This is a paper that was presented on March 31, 2023 at the ETS Far West Conference 2023 at Grand Canyon University.
INTRODUCTION
Over the last several decades, our culture has seen radical changes in the way people conceptualize human identity, desire, and sexuality. “Sexual identities” like gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, etc. have come into our modern vernacular.
In response, Christians have also started grappling with these same issues—particularly the nuances of homosexuality and how Scripture’s commands apply to Christians who feel such desires. What should Christians do with their sexual desires? Does a consistent pattern of sexual desires provide a salient basis to form an identity? Different “camps” have arisen within the American Church about how such questions ought to be answered, [1] particularly for Christians who hold to Scripture’s and the Church’s historical teaching about marriage and sex.
Authors like Wesley Hill, Nate Collins, Greg Coles, Eve Tushnet, Greg Johnson, and others who would be in the “Side B” camp would generally hold to a position that allows for sexual orientation and sexual desiers to be a part of their identity, albeit secondary to their identity in Christ. On the other hand, authors like Christopher Yuan, Rosaria Butterfield, Denny Burk, and others would tend to reject sexual orientation as a salient feature of our identity. Both sides agree that the Church’s witness is at stake in how the question is answered.
In this debate, though, few ask the more basic question of how (or whether) any sexual desires, heterosexual or homosexual, should play a part in our identity. That is what I hope to address today.
In this paper, I will argue that sexual desires can say something about our identity. Particularly, they are meant to reveal our created sexual identities as male and female and point towards man’s ultimate desire to be in relationship with God. However, due to man’s createdness and the influence of sin, sexual desires should not constitute an identity in themselves. To demonstrate this, I will first lay down a few principles for essential terms like identity, sexuality, and desire. Second, I will examine the intersections between identity and desire as well as identity and sexuality. Lastly, I will put all the pieces together to look at how sexual desires might inform our identity.
FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
Before we can start exploring how these terms overlap, let us first lay down some important principles that can guide our thinking of identity, sexuality, and desire.
IDENTITY
Identity can simply refer to what a thing is. However, when the qualities of personhood and self-awareness are introduced, this leads us to ask not merely the question, “What am I?” but “Who am I?” If I know who I am, then I know my identity. Such a topic is vast, and I cannot hope to cover it in so short a space and do it justice. For the sake of simplicity and brevity, in this paper, I will use two helpful frameworks from theologian Ryan Peterson in discussing human identity: 1) the image of God as human identity[2] and 2) Peterson’s distinction between created and constructed identities.[3]
Peterson fleshes out our imago Dei identity into three categories: structural, relational, and vocational.[4] Structural features are things that pertain to the soul and body, including our bodily sex. Relational features refer to the major categories of human relationships: God-human, human-human, and human-world relationships. And finally, vocational features are the ways in which humans are called to love in those relationships and the responsibilities that flow from that calling. Peterson asserts that identity is not merely the substance of a thing or what it is but extends to both our relationships and the way we live our lives.
When addressing identity, Peterson also distinguishes between created and constructed identities. Created identities are “those divinely determined realities that (1) make a creature the particular creature that it is, (2) fix that creature’s purpose within creation, and (3) fix the creature’s appropriate end.”[5] Created identities are what you might call the objective and stable realities which pertain to every person’s identity like bodily sex. Constructed identities, on the other hand, are “self-characterizing interpretations of (1) one’s particular existence within creation as an individual human being, (2) one’s connection to other particular human beings, and (3) the roles and responsibilities one has or ought to pursue.”[6] Thus, constructed identities would be the subjective or variable realities that pertain to an individual’s identity like one’s occupation. These distinctions will help set the stage for later discussions about sexuality, desires, and identity.
