyed while the other was not destroyed. Therefore, the piece of clay and the statue are R-related to each other while there is yet a third object somewhere in the picture, regardless of whether or not it is readily discernible. In the case of F, S, and H, it is likewise the case that certain objects (e.g., S and G) apparently are identical while there is a third object which one of the two is while the other is not (cf. the doctrines that G is F though F is not S).

So, relative identity is possible, and it appears to support the propositions that each of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the one god that exists while each is also distinct from each other.

**************

If a piece of clay and a statue are R-related in the paradox of constitution, then it follows that such may well be the case with human beings. Consider a human body for example. It seems entirely fair (though every matter of philosophy is doomed to remain forever controversial to some degree) to say reductionistically that a zygote is a particular amount or body of matter, regardless of its being a vessel of a soul or spirit. This zygote, or rather this body of matter, will undergo radical changes in its career. If all goes normally, the body of matter will increase in size over the course of nine months and its shape will undergo radical changes of shape, but the body of matter persists nonetheless as opposed to ceasing to exist upon any would-be change that it undergoes.

Now suppose the worst and that this body of matter perishes at an age of ten months and is later incinerated. The human being is destroyed in the process, but that particular amount or body of matter is not. Come rain or shine or fire or any other condition, all the constituent atoms of that body of matter persist, even if their locations relative to one another become as counterintuitive or as strange as the relative locations of the United States or the minuscule letter “i,” which both consist of disparate parts. What follows from our thought experiment is that the body of each of us is never alone; instead, it may well be that we have two of them even if one of them is not readily discernible.

With that said, let’s revisit some texts that we earlier looked at. It is written:

1 And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judaea by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again. 2 And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away [his] wife? tempting him. 3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? 4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put [her] away. 5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10 And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same [matter]. 11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. (Mark 10.1-12)

Again:

3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? 4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? 8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except [it be] for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. 10 His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with [his] wife, it is not good to marry. 11 But he said unto them, All [men] cannot receive this saying, save [they] to whom it is given. 12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it]. (Matthew 19.3-12)

So Matthew 19 and Mark 10 speak of acts of remarriage which constitute acts of adultery. The texts also raise the following question: How does remarriage constitute adultery since the divorced person presumably is no longer married? For the time being, let’s try to answer this question with the naïve set of assumptions which most of us have concerning the texts: that the identity relation is always transitive and that the word “one,” as used in the texts above of a man and his wife, is merely figurative in meaning.

On the naïve view, remarriage or acts resulting from remarriage can be adultery only in virtue of the following: either a divinely irrevocable married status or a divinely irrevocable oneness of married couples. The former disjunct seems not to be an option, since it seems as though people who divorce do end their marriages and are unmarried right after they obtain a divorce. John 4.1-18 also seem to support this assessment (just as it is entirely unlikely that the Samaritan’s five former husbands were all dead at that time).

So marriages apparently end even when neither a husband nor a wife dies, and that means that adultery in this case must be a violation of oneness of an earlier marriage, which is a problem. It is a problem because the naïve view treats the word “one” in this case as being figurative in meaning: it ends up meaning close instead of one. Yet people who divorce each other clearly are no longer close in the sense of the Mt 19 and Mk 10 passages; they are neither physically nor emotionally nor sociologically close in whatever sense could exist in these passages. So the naïve view on the one hand must treat the adultery problem as a violation of erstwhile oneness while on the other hand it cannot possibly affirm that such oneness is possible. Therefore, the naïve view must be incorrect and cannot account for all the details of Mt 19.3-12 and Mk 10.1-12.

However, you get a solution to the problem if you assume that some particular relation of relative identity exists between married couples. The piece of clay and the statue overlapped in space and time, and perhaps two bodies for every human person also overlap in space and time. When someone marries, one of those two bodies ceases to be distinct in quality or in number from a body of another person who has just experienced an analogous change of being. In the case of the piece of clay and the statue, there turned out to be a third object which one object was while the other was not and which was meanwhile more or less indiscernable. In the case of married couples, some more or less indiscernable objects are those which become one in number while the two distinct bodies which we all see with our own two eyes are analogous to the piece of clay and the statue which we likewise see with our own two eyes. Consequently, it would have to be the case that the kind of people that Christ speaks of in Mt 19.3-12 and Mk 10.1-12 is not that which we see with our own eyes but rather the “hidden” physical bodies; otherwise, the appeal to relative identity is thus far ineffective.

So there it is: a bunch of things to consider, along with possible implications of 1 Corinthians 6.15-17. Food for thought and grounds for further research, to borrow from Emory.