A response to Brad Chilcott - Homosexuality, Romans 1 and Against Nature Explained
Romans 1:26–27
Perhaps no New Testament text has suffered more assaults than has Romans 1. Central to the revisionist approach like Brad Chilcott- to Romans 1 is the focus on new ways of understanding the meaning of nature (physis) in verses 26–27.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
The words for “natural relations” represent more literally “natural use” (physikēn chrēsin). Unnatural relations, then, are “against nature” (para physin). The word for “nature” occurs once as a noun (in v. 26) and twice as an adjective (in vv. 26 and 27).
“Against Nature”—Views of Interpretation
Perverts and Inverts
Some interpreters limit the term natural to “what is natural for me.” This is the view of John Boswell, Letha Scanzoni, Virginia Mollenkott, and others.
According to them, Paul does not refer to those people whose own nature or primary orientation is homosexual. Instead, Paul condemns heterosexuals who act as homosexuals (perverts) in a context of idolatry and lust.
Paul does not condemn true homosexuals, who are born as inverts, for practicing their nature. Boswell renders para physin as “beyond nature.” He writes that the phrase has nothing to do with natural law, since this concept did not exist until many centuries after Paul. Nature refers to the personal nature of the pagans discussed.
A related view is that the distinction between inversion and perversion relating to “nature” is legitimate now, although Paul was unaware of it. According to D. Sherwin Bailey, the Bible knows nothing of inversion as an inherited trait or a psychological or glandular condition. The prescientific Paul regarded all homosexual practice as evidence of perversion. Paul could not have distinguished perversion and inversion; these concepts would have been unintelligible to him. Paul’s words have become irrelevant or incomplete on the question of homosexuality.
This particular view maybe where Brad Chilcott may have received his understanding. Similar views have been expressed by former Justice Michael Kirby and former AOG pastor Anthony Venn Brown.
Pederasty and Mutuality
Another view asserts that nature has nothing to do with Jewish views of Creation or with theories of natural law. According to Robin Scroggs, the term and its concept are derived from Greek, not Jewish, sources. Paul condemns the currently common practice of pederasty. Hence, Romans 1 has little or no relevance to the modern model of mutual adult-adult homosexuality. No one can know whether Paul would oppose “the caring adult relationship of mutuality.” Chilcott, Veen brown and others may also hold Scroggs view. But is it legitimate?
A Purity Rule
Still another view asserts that Paul is dealing with a purity rule, not a moral principle. According to L. William Countryman, homosexuality is not sinful, although it is unclean, dishonorable, and socially disgraceful.
Homosexuality is physical impurity for Jews, but it is not forbidden to Gentiles. Countryman bases this understanding on Paul’s view of purity elsewhere as metaphorical—impurity of heart—not physical impurity (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:12–14; 2 Cor. 12:20–21; Gal. 5:19–21; Eph. 4:19; 5:3, 5; Col. 3:5–15; 1 Thess. 4:3–8).
Nature is a neutral term that refers to continuity with the past. Gentiles “changed their nature” in the sense that they “lost a certain continuity with their remote past” when God visited impurity on them and changed their former heterosexual desires. This view also rests on defining porneia as metaphorical in most passages of Paul where a moral principle is at stake.
Paul condemns “impurity of the heart” but not physical “immorality” or “fornication,” that is, illicit sex outside of marriage.
In part, this interpretation rests on the fact that Countryman equates impurity with greed. He is not defining the term impurity itself, but rather the concept of impurity. His reasoning is contradictory, for Countryman also seems to view sin as greed. Impurity may be greed, and sin may be greed, but impurity is not sin in his reasoning. Countryman also takes the term improper things in 1:28 to refer back to verses 26–27, where homosexuality occurs. Homosexuality can thus be impurity but it is not sin. For Countryman, improper things constitute impurity, not sin.
Syntactically, there is a problem with this interpretation. Verse 28 exists in a parallel structure to verses 24 and 26. Context requires that verses 24, 26, and 28 point forward to the list of sins in 29–31, including unrighteousness, wickedness, murder, hatred of God, and invention of evil.
Countryman’s view is not a viable interpretation. Obviously, Paul includes both sinful and impure things in this passage. Some things might be impure and also sinful. This reasoning simply cannot disconnect homosexuality from sinful behavior by contrasting the two in the syntax of Paul’s Greek.
Regarding para physin, Thomas E. Schmidt suggests, in disputing with Countryman, that Paul unusually if not uniquely condemns both female and male same-gender relations as “against nature” and connects them to mutual desire involving consent. This is adult-adult mutuality.
Schmidt also points out that Countryman interprets en heautois (1:27) as “among themselves,” so that he interprets homosexuality to be the payback for the error of idolatry among the Gentiles and received from God. However, all reputable translations interpret Paul’s meaning to be that the payback is to come to the homosexual community or individuals, that is, “in their own persons.”
Finally, Schmidt points to the problem of chronology. How would Paul think that Christians in Rome, who had never met him, could follow such obscure, nuanced distinctions between Jewish impurity and sin? If Countryman were correct, Paul would have explained his terms with far more care.