One other aspect to be highlighted for this discussion is the fundamental givenness of human identity. As created beings, identity is not something that we merely form ourselves, but something that is given to us by God and shaped over time. As New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass comments, “We delude ourselves about how much we construct our own identity. Especially in our culture we assume that we as individuals are in control of our own identity and that we will be whoever we wish. That at best is partly true, and at times only marginally so.”[7]
The givenness of our identity not only comes from being a creation of God but also from being born of other people into a family. As theologian Kelly Kapic points out, aside from Adam and Eve, “all of us owe our existence not simply to God but to other human creatures.”[8] Even when we might want to claim to be the masters of our own destiny, we cannot claim to be the masters of our own creation and existence.
This insight is especially relevant when discussing sexual identity. Our culture primarily views sexual identity as a creation of the person based on the givenness of their own feelings or perceptions about themselves, but the Genesis account describes our sexuality as something created, a given that is subject to the parameters set out by our Creator. Any other sense of givenness we experience in our sexuality ultimately needs to be submitted to the givenness that God has bestowed on us.
SEXUALITY
What is sexuality? Is it our gender? Is it our bodies? Is it our sexual activity? Is it our sexual desires? Is it our sexual orientation? The creation narrative of Genesis 1-2 helps provide us with the best guidelines to answer these questions.
Genesis 1:27 reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Immediately after the text identifies humanity as being created in the image of God (our primary identity), the text then gives two further identities: male and female. The Hebrew words used here for male (זָכָ֥ר, zāḵār) and female (נְקֵבָה, nĕqēbâ) carry specific connotations that “particularly express human sexuality” as one Old Testament scholar puts it.[9] Many scholars and linguists connect those words to the more explicit imagery of “one who pierces” and “one who is pierced.”[10] The emphasis of these words is the biological sex most obviously seen in the genitals. Thus, our biological sex provides the foundation for what we might refer to as sexuality. This accords with how some scholars define sexuality. Todd Wilson, for example, says sexuality refers to the “state or condition of being biologically sexed as either male or female.”[11]
However, while sexuality begins with our biological sex, it doesn’t end with it. Wherever we go, whoever we are with, whatever we do, we do it as sexed individuals. Thus, how we relate to one another and live out our sex is also a part of our sexuality. The Catechism of the Catholic Church upholds this view when it states, “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.”[12] Dennis Hollinger captures similar elements when he defines sexuality as “the form of our bodily or physical being within the world. [Sexuality] certainly encompasses our emotional, social, and spiritual selves, but it is related to the very way in which we as embodied beings exist in relationship to others.”[13]
The narrative of Genesis 2 also shows that sexuality encompasses more than just biological sex. After God made Adam (Genesis 2:7), he declares that it isn’t good that Adam should be alone, despite the fact that Adam was in a good and unbroken relationship with God (Genesis 2:18). God nevertheless made a suitable helper for Adam by taking part of Adam’s own flesh and forming a woman from it (Genesis 2:21-22). When the man and the woman are brought together, Adam’s reaction is telling: “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23). The fact that the woman was both like and unlike the man formed the beginnings of his attraction and desire for her. Following that spark, we have the institution of marriage (“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife…”) and also sex within marriage (“…and they shall become one flesh”) (Genesis 2:24). Thus, biological sex within the context of relationship has implications for both desires and acts, and all these things can be tied to the word “sexuality.”
To reiterate, though, biological sex is the foundation of sexuality, and no particular set of desires or acts makes one essentially male or female. As Hollinger helpfully points out, “All humans are sexual beings whether or not they engage in acts of sex,”[14] or, I would add, whether or not they get married or even have certain sexual desires. We are sexual beings by virtue of our creation as male and female. Yet, out of that foundation, there are implications for the lived realities of our maleness and femaleness: gender roles, sexual activity, sexual desires, etc.
