A Phenomenonological Account of Why Christianity Cannot Accept Gay Marriage

Many years prior to being ordained the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England, Rowan Williams gave a very interesting talk on the issue of human sexuality in front of a predominantly gay and lesbian audience, The Body's Grace. One of the first things that struck me was that the language Williams used was almost entirely phenomenological. Rather than formulating his argument in terms of deductive reasoning starting with Scriptures and Tradition as premises, Williams structured his argument in the philosophical language of Edmund Husserl who is the father of what is known today as the phenomenology. 

That Williams' argument is phenomenological is easy to miss if one has not been exposed to writings in the phenomenological tradition. Every day words such as `presence,' `absence,' `bracketing,' `intentionality,' `perception,' and `identity' take on subtle differences from normal usage when used in a phenomenological context. Yet, filling in the meaning of many of these words from the phenomenological tradition makes Williams' argument fairly simple to follow. Once we do this, the strengths and weaknesses of Williams' treatment of the issue become much more readily apparent. To his great credit, Williams main point about what he refers to as the grace of the body is apodictic. If one understands his argument, its truth should be evident. Apodicity aside, however, his point is not adequate, it is neither a full nor complete depiction of human sexuality. 

A key concept to understand before analyzing Williams' argument is the idea of bracketing. Phenomenology differs from most other approaches to philosophy because it considers the process of human perception of the world as a two way street. In the phenomenological attitude we bracket the world, we set ourselves apart from it in a manner of speaking. We do this in order to get a clearer idea of how things work, so that we can understand that our perceptions of the world are part of a manifold. On the one hand, they are given by that which is outside of us. But on the other hand, they are also created through our own cognitive processes. In the words Monsignor Robert Sokowloski when we bracket the world, ``we look at what we normally look through'' [Sokolowski, Robert. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.]. When we do this, we perceive both our perceiving the world as a given and creating the world as an object of perception.

We need to keep in mind when we do this, that we are not simply creating our own reality. There are two sides of the coin that make our conception of the world into a complete whole. Only when we perceive reality as it exists in a manifold of the world as both given to us and in the cognitive structures through which we apprehend the world as given to us that our intention of the world is complete. If we focus entirely on our cognitive structures under our conscious and unconscious control to a certain extent, we miss the world as given to us. If we focus entirely on the world as given to us, we miss the structure through which we give the world meaning. And to make things more complex, we only know truth when these two different ways of looking at the world correlate.

It is in this twofold manifold of reality that Williams brings up the subject of human sexuality as depicted in the novels of Paul Scott. The character in the novel that Williams wants to use to address his point, Sarah Layton, is both given a sexual identity through her travails and eventually comes to perceive her own sexual identity through self discovery. I have not read the novels in question, but from Williams' treatment, it seems as if Sarah is straight rather than gay in Scott's novels. So it is important at this point to not conflate Sarah discovering her sexual identity with that idea that in doing so, she discovered that she is gay. From my reading, such is not implied. Williams starting point is not the question of homosexuality as sexual identity but the more basic notion of sexual identity is something both created by the subject and given by the world. Identity, which includes sexual identity, is part of the manifold of what it means to be human.

The above is the apodictic portion of Williams' argument, the reality of the discovery of an individual's sexuality as part of that person's identity. Williams does not address just how great of a mistake neglecting this issue has become within most Christian circles. To reject the notion that the sexuality of gay people is part of who those individuals are as human beings is to reject them for who they are. The manifold of identity is comprised of a tremendous number of factors. Some of these factors are given to the individual: genetics; the balance of hormones in the mothers womb during gestation; upbringing; accidents; and so on. Other factors are created by the individual: how a person perceives and interprets various events; feelings; emotions; cognitive structures; and the like. Who we are as human beings is found only in our identity in this manifold. To reject part of what is that manifold is to reject the reality of the identity of that individual.

Williams ends his discussion of Sarah with her comprehension of herself as a giver of sexual pleasure to others. While he does not explicitly link this to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and relationship of the triune Godhead to creation, it seems to me that he certainly trying to imply such a link when he states the following. 

The whole story of creation, incarnation and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ's body tells us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God's giving that God's self makes in the life of the trinity. We are created so that we may be caught up in this; so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God. 