Oppression and Liberation
Another approach is that of liberation theology. This view cannot accept what Paul says in light of modern understanding of sexuality and gay/lesbian liberation. George R. Edwards employs this view in a rhetorical interpretation of Romans 1.
Edwards believes that Paul uses the words contrary to nature to speak of an oppressive power structure. He places “liberationist thought and sociological criticism” over the instruction of the Old and New Testaments. Following Victor Paul Furnish, Edwards believes that Paul does not answer modern church questions such as homosexual church membership or ordination.
Rather, Paul’s conception is outmoded when he conceives of homosexual behavior as arising from gross sexual appetites and exploitation, due to deliberate choice rooted in sin. Contrary to Paul, homosexuality does not always involve rebellion against the Creator and His creation. Nor is it the debasement of one’s own true identity and the exploitation of another’s. It is “the theology of liberation” that is “the appropriate modality for present biblical education.”
Edwards believes that in Romans 1 Paul takes up a Jewish worldview, derived from the Book of Wisdom to gain the sympathy of his Jewish readers. This worldview rejects all things gentile. Then, in chapter 2, he turns the Jewish accusation of gentile wickedness against the accusers.
Chapter 1 is a rhetorical device, rather than a moral exhortation (parenesis). It is not Paul’s own understanding, for Paul would espouse freedom based on faith for homosexuals. Therefore, Romans 1 must be corrected by the theology of gay and lesbian liberation, just as Galatians 3:28 must correct Paul’s patriarchy.
Edwards supports his position in three ways:
- First, he presents the theological worldview of Romans 1:26–27 as Jewish, not Pauline.
- Second, the linkage of idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality comes from the intertestamental Book of Wisdom, not Paul.
- Third, the contextual significance of these verses in the whole of Romans is rhetorical, not moral instruction.
This is why Paul uses wherefore in 2:1. Paul at this point is addressing Jews, not Gentiles. Its strictly rhetorical purpose forbids taking the passage as a condemnation of homosexuality in itself.
For Edwards, modern sexology and liberation theology representing a modern worldview, not the biblical worldview, must determine the meaning of Scripture.
If so, then there is no single correct interpretation of Scripture, but rather a broad spectrum of interpretations that are equally acceptable. Scripture has lost all meaning in a plurality of meanings. Edwards seeks to constrain such a conclusion by setting forth three criteria for liberating love: constancy, nonviolence, and transgenital awareness (homosexuals are more than sexually defined persons). Incest, adultery, and bestiality could fit these criteria.
Brad Chilcott has stated clearly this view- there are many interpretations to these particular scriptures. Hence, he is actually promoting non-biblical liberation theology,
Moral Argumentation
Another approach views Romans 1 from the standpoint of the philosophy of moral argumentation. Pim Pronk concludes that Paul by his use of nature does not refer to the normative creation order but to the social conventions of his day, or to the biologically natural.
This is consistent with the relationship of theology and morality. The reasoning of the “whole human community,” not revelation or theology, determines the proper human response to homosexuality or any other moral concern. Theology cannot tell us what God’s will is for us.
The exegesis of Romans 1 can affirm that homosexuality is sin in a given time and culture, but it cannot tell us whether this is normative and definitive for people today who read Paul’s statements.
This issue is the concern of hermeneutics. Theology is not the epistemological source of the knowledge of good and evil; it exists only to affirm the idea that moral reasoning is God’s will. Moral education, critical thinking, and rational argumentation supply the content (the what) of morality. The whole human community in deliberation decides what constitutes good and evil. Moral positions are part of general revelation and are antecedent to the appeal to special revelation.
In Romans 1, Paul does not equate creation with nature because creation is not in the context. He faults the Gentiles for unbelief, not for transgressing the creation order. Paul knew nothing of natural moral law, so he is not dealing with moral law. Since he knew nothing of the homosexual condition, it is up to today’s human community, including homosexuals, to decide whether homosexuality is good or evil. Paul’s disapproval is not normative.
This approach broadly covers all moral argumentation and has far-reaching consequences, especially regarding homosexuality. Whereas other approaches are concerned with the interpretation and application of Romans 1, this approach simply removes the text from viable consideration.
Pronk asserts that “there is every reason to remove the homosexuality issue permanently from the church’s agendas as a moral and religious, i.e., as a scientific, problem.” If this assertion is correct, the meaning of Romans 1 is truly irrelevant for deciding the morality of homosexuality. The question is not exegesis but epistemology. Is this a valid approach? Brad Chilcott would agree?
Worldview
A final approach to Romans 1 combines certain aspects from other preceding views. To explain what Paul means in Romans 1, Martti Nissinen appeals to the influences of Hellenistic Jewish attitudes, the cultural environment, the Jewish purity code, Paul’s rhetorical strategy, Greco-Roman philosophy, and liberation.
Paul’s worldview and moral standards are products of his cultural environment. We cannot be sure what kind of sexual conduct Paul has in mind. His experience and his world fashioned his views. He does not address sexual orientation or mutual love in homosexual relationships. Even the law of nature refers to the law of God and is not based in a theology of creation. The moral implications of creation, if present, are subordinated to Hellenistic Jewish ideas of the law of nature manifested “in conventional patterns.” In other words, nature equals culture.