DESIRE
Catholic author Christopher West defines desire as “that universal ‘ache’ and longing we feel as human beings for something.”[15] All people have desires of one kind or another (Psalm 145:16). However, desire is not a purely human quality. God has desires as well. Sarah Coakley goes as far as to say that desire is “an ontological category belonging primarily to God, and only secondarily to humans as a token of their createdness ‘in the image.'”[16]
That God has desires is apparent to us through his creative acts. John Piper asserts that God created everything for His own glory,[17] and ultimately as the fulfillment of His desires. Scripture demonstrates that God created all things for the glory of his name (Isaiah 43:7), and this proves, as Piper puts it, the “centrality of God in his own affections.”[18] No one desires God’s glory more than He does. All of creation declares and reflects God’s glory (Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 43:6-7).
Yet, God’s desires don’t merely extend to himself. They also extend to his creation. Coakley again remarks that God’s desire “connotes that plenitude of longing love that God has for God’s own creation and for its full and ecstatic participation in the divine, trinitarian life.”[19] God greatly desires to be in relationship with his creation, and he has been intimately involved in the making and unfolding of creation throughout its history.
Human beings, created in God’s image, are born desirers and reflect this part of God’s nature. As psychiatrist Curt Thompson says, “we have been created as people of desire, in the image of the triune Desirer.”[20] As we discussed in Genesis 2, Adam’s response to the creation of woman (“At last!” Genesis 2:23), demonstrates a yearning and fulfillment to be in relationship with someone like himself.
But even more fundamental to our nature than human-to-human desires is our desire for God. As Augustine famously penned, “You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”[21] We were created to be in relationship with our Creator, and by grounding all our desires in the desire for our Creator, we can rightly orient our desires for everything else. As Thompson notes, “It is desire—ultimately our desire for him—that God has placed in the very center of our being and that he is counting on to energize our relationship with him and others.”[22] Our desire for God in all of his beauty, goodness, and truth is what motivates us to action—to love God and our neighbor with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37-40).
INTERSECTIONS OF DESIRE, IDENTITY, AND SEXUALITY
Before moving on to whether or how sexual desire can intersect with identity, we need to take some intermediate steps to examine: 1) To what extent should any desires, let alone sexual ones, feature in our identity, and 2) To what extent is sexuality, broadly considered, a part of human identity?
THE INTERSECTION OF DESIRE AND IDENTITY CONSIDERED
Before the question of whether sexual desires can feature in our identity, we must also answer whether any desire can form the basis of an identity.
As we discussed above, desiring is a fundamental part of human nature and human identity because we are made in the image of God who desires His own glory and our good. Just as God’s desires say something about who He is, our desires likewise have something to say about us. But what do our desires say about us, and to what extent?
Philosopher James K. A. Smith says that humans are “fundamentally desiring creatures.”[23] Smith asserts that human persons “are not primarily or for the most part thinkers, or even believers. Instead, human persons are—fundamentally and primordially—lovers.”[24] According to Smith, it isn’t our top-down thinking that gives our life its ultimate shape or what drives us to action. It is our deepest desires that arise from the bottom-up, and we need to instantiate practices that shape those desires. As Smith summarizes, “[W]e are what we want. Our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow.”[25]
There is much truth to what Smiths says. Because we are created beings, we have teleology and purpose built into our lives and our humanity, and because we were designed to reflect God and worship God, we subsequently desire to reflect Him and worship Him. As Thompson puts it, “[T]he depth and intensity of our desire for and unity with God directly and proportionately mirror the degree to which we become the truest versions of our individual selves.”[26] Thus, our desires are meant to reveal something about who we are and who we are meant to be.
However, Smith’s language of “you are what you want” is a bit simplistic and open to misinterpretation. To clarify why, it is helpful to distinguish between essence, desire, and action. Smith’s view is a bit unclear when it asserts that we are our fundamental desires or loves. To say that we are our desires seems to conflate desire with essence—at least, in the normal sense of what it means “to be” something.
To use a more concrete example, imagine a man who watches a tennis match. Because he enjoys it, he desires to start playing tennis himself. The next year, he signs up for lessons and begins playing the sport. How does this sequence of events affect the man’s identity?