The parallel that Williams sets up illustrates that Sarah's discovery of her own sexual identity, no matter how founded in immorality it may be, echoes the relationship that creatures are designed to have for their creator. Consequently, Williams seems to be saying that Christians have no standing to reject Sarah's sexual identity as a real discovery of the grace of God regardless of whether or not her identity as a sexual being falls within the traditional norms of Christianity. By extension, then, he seems to be implying that Christians certainly have no standing to reject the love of two gay partners for each other as expressed in a life long commitment. He is effectively suggesting that such love, to a far greater extent than Sarah's illicit affairs, necessarily illuminates the partners involved with the grace of God. Their love for each other brings them into greater understanding of the triune God.

As controversial as it may be in many conservative circles, I think that Williams' argument up to this point is undeniable. It is an argument about who we are as individuals and how we come to be that way. Unfortunately, shortly after this point in his talk, Williams moves away from a phenomenological method to one of historical overview and textual analysis of the Old and New Testaments. Rather than speak of the further implications of the human person, and the human family, being a reflection of the Holy Trinity, Williams goes on to critique a fair number of the traditional interpretations of the Holy Scriptures and deftly points out some of the problems that present themselves to theologizing about sexual identity. While calling for a new theology of the body's grace, he neglects the very tools he used in the first part of the essay to uncover some of the meaning behind human sexual identity. These same tools are at his disposal to offer such a theological account.

The first step in moving beyond the textual analysis and historical critique presented by Williams is to consider Sarah's discovery of her sexual identity as a giver of pleasure to others as not only part of her identity as a whole human being but also as part of her whole sexual identity. If we were to take this one aspect of Sarah's sexual identity and conflate it for the entirety of her sexual identity, we would have a very lopsided point of view of what it means to be a sexual being. Likewise, if we were to mistake Sarah's sexual identity for the whole of her being, we would have a very lopsided view of what it means to be human. To be fair, Williams journey into the Old Testament to discover what Holy Writs says about the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs as sexual beings is something of an attempt to do this. Williams failing is not the textual analysis he does so much as the purpose to which he puts his textual analysis. He does not apply the results of his analysis either to Sarah as a sexual being or to Sarah as a human being.

I would hope that no great controversy would be generated if I suggest that Sarah's journey into her sexual identity in Scott's novels does not represent the fullness of what a sexual identity ought to be. While I have absolutely no qualms in observing that her experiences have led her into an experience through which she can better understanding the love that Christ has for humanity within Christianity, it is also the case that Sarah's understanding of that Holy Mystery will not be as complete and full as it would be if her discovery of her sexuality had occurred in the context of a more full and loving relationship. Sarah's discovery of grace, as it were, is one of a lesser good. It is a good that lacks some aspect of goodness that ought to be manifest in her discovery of her sexual identity. This does not mean her discovery of her self is not genuine or that it is false. But it does mean that her discovery of herself is not full and is not whole. 

In fact, the events of her discovery of self put a limiting factor on that which she is able to discover. It is only by moving beyond the sorts of relationships she has had, that Sarah will be able to discover the full depth of her own humanity. This incomplete experience of grace presents an obstacle to Sarah in two ways, one limiting her in actuality and the other limiting her in potentiality. If she mistakes her actual partial understanding of grace for all of grace, she will never actually take the next step into the fullness of grace. If Sarah presumes that the partial way that she has experience grace is the fullest extent to which she is capable of experiencing grace, she will never realize that she has the potential to step beyond what she has already experienced into the fullness of grace. Without denying that Sarah's understanding of her sexual self is real, and without denying that her sexual experience helped bring her to greater state of grace from a lesser state of grace, we can assert that her understanding of herself is incomplete and a hindrance to her further spiritual growth.

In this context, I would argue that it should be clear that a life long commitment between two same partners would be a clearly superior context in which to discover and engage one's sexual identity than the experiences of Sarah. (Which I think is Williams' reason for using the example of Sarah to start with. But I could be wrong on that.) Such a relationship would offer many positive aspects of sexuality that Sarah's multiple relationships in Scott's novels lacked. And inasmuch as homosexual relationships offer much more positive aspects, they more fully reflect divine grace. But, even though they are a fuller and more complete good than many other forms of sexual union, in the Christian tradition such relationships are unable to be as complete and full as those desired for human beings by the Creator.

