Generally, Sex Before Marriage is Not Morally Sound

Hello, and welcome to my half of the opening round. We’ve heard why sex before marriage is allegedly morally wrong. I want to propose instead why sex before marriage in fact is healthy, acceptable, and reasonable behaviour in a modern, liberal society. Firstly, I want to discuss the legacy of this site of debates on this issue. The most famous one is between Contradiction and WriterDave. The two users, both incredibly popular at this time, gave one of the most powerful debates on the issue that the site has seen, and currently being voted as to whether it should be in the “debates of fame”. Its admission, I have no doubt, is certain. Yet similarly, a debate involving 16kadams and SeelTheMan also took place on the same resolution, the former being the foremost conservative on the site. So there is certainly a great heritage to this discussion, which we should be proud of as a community to be so openly discussing. However, what is always promoted seems to be a biblical battle between the secular atheist and the Christian philosopher. My opponent has taken the route of Natural Law, with its roots in Aristotle and Cicero but most firmly in Aquinas. Christian Natural Law, among other things, claims that God has given us rational will and we utilise it to observe the world and learn God’s will, or the Natural Law. I want to show however that biblically we have strong support for another, more appealing, more loving ethical theory. Situation Ethics. Situation Ethics was promoted by Bishop Joseph Fletcher, but has gained support across protestant traditions as well as Catholic and other denominations. It is unique in that its appeal to God is indirect: its arguments are supplemented by God, and proven by His Word. His ethical theory arose when his friend has a conversation with a cab driver in New Orleans. The taxi driver said “I’ve always voted Republican, same for my daddy, same for my daddy before him”. His friend replied “So are you voting Republican again then?” as it was an election year between the two parties. The Taxi Driver responded: “Sometimes you’ve gotta put aside your principles and do what’s right.” Remember the Two Greatest Commandments of them all: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”[1] The first, greatest commandment is that of love God. The second is that of love your neighbour. So the greatest value, the greatest virtue, is love. This is sometimes known as agape, or unconditional love of all. “To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices”.[2] Loving God is most important. And to emphasise this, Paul tells us: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”[3] and “The entire Law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”[4] Is the Law, the Natural Law or Revealed Law, enough to save anyone? As the Bible teaches, “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.”[5] “The Law by itself was unable to save anyone since no one was capable of its fulfilment.”[6] Now I shall draw my theological defence of Situation Ethics here with a final biblical quotation. “[Jesus] said unto them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath””[7]. What does this Bible verse actually say? This has been a plague for the absolute ethicists conforming to unbending rigid laws, as its conclusion is this. What it is ethical to do depends on the situation. It depends on what the most loving thing to do is. It does not have an unbending, careless, dispassionate stance. What it is right or wrong to do depends on what is the most loving thing to do. The Greatest Commandments say it is love that is paramount and supreme, and all else is subservient to its irresistible power. How does this relate to sex before marriage, I am sure you are impatiently asking? Well, once this moral standard is established, I want to bring in a problem by Joseph Fletcher: As the Russian armies drove westward to meet the Americans and British at the Elbe, a Soviet patrol picked up a Mrs. Bergmeier foraging food for her three children. Unable even to get word to the children, she was taken off to a POW camp in Ukraine. … in Ukraine, Mrs. Bergmeier learned through a sympathetic commandant that her husband and family were trying to keep together and find her. But the rules allowed them to release her to Germany only if she was pregnant, in which case she would be returned as a liability. She turned things over in her mind and finally asked a friendly Volga German camp guard to impregnate her, which he did. Her condition being medically verified, she was sent back to Berlin and to her family. They welcomed her with open arms, even when she told them how she had managed it. And when the child was born, they [her family] all loved him because of what they had done for them.[8] Is this morally acceptable? We must keep in mind the greatest command: promote agape. This is the birth of a child in a loving home, with loving parents. If not done, this woman would be horribly harmed and love is reduced and marginalised. It is more than moral to promote agape and allow sex before marriage in this situation. But what about more generally? I shall say now that in many situations, sex before marriage is ill advised. There are many cases in marriage it is ill advised, for that matter. Marriage itself is a union that is to promote love and cement the beautiful relationship between two people. Intercourse is an expression of this love that is shared between the couple. However, and this is the crux of my case, intercourse is still an expression of love. It is still an expression of the great love a couple share with one another, and that is what is key. If the couple are expressing the great love with one another, what reason can we possibly have to stop the purity and greatness of agape?Agape is, in a secular sense, parallel to empathy. Empathy is a value that all truly valuable ethical theories, from utilitarianism to contractarianism to Kantian Ethics to Natural Law value - whether the value of seeing things from other people's perspectives or acting with the interests of everyone in mind. Empathy is by far the most important trait in forming a society. While marriage can be an expression of this virtue, it is not necessary to express it. Marriage is a social institution to express it, and so is not necessary. Its modern meaning is just that - modern. Empathy, however, is the universal value that we all know is good, and as sex is an expression of love and care for your other, it is moral before marriage. The Bible reminds us that when the Pharisee said that love was the primary virtue, Jesus responded “You are not far from the Kingdom of God”[9]. The Kingdom of God, a state Natural Law ethicists can call eudaimonia, or human flourishing, is achieved when we promote agape, in all its forms, including sex before marriage. I’d like to close with one of my favourite pieces of poetry, a response to the Natural Law by Omar Khayyam, to complete my case, but before I do so, I want to say thank you for reading. I look forward to my opponent’s response. So I be written in the Book of Love, Do not care about that Book above. Erase my name or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love. [1] Matthew 22 [2] Mark 12 [3] Galatians 5:6b [4] Galatians 5:14 [5] Romans 8:3 [6] Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics [7] Mark 2:27 [8] Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics [9] Mark 12:34