Examine the ways in which one religion uses scripture as a basis for its teachings about sexual behaviour (30 marks).
The Christian religion implements the use of scripture as the highest command for the way in which sexual ethics is implemented. Christian teaching explores several issues in light of sexuality such as extra-marital and pre-marital sex, homosexuality and pro-creation and I will write about these in this essay.
When looking at pre-marital sex, traditional Christian teachings of the bible suggest that sex is only for married couples and hetro-sexual couples. For example, Timothy 5:2: ‘As a Christian man, if you are not married to her, then she is your sister whom you must treat "with absolute purity." Similarly in 2
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Augustine of Hippo had a intense dislike of the body and its needs. He had total pessimism about sexuality, which infiltrated the early church. Augustine thought taught that sex was to be restricted to marriage, but it was still ‘dangerous’ even within marriage. The devil uses women to lead men away from reason, and pleasure in sex leads men away from reason. Sexual desire is a constant reminder of the human rebellion against God which was Adam and Eve – it’s our original sin. He believed that we could not control sexual desire, so chastity (refraining from sexual intercourse) was the ideal.
Aquinas’ views on sexual ethics are based on his understanding of Natural Law which is where humans are governed by basic innate laws. Human life had a purpose; good acts developed our human nature and bad acts went against human nature. Aquinas assumed humans share a common human nature and so general principles could be applied to everyone, everywhere at all times. The purpose of the sexual organs and sexual activity was procreation, and any other use of sex was intrinsically wrong. Sex was to take within the bounds of marriage and must be open to the possibility of procreation. Aquinas argued that sexual acts can be morally wrong in 2 ways. Sex is wrong when the act of its nature is incompatible with the purpose of procreation Acts in which the natural style of intercourse is not observed (foreplay) acts with same sex (homosexuality) or sin of