The text on which this tradition is made appears in the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. In the words of Christ, ``Ye read, did ye not, that the One Who made them from the beginning `made them male and female,' and said, `On account of this a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be into one flesh?' Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh'' [Matthew 19: 4-6]. These words of Christ, quoting the book of Genesis, are referred to by Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians when discussing how the relationship between husband and wife is a mystery through which we can begin to experience the relationship that Christ has with the Church. The words of the Apostle pertaining to the mystery of the relationship between God and humanity are commented on by Saint Symeon the New Theologian.

Truly, therefore, this mystery is great--and beyond great!--and so it will always be, because the same sort of communion, and union, and intimacy, and kinship, which the woman has with the man and the man with the woman, such--understood in a manner adequate to God and as transcending our reason--is the relationship which the Master and Maker of all has with all the Church, and with a single Woman: blamelessly, ineffably, inseparably, and individibly united to her, being and living with her as with the one whom He loves and holds dear. Thus in turn the Church, united to her most dear God, joins herself to Him as the whole body to its own head. [St. Symeon the New Theologian, ``The Church and the Last Things,'' On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Col. I, First Discourse, VII.]

One can certainly argue, and many do, that there is nothing within Saint Symeon's analysis that prevents same-sex relationships from approaching the level of heterosexual relationships. But men and women obviously differ in biology and this biology presents the possibility of relationships between man and woman that are not possible between man and man or between woman and woman. In fact, if there were no substantial difference between the sexual union possible in heterosexual relationships and those possible in homosexual relationships, there would be no reason to be homosexual, homosexuality would add nothing of substance to a person's sexual identity. The argument that there is no difference in kind between sexual relationships between straights and gays is contradicted by the fact that being gay or straight is a substantial part of an individual's sexual identity.

Frequently, this difference between gay and straight relationships is reduced to the idea of reproduction. In his textual analysis, Rowan Williams took note of this and objects that if procreation becomes the primary, or even sufficient, focus of a sexual relationship that it harms our understanding of the relationship between husband and wife and, consequently, our understanding of the relationship between God and humanity and between the persons of the Trinity. But Williams does not sufficiently address the fullness of the proposition. He does not distinguish between the difference in relationships that occur because of the possibility of procreation rather than the necessity of procreation. Sexual union between man and woman, after all, does not necessarily result in reproduction but only the possibility of reproduction.

Further, Williams does not directly address whether or not the possibility of reproduction is part of why the union between man and woman is used by as a symbol of the love that Christ has for the Church. If we move back to the relationship of love between the three persons of the Holy Trinity, we can see that this love offers the possibility but not the necessity of generation. The overabundance of love that overflows into creation is an act of will, not an act of necessity, by the Godhead. This aspect of the relationships between the persons of Trinity, the possibility of generation, simply does not exist between two people of the same sex. 

But we also need to be careful to not make a mistake. If we were to take the generative act as the entire basis of the difference between the persons of the Trinity we would be making exactly the error of which Williams warns us. If the relationship between the persons of the Trinity differs by more than simply the possibility of generation, then it follows that the man and woman as material beings differ materially in more ways than the possibility of procreation and that those differences tell us something about the Godhead. Men and women in the Christian tradition are made male and female not simply to be able to procreate but to reflect the differences between the persons of the Holy Trinity.

So in conclusion, from the Christian point of view, even a committed, lifelong relationship between two homosexuals do not offer the potential experiential fullness of grace that marriage between man and a woman does. While it is true that marriages between men and women often fall short of what they ought to be, the marriage itself is not a barrier to what the married partners can experience and come to understand about the grace of God. Sexual relationships between people of the same sex, then, are sinful in the original sense of the word, they fall short, they miss the mark. For Christians to recognize same sex unions as the full equivalent of marriage would be an affront to one of the chief mysteries of the Christian faith. Putting such relationships at the same exalted level as marriage would be a hindrance to the spiritual progress of both those involved in the relationship and those marriages between man and woman where the participants now inform their understanding of their own relationships based in part upon same sex unions. Because it would do damage to the understanding of marriage not only between the participants in the relationship but also in the understanding of marriage of all those who are married in the Church, it would damage the understanding of the love of God of all.