Questions for Discussion

• What is your view of the proper relationship between sex and marriage and why do you hold it ?
• How do you respond to Grenz' defence of the traditional view ?
• Is Ramsey (following Augustine) right to move the focus from the wedding ?  What implications does this have for viewing cohabitation today ?

Grenz   Stafford   Augustine   Ramsey

Stanley Grenz, Sexual Ethics: A Biblical Perspective, Chpt 10.

Is it morally acceptable for young adults to engage in the sex act prior to marriage?  The traditional Christian sex ethic maintains that sexual intercourse is to be reserved for marriage…The prohibition against premarital sex is the outworking of the Christian concern for the protection of the meaning of the sex act and for the full establishment of the community of male and female…

The sex act and meaning – "single persons cannot express through this act the profound meanings intended by it…a beautiful means by which a couple gives expression to the deep dimension of their relationship…The assertion…does not suggest that the sex act is devoid of meaning when engaged in by the unmarried…the act can give expression to a love for each other which is deeply felt…yet, until their commitment is given public expression and receives societal sanction, it remains rather tenuous…The sex act may be a declaration of love, it cannot be the re-enactment and reaffirmation of the publicly pledged permanent commitment of each to the other…"

The sex act and a future choice of marriage – "abstinence…allows the young person to choose with dignity and integrity from the two alternatives…marriage and celibacy…Abstinence is intended to protect the possible future marriage in that it presumes that lack of sexual experience on the part of both partners prior to marriage offers a better basis for a good and lasting marital bond…Marriages in which both partners enter the relationship without prior experience of intercourse do have certain advantages"

Abstinence and a future choice of celibacy – "abstinence…allows the choice of the celibate life to be made apart from the bonds that would arise from a sexual relationship in early adulthood…"

What about physical sexual expressions among engaged persons ?  Is an engaged couple a special case that leads to a different conclusion about sexual behaviour ?  A biblical case could be made for greater laxity in sexual matters among engaged couples.  The Old Testament…stipulated that unmarried persons who engaged in sexual relations ought simply to be married…On that basis it could be argued that preceremonial sexual relations are not sinful, but merely serve to hasten the wedding day…In our society, engagement is viewed in a quite different way. It entails no binding promise of marriage…engagement is to be a time for final exploration of the relationship, in order that the couple might move into marriage…The goal of finding increased physical comfort…must take a subservient place to the greater goal of finding psychological and spiritual intimacy during engagement…Couples, regardless of the stage of their relationships, demonstrate great wisdom when they refuse to allow the pressures of the present to move them from a commitment to abstinence prior to marriage.

Tim Stafford, Sexual Chaos, Chpt 10.

Let me distinguish three levels of premarital sex…Recreational sex is sex devoid of commitment…Experimental sex also has no commitment, but it is interested in commitment…Preceremonial sex is between two people who believe they are committed.  They intend to marry…[It has been pointed out that] from a pastoral point of view, we should treat preceremonial sex differently from recreational sex…Joy argues…that biblical porneia doesn't apply.  Preceremonial sex is sin, he says, but it is a different and lesser sin – that of "defrauding one another – making the gestures of full trust without guraranteeing through social/legal protocol that such trust was indeed merited".  The problem is that in actual practice there is seldom a clear difference between experimental sex and preceremonial sex…In biblical times, when no one escaped the view of the community, a marriage ceremony wasn't needed.  It was often enough of a ceremony that two people moved in togther…The situation today is radically different…The marriage ceremony…does not guarantee a relationship that endures…but it is a support and a protection.  "Preceremonial sex" would count on private promises.  Experience has shown that private promises are as durable as morning dew.

Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, Para 5.

The question is wont to be asked, when a male and female, neither the one the husband, nor the other the wife, of any other, come together, not for the begetting of children, but, by reason of incontinence, for the mere sexual intercourse, there being between them this faith, that neither he do it with any other woman, nor she with any other man, whether it is to be called marriage.  And perhaps this may, not without reason, be called marriage, if it shall be the resolution of both parties until the death of one, and if the begetting of children, although they came not together for that cause, yet they shun not…But, if either both, or one, of these be wanting, I find not how we can call it marriage.

Paul Ramsey, One Flesh, pp17-18.

We need to consider briefly the special problem of premarital relations between couples engaged to be married…The older Christian tradition never had any difficulty in extending to what are nowadays called "premarital" relations what is nowadays called a compassionate judgment.  In fact it gave no one but the parties themselves the competence to render any judgment at all upon such preceremonial sexual relations between engaged couples.  In the "external forum" of neither the state nor the church had anyone the right to say they did wrong.  The very opposite was the case.  The presumption was that they did the right thing.  The presumption was that their betrothal consent to be married in the future was changed in the "internal forum" of their consciences into a present consent to marry before they engaged in sexual relations.  The presumption was that they were fully, responsibly married without the ceremony and before their acts of sexual love, which were then an expression and the nurturing of the bond between them.  This bond, their marriage, was present by their own making preceremonially; and of course by the very nature of marriage-responsibility, marriage had to be present (if it was present) before copulation, since no number of acts of copulation are able to make a marriage.  The parties alone make marriage, and only they can say whether this was their meaning and their intention toward one another.

Of course traditional Christian teachings were based on the assumption that anyone could grasp the difference between betrothal-consent and the consent now to be married…It appears from the way the question of premarital relations is discussed today to be beyond the comprehension…of some learned theologians (who seem to imagine that the traditional theology of marriage was a theology of the marriage ceremony).

Engaged couples may need to make some reference to all they would say to one another and would proclaim abroad in the marriage ceremony in order for them to tell what they are thinking of doing.  Is it really premarital relations they are talking about, or only the consummation of an existing marriage which they don't want to announce ?  If they mean now to express the fact that their lives are united and that they now are willing to accept all that is entailed in sexual intercourse as their unity in one-flesh and possibly into the one flesh of a child, then it is simply impossible for them to engage in premarital sexual relations…As difficult as it may be for us to think of a case justifying marriage apart from the ceremony of the legalities, it is important to maintain this as a possibility if only in order to keep clear the meaning of marriage as it has always been understood in the Christian tradition.

On the other hand, if an engaged couple is really contemplating pre-marital sexual relations in the authentic moral meaning of this phrase, then they know that they are seeking to justify something that is not fully responsible….They know they would be taking more and offering less than love requires.

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