First, regardless of the man’s desires or actions concerning tennis, his essence as a man remains unchanged by this sequence of events. Coming back to Peterson’s framework, neither desiring to play tennis nor playing tennis alters his created identity as a man because such things do not make one a man. To Smith’s point, though, the enjoyment of tennis and the desire to play it could make one a “lover of tennis,” which would be a constructed identity. Likewise, the man does not become a “tennis player” merely by desiring to play tennis. He must act on his desire and play the sport of tennis to be a tennis player, which is another constructed identity. Thus, the man could make statements about his weaker, constructed identities like, “I am a lover of tennis,” or “I am a tennis player,” but such things would not be reflective of his stronger, created identities as a man or image bearer of God beyond the fact that he has the capacity to desire and to act.
With this in mind, how should Christians address the relationship between essence, desire, and action? Let’s turn to God first. In his discussion of the doctrine of divine simplicity, Thomas Aquinas explains that God’s desires and actions are not—to use philosophical language—”accidental” to his essence. He says, “what is essential is prior to what is accidental. Whence as God is absolute primal being, there can be in Him nothing accidental … there can be nothing caused in God, since He is the first cause.”[27] In other words, God’s actions and desires are not contingent properties that exist secondarily to his essence but are just as much “who he is” as his essence.
Scripture likewise closely ties God’s identity with his desires and actions (Job 23:13, Psalm 135:5-6), and we are meant to learn something about who he is from his desires and actions. For example, when God recounts his deeds to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4, he says, “To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him,” (Deuteronomy 4:35), thus demonstrating how his actions were meant to lead the Israelites to a knowledge who God is. While I was not able to find a similarly clear example concerning God’s desires, the doctrine of divine simplicity as articulated by Aquinas would lead us to conclude that our knowledge of God’s desires is also a knowledge of God’s identity. God’s desires are his identity.
However, with humanity, it’s a different story. Mankind does not have divine simplicity. We are created, finite, contingent beings. There are few, if any, desires which are essential to being human. One’s human identity does not hinge on the presence (or lack thereof) of certain desires.[28]
Furthermore, sin’s presence distorts the relationship between our identity and our desires. We often have desires which don’t align with our essence in who God created us to be, and we have desires which don’t accord with what God created us to do. James 1:14-15 reminds us that it is our desires which can tempt us and lead us into sin. Even within ourselves, we have competing desires for competing ends: “I want to eat the cake” versus “I want to lose 10 pounds.”
The presence of sin also renders a perfect knowledge of ourselves—and thus our identities—impossible. Janell Williams Paris reminds us that trusting in our desires “violates biblical themes,” the first and foremost being that “human desire is fickle, a mystery even to ourselves.”[29] Recalling Jeremiah 17’s assertion that the heart is deceitful and wicked, she concludes, “We are known by God more truly than we will ever know ourselves. And even when living righteously, we, like Paul, find ourselves wanting things we don’t want to want…Desire is not a trustworthy indicator of human identity.”[30]
As a result, the Bible doesn’t make too many direct connections between human desire and identity. When it does, it has a phraseology similar to the “lover of tennis” example above: lovers of pleasure (Isaiah 47:8, 2 Timothy 3:4), lovers of money (Luke 16:14, 1 Timothy 3:3, 2 Timothy 3:2), lovers of self (2 Timothy 3:2), lovers of good (Titus 1:8), and lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4). Otherwise, desires are seen to be reflections of your moral character, and identities of “the righteous” and “the wicked” are given in response to that character (Psalm 10:2-4, Proverbs 11:23).
Thankfully, the gospel changes the dynamics brought about by sin. In Christ, our sinfulness and its desires no longer come to define who we are. Evil desires belong to this world (1 John 2:16-17) and to our flesh (Galatians 5:24), and though such desires still plague us, they stand at odds with who we are in Christ (Galatians 5:17).
