(pictured above: a satyr blowing off some steam)
masturbation...is a glorious past-time. in addition to being (ahem) loads of fun, it is also an interesting and underappreciated avenue of theological inquiry. theological ethics, broadly speaking, fall into two categories: divine command and natural law. divine command--what can really be said? it's vile and base. it represents the lowest form of thought about god, turning a good source of insight and contemplation into polytheism-but-with-one-dude:"why should i not wank? because god will hurl a lightning bolt/plague/roving band of mesopotamian sadists in my direction." such rules are rationally opaque, senseless, and, thankfully, very untrue.
i like natural law better, particularly when it causes able-minded thinkers to do backflips and cartwheels in order to uphold certain elements of canon law that are obviously contrary to the basic desires of human nature. in my conversations with christians of the natural law bent, i have heard that sex is supposed to be generative and uniative. of the two, uniative is much more intuitive. yes, we have sex to feel close to people. generative intercourse is obviously desirable in some cases, but doesn't seem as universally desirable as a uniative interaction. aquinas doesn't even bother explaining why generative is added to the list, probably because he knew he couldn't give a very satisfactory explanation (because no one can).
of course, without the generative component, sex is left pretty open to a wide variety of arrangements (as it should be). since monotheists have a great, well-documented history of antipathy toward human happines, an open, relatively non-judgmental view of sex is naturally out of the question. so: generative stays.
...which brings us to why christians tell people not to masturbate: either out of fear of violating one of yahweh's arbitrary commands or out of a tortured, counter-intuitive understanding of human nature and happiness. the misapplication of natural law is a greater tragedy because the essential goal of natural law is to get people to lead a good life, which is one of philosophy's oldest charges. right now, young men and women are being told not to whack it, are told that it is sinful and impure, and all the while they are expected to keep their sexual urges completely in check till their 20s at the earliest. athens groans from its very foundations.
+mc
2 comments:
I like the mention of divine command being equivalent to polytheism-but-with-one-dude. I see it that way, but most religious people that I know support divine command don't. That is, if one swears fealty to one god out of many, any ensuing "morality" is relativist; the logic is, then, that a similar relationship to one god out of one is similarly relativist. However, monotheists seem to think that if they have just one God, his rules are absolute and objective, not relative and subjective. I have trouble communicating how wrong this is.
Yeah, this is why sensible theologians concede that morality, ethics, and the good life are, in some senses, ascertainable through solely secular means (that is if they are trying to construct a universalist account of ethics). Otherwise, you just have an arbitrary array of commands that are good for no other reason than the lightning bolts that will rain down if they are not obeyed.
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