Thought of the Day 06.01.09

View 1: Social institutions should be designed to conform with human nature. In the case of marriage, this nature is best suited to a permanent covenant between one man and one woman for life, for both personal development and the creation and nurture of children. This is the Natural Law view.

View 2: God made human beings, and He has ordained marriage between one man and one woman, as long taught by both Judaism and Christianity. We must honor God’s Will both because He has authority over us and because He is wise. This is the Divine Command view.

View 3: Human beings can do anything they want to do. They have neither a nature to align with nor a God to obey. Thus, marriage may be anything anyone wants it to be, and we should allow others to define it for themselves. This is the Relativist view.

Ultimately, the structure of marriage will simply reveal which of these three views is at the heart of our civil society.
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5 comments:

Jason Arant said...

It sounds like you are saying that although we try to say what marriage really is; at the end of the day marriage might say more about who we really are!

June 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

That's quite a poignant way of saying it! I wish I had your verbiage included in the thought. Thanks, man. =)

June 1, 2009 at 5:47 PM
Anonymous said...

That is an excellent way of summarizing the debate. Will the pro-oxymoronic same-sex marriage people see themselves for what they really are? Doubtful.

June 13, 2009 at 8:27 AM
Dan Trabue said...

I suppose you know that some people (Christians and others) agree with the gist of your second point, but would disagree that God does not want gay folk to marry?

You say, "We must honor God’s Will both because He has authority over us and because He is wise." and that is absolutely true. My whole church would agree with that thought completely.

However, we ALSO think that marriage is a good thing, for gay folk and for straight folk. In short, we don't think the Bible teaches that God is against gay marriage.

So, that might be either a fourth point or a caveat to your Divine Command view, for what it's worth.

June 13, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

Dan,

Yes, I am aware that there are people who believe morality flows from God and who also believe that this morality would endorse or allow gay marriage, although I would hope you would also agree that this is a novel view historically. That, of course, doesn't make it false, it just means that the Christian/Jewish DCT viewpoint is predominantly composed of people who are opposed to gay marriage on precisely these grounds.

But that being said, the real key is where morality comes from. If we as a society can agree that the God of the Bible is the most legitimate candidate for moral authority, at least we have a common framework within which we can meaningfully decide issues like this one.

I would far rather argue with someone like you who accepts DCT than with someone who accepts view 3, with whom I have so little in common framework-wise, that even having a meaningful conversation about an issue is close to impossible.

June 23, 2009 at 12:34 PM

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