Scripture’s call then, through the work of the Holy Spirit, is to align everything about us under our Christian identity and to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). As Romans 6:11 commands us, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In other words, being a Christian changes how we ought to think of ourselves in our identity, especially as it relates to sin. Sin is no longer a part of our identity in any fundamental sense.[31] Our identities in Christ make us new creations with new desires (Ephesians 4:22-24) and will produce obedience and action in alignment with our new identity (John 14:15, James 2:17).
To summarize, our desires can say a great deal about who we are. However, unlike God, man’s desires are not synonymous with his identity. Rather, man’s desires are expressions of his identity. They are secondary, contingent properties of who we are, and due to the presence of sin, it is dubious to directly infer our identity from our desires. Good desires can rightly be said to reflect our created identities or who we were created to be in Christ. However, any presence of sin in our desires can only be reflective of our old self, which Scripture tells us was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6) and put off (Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9).
THE INTERSECTION OF SEXUALITY AND IDENTITY CONSIDERED
Next, to what extent does our sexuality define who we are? We have discussed this to some extent already. Since sexuality is founded upon our biological sex, and being created male or female is a part of our created identity given in Genesis, then it is not a far stretch to say that our sexuality is a part of our identity. To some extent, I am my sexuality.
However, as Klyne Snodgrass writes, “Christians must not view [sexuality] as an unbridled determiner of identity.”[32] There is a danger in modern notions of “sexual identity” because the word “sexuality” can carry connotations that go well beyond the narrative of sexuality in Scripture. Thus, when it is asserted that “I am my sexuality,” we must clarify what that does and does not include.
First, and most foundational, “I am my sexuality” must start with and include the body as the basis of our identity. Sam Allberry says, “In the Bible, our body is not an accessory to who we are; it is part of who we are. We can’t properly understand who we are apart from our body. Your body is not other than you. It is not just a receptacle for you. It is you. In the Bible it’s not just that you have a body; you are a body.”[33] This can be observed in Genesis 2:7, which speaks to how God created man with both material (the dust) and immaterial (breath of life) components to become a psychosomatic unity (living being). Thus, I am my body, but I am not merely my body. And foundational to our bodies is that we are created as sexed creatures, male and female (Genesis 1:27). This forms the basis of our sexual identity.
Yet, bodies do not exist in an ether. Bodies exist in community and in relationship to other people and their bodies. Snodgrass comments, “Your body is the place you relate to other people. Your body is also the physical substance through which you perceive reality. You encounter the world and the world encounters you only through your body.”[34]
Bodies existing in community is what allows for our sexual identities to be expressed and acted upon. In his chapter, “You are Your Actions,” Snodgrass asserts, “There is no such thing as an identity that does not act.”[35] Who we are shapes what we do. This applies to the relationship between our sexual acts and our sexual identities as well. Our sexual identity as male or female joined together through marriage as husband and wife provides the framework for how we ought to act sexually. Thus, a male or female sexual identity can lead to God-honoring male and female sexual acts, and God-honoring male and female sexual acts will reflect his or her male or female sexual identity.[36] Therefore, our sexual actions and our sexual identities strongly inform one another.
Yet, when sin is brought into the picture, this, again, complicates things. Sin distorts, twists, corrupts, and ultimately makes things, as Cornelius Plantinga puts it, “not the way it’s supposed to be.”[37] However, for those in Christ, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 tells us that “neither the sexually immoral, … nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality … will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.” Since we have died to sin with Christ, our sinful sexual actions no longer define who we are in Christ. As Galatians 2:20 reminds us, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is why sinful sexual actions ought to feel incongruous for Christians. It no longer reflects who we are.
To summarize, our sexual identity is rooted in our body and leads us to act in accordance with that identity. Insofar as our sexual acts reflect God’s good design for sexuality, they also reflect our God-ordained sexual identity. Insofar as those sexual actions are an outworking of sin, they reflect the old self that we have rejected and stand at odds with a Christian’s identity in Christ.
THE INTERSECTION OF SEXUAL DESIRE AND IDENTITY CONSIDERED
At last, we can now put the pieces together and contemplate the intersection of sexual desire and identity. How should sexual desires play into our identity? Let’s review what we’ve covered.
First, we established that while desires can reveal something about our identity, they are not synonymous with our identity. Good desires reflect who we were created to be in Christ, but sinful desires reflect the old self that is put off and crucified with Christ. Second, we established that sexuality is part of our identity insofar as it is rooted in our male and female bodies and aligns with Scripture’s callings upon us as men and women.
Therefore, I conclude that sexual desires can reveal something about our identity but with similar caveats. 1) Sexual desires are not synonymous with our identity. 2) Sinful sexual desires are not an accurate reflection of who we were created to be as male and female or redeemed to be as Christians.
Stated positively, sexual desires are meant to reflect the culmination of our God-ordained sexuality and desire, first in the beauty of our created sexual identities as male and female, and second in man’s ultimate desire to be in relationship with God. The sexual desire and union within marriage serve as an earthly icon that points towards the eternal union and consummation between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:31-32).[38]
So, what does this look like in practice when we look at our own sexual desires that we experience? Can we infer our identity from our sexual desires? What about a pattern or propensity of sexual desires (i.e., sexual orientation)? The answer is both yes and no.
Everyone’s sexual desires have been affected by sin. They not only bear the marks of original sin but the consequences of being sinned against by others and our own sins that we have committed. This makes the process of drawing conclusions about our identity directly from our sexual desires very difficult. and attempting to draw a 1-to-1 correlation would be unwise and likely lead to error.
At the same time, our desires are meant to say something about who we are. Though they do not constitute an identity in themselves, as Christopher West says, “[What] God wants to show us is that behind all our misdirected desires and lusts there is a legitimate desire God put there and wants to satisfy.”[39] That untainted desire, if we could find it, is what we could examine to learn about our true identity. Yet, such a task will likely remain elusive to us in this life. Until we learn from Scripture how our underlying yearnings and sexual desires are meant to be perfectly satisfied in God and his good design, then seeking to derive or form an identity around our sexual desires will almost always lead to error.
Thus, our culture’s conceptualization of sexual identity, especially in notions like sexual orientation, falls short in seeking to provide a biblically centered identity.[40] Christians would do well to avoid identities based on our experienced sexual desires.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have attempted to show that sexual desire (broadly speaking) can be related to our fundamental identity as human beings. Sexual desires are meant to reveal our created sexual identities as male and female and point towards man’s ultimate desire to be in relationship with God. On the other hand, sexual desires are not in themselves an identity, and the presence of sin has clouded the proper relationship between sexual desire and identity. Therefore, it is unwarranted and unwise to attempt to construct, incorporate, or seek to discover an identity based on our experienced sexual desires. It is better to let what is plain from Scripture about our sexual identity form our sexual desires rather than letting our sexual desires inform our sexual identity.
In our never-ending quest to discover who we are, we must not forget that our knowledge of ourselves is limited, and what matters most about us is who God says we are. Kelly Kapic writes,
What matters most is what God thinks of us…That relationship with this God of heaven and earth means that some things are God’s task and not ours, and perfect knowledge, including knowledge of ourselves, is his business and not ours. In this fellowship we can rely on God to bring to our attention whatever knowledge that we need for the task at hand. As a result of this confidence, we know ourselves more truly than endless self-examination could ever accomplish.[41]
This reminds me of what Proverbs 25:2 says: “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” We will never fully know ourselves in this life, including what our desires reveal about us. Self-discovery is important, but our knowledge and understanding of ourselves will never be perfect. The only way for us to get closer to that end is to listen to and humbly receive what God says about us.
Similar to how the tree of knowledge of good and evil was kept from Adam and Eve, there are perhaps some things that God may not want us to know of ourselves … at least not yet. 1 John 3:1 reminds us, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” We can rest in our identity as God’s children now, knowing that when Christ returns, the veil will be removed, and our full identity will be revealed to us.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allberry, Sam. What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2021.
Augustine. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Coakley, Sarah. God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay “on the Trinity.” Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Elwell, Walter A. and Barry J. Beitzel. “Man, Doctrine Of.” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988.
Hardin, Neal. “Orientation as Ontology: A Theological Critique” presented at the 2022 Evangelical Theological Society SW Conference. New Orleans, LA, 1 April 2022. https://nealhardin.com/sexual-orientation-as-ontology-a-theological-critique/.
Hollinger, Dennis P. The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009.
Johnson, Greg. Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021.
Kapic, Kelly M. You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2022.
Klein, Ernest. “זָכָר,” and “נְקֵבָה.” Edited by Baruch Sarel. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English. Jerusalem: Carta Jerusalem; The University of Haifa, 1987.
Mathews, K. A. Genesis 1-11:26. Vol. 1A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996.
Paris, Jenell Williams. The End of Sexual Identity: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2011.
Peterson, Ryan. “Created and Constructed Identities in Theological Anthropology.” The Christian Doctrine of Humanity: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics. Edited by Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018.
———. The Imago Dei as Human Identity. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016.
Piper, John. “Biblical Texts to Show God’s Zeal for His Own Glory.” Desiring God, 24 November 2007. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/biblical-texts-to-show-gods-zeal-for-his-own-glory.
———. “Why Did God Create the World?” Desiring God, 22 September 2012. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/why-did-god-create-the-world.
Plantinga, Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999.
Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Volume 1 of Cultural Liturgies. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009.
———. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016.
Snodgrass, Klyne. Who God Says You Are: A Christian Understanding of Identity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018.
Thompson, Curt. The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021.
West, Christopher. Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing. New York: Image, 2012.
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[1] For an overview of the four major camps, see Josh Proctor, “Four Christian Views on Sexuality,” The Life on Side B Podcast, https://www.lifeonsideb.com/thefoursides
[2] Ryan Peterson, The Imago Dei as Human Identity (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016), 53-83.
[3] Ryan Peterson, “Created and Constructed Identities in Theological Anthropology,” in The Christian Doctrine of Humanity: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, ed. Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 124-143.
[4] Ryan Peterson, “Created and Constructed Identities in Theological Anthropology,” 138-140.
[5] Peterson, “Created and Constructed Identities in Theological Anthropology,” 138.
[6] Peterson, “Created and Constructed Identities in Theological Anthropology,” 140.
[7] Klyne Snodgrass, Who God Says You Are: A Christian Understanding of Identity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018), ch. 1.
[8] Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2022), 75-76.
[9] K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 173.
[10] Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Man, Doctrine Of,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1386. Also see Ernest Klein, “זָכָר,” and “נְקֵבָה,”, ed. Baruch Sarel, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Jerusalem: Carta Jerusalem; The University of Haifa, 1987), 198, 424-425.
[11] Todd A. Wilson, Mere Sexuality: Rediscovering the Christian Vision of Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2017), 33.
[12] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City, Washington, D.C.: Libreria Editrice Vaticana; [Distributed by] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2019), 560.
[13] Dennis P. Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009), 16.
[14] Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex, 15.
[15] Christopher West, Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing (New York: Image, 2012), xi.
[16] Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay “on the Trinity” (Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 10.
[17] John Piper, “Why Did God Create the World?” Desiring God, 22 September 2012, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/why-did-god-create-the-world.
[18] John Piper, “Biblical Texts to Show God’s Zeal for His Own Glory,” Desiring God, 24 November 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/biblical-texts-to-show-gods-zeal-for-his-own-glory.
[19] Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self, 10.
[20] Curt Thompson, The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021), 16.
[21] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3.
[22] Thompson, The Soul of Desire, 18.
[23] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Volume 1 of Cultural Liturgies (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009), 40.
[24] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 41.
[25] James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016).
[26] Thompson, The Soul of Desire, 10-11.
[27] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, Benziger Bros. ed., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1954): I, Q.3 A.6,https://ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa/summa.FP_Q3_A6.html.
[28] The desire for God or the desire to worship are perhaps a couple of exceptions I can think of. God created all things for himself (Colossians 1:16). A desire for him (whether knowingly or unknowingly), or at least the capacity to desire him and worship him, may be an essential desire to humanity as image bearers.
[29] Jenell Williams Paris, The End of Sexual Identity: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2011), 43.
[30] Paris, The End of Sexual Identity, 44.
[31] Some bring up 1 Timothy 1:15 as a counterargument to this, where Paul says, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” The present tense aspect (“I am”) of Paul’s declaration is emphasized as evidence that we, as Christians, can “still identify with sin in a healthy way.” Greg Johnson, Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021), 198. See my review of this book for further discussion.
However, there are several reasons why I don’t think the weight of the evidence supports this interpretation: 1) The context of the passage (vv.12-16) strongly suggests that Paul is likely referencing the sins he committed “formerly” (v.13) before he was a Christian, not present sin that he continued to struggle with or identify with. 2) The word “sinner” is used 43 times in the New Testament. With the exception of this passage and perhaps Galatians 2:17, this would be the only clear reference to a Christian being called a sinner. 3) This would also be the only time Paul refers particularly to himself in this way. In three other places, he calls himself the least of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:9), the least of all the saints (Ephesians 3:8), and “nothing” (1 Corinthians 12:11). But outside of 1 Timothy 1:15, he nowhere appears to identify with sin. Even in Romans 7, if we were to take the perspective that Paul is describing his life as a Christian, Paul also distances himself from his sin, saying “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:17, 20). The rest of Paul’s writings draw a very sharp distinction between our life of sin and our life in Christ (Romans 6:11-13; Ephesians 2:1-10, 4:22-24; Colossians 3:1-10).
Therefore, it seems unlikely that Paul is referring to himself in his present life in Christ as a “sinner.” I think it is more likely that Paul is reflecting on his past sins which, in some sense, still affect us presently. But as Paul writes one verse later in 1 Timothy 1:16, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” Paul’s point is to magnify God’s mercy and patience towards him in saving him, despite having been the foremost sinner, as an encouragement to other Christians being saved.
[32] Snodgrass, Who God Says You Are, Kindle Edition, ch.1.
[33] Sam Allberry, What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2021), 41.
[34] Snodgrass, Who God Says You Are, Kindle Edition, ch.1.
[35] Snodgrass, Who God Says You Are, Kindle Edition, ch.8.
[36] Note, as mentioned with Hollinger earlier, for single or chaste individuals, remaining sexually inactive does not lessen or diminish their sexual identity as male or female. It’s just that their sexual identity has not been expressed in sexual acts and that this aspect of their sexual identity remains inactive.
[37] Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999).
[38] Singleness, in contrast with marriage, is an earthly icon that points towards the eternal, heavenly undividedness of heart that we will have in the absence of sin. Sexual desire within those who are single creates a tension from its lack of union and culmination, but that tension should make us all the more eager and hopeful of its ultimate fulfillment.
[39] West, Fill These Hearts, 67.
[40] I explore the problems of the concept of sexual orientation at much greater length here: Neal Hardin, “Orientation as Ontology: A Theological Critique” (presented at the 2022 Evangelical Theological Society SW Conference, New Orleans, LA, 1 April 2022), https://nealhardin.com/sexual-orientation-as-ontology-a-theological-critique/.
[41] Kapic, You’re Only Human, 89.