Nissinen’s combination of views is perhaps the most far-reaching and challenging to the traditional view of Romans 1. He rejects a static view of creation in Romans 1 and a determinist model of creation theology.
Such a mechanistic view of “nature” leads to “naturalistic determinism” and “rigid functionalist definitions.” So Nissinen views creation as “rejuvenating.” Creation theology must consider the variation of gender identity, especially the rise of gay and lesbian identities during the twentieth century.
This “continuing creation” results from “modern development.” People “create sexual cultures together.… Specific moral commands and norms are born from the needs of the time and place” in a context of love. Regarding homosexuality, one must diverge from the “clear word” of the Bible. Changes in worldview are necessary.
All of the newer interpretations share certain elements. The effect of each is to remove, on whatever pretext, any condemnation of homosexual behavior as practiced today. Each interpretation is a serious challenge to the church’s historical methods of interpretation and its application for confronting society on the issue of homosexuality.
If Romans 1, addressing male and female homosexuality with the most explicit language in the Bible, is unusable or inapplicable, then certainly the less explicit passages are questionable.
This blog cannot deal with all the epistemological implications raised by this debate. It is important to recognize, however, that the various approaches are really different ways of dealing with the authority, or lack thereof, of the passage.
As Richard Hays points out, we have to decide what Romans 1 means (exegesis) and then decide what authority the meaning carries. To decide the latter (hermeneutics) involves how the text functions (as moral law, principle, analogy, understanding the world and humankind, and understanding God) and how other authorities speak to the issue (other Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience).
As will be shown, revisionists fail to assess properly the function of the text and elevate the authority of reason, science, and experience over Scripture and tradition. We would suggest that Anthony Venn Brown and Brad Chilcott and others may have followed this pattern of thought.
All of these are matters determined by worldview.
We will approach the matter by making a grammatical, historical, and contextual study of the Bible’s use of nature. The results of this study can be used to evaluate the merits of the leading views. Essentially this is a religious analysis of differences in worldview: belief in the God of the Bible; belief in the deities of the mythological pantheon; trust in the self as a source of meaning and ethics.
The Linguistic Setting of Physis.
The starting point must be the possible meanings of physis in Romans 1:26–27.
Greek Usage
Physis occurs in profuse quantity throughout secular Greek writings, especially philosophy. We can study only a representative selection. The LSJ lexicon, including its supplement, cites eight broad categories of use for physis:2
1. origin, including birth and growth;
2. natural form or constitution of a person, animal, or thing, including nature or character;
3. regular order of nature;
4. philosophical order, referring to nature as an originating, creative power or “Nature” personified or as an elemental substance (as fire, water, air, earth) or in the idea of the creation, nature;
5. concrete term, as in the case of “creature” or “humanity”;
6. kind, sort, or species;
7. gender distinction; and
8. legal distinction, a term roughly synonymous with “law” (nomos).
There is no suggestion here that physis means “what is natural to me” or “orientation,” which, you will recall, is a major argument of the reinterpreters.
The second definition comes closest, speaking of one’s “character” or “natural disposition,” one’s “propensity.” Yet this usage points to what results from origin or growth and includes the instinct of animals. No one applies it to the source of homosexual desires.
In the third category occur examples of kata physin (“according to nature”) and para physin (“contrary to nature,” which occurs in Rom. 1:26–27). Here occurs the well-known statement by Aristotle (Politica 1253a3), “man is a political animal by nature” (physei).
Gunther Harder follows the outline of LSJ in discussing classical uses of physis. He points out that early Greek thought distinguished law and nature as separate entities that together determined one’s life. Nature was also “distinguished from the field of morals and ethics.”
Helmut Koester, in his lengthy discussion, seeks to show how the concept of physis developed in two directions, one emphasizing origin, the other emphasizing being or substance.
Although he follows the general outline of the preceding studies, he makes important clarifications and additions. He notes, for example, that Greeks call one’s tendency, quality, or character physis because this nature is a given and “not dependent on conscious direction or education.”
Aristotle and Plato developed a dual-idea of nature: First, it is the true character of things. Second, it is the origin of being.They equated this universal nature with deity and give to the adjective physikos the sense of “natural law.”
In regard to nature and ethics, the Greeks often viewed law and nature in antithesis. Natural law consisted of two opposing spheres of nature and law, to which each person is subject. According to nature means “normal,” and against nature means “abnormal.” This distinction became the foundation for ethical judgments, especially regarding sexuality. Plato condemns pederasty and marriage between men as para physin.
Koester’s last category concerns nature as a cosmic and vital principle in the Stoics. Stoics sought to bridge the antithesis in such thought by defining physis as a universal divine principle. Human beings received the logos, their own being, by nature. The goal of life is to attain to what corresponds to that nature or essence. Common sense or reason enables man to know what is kata physin and what is para physin.
Koester clearly shows the shortcoming of Greek thinking, for each person is nature, but each is also in bondage. That truly left a choice, for one couldn’t have it both ways. If nature was the true character of things, the logos, then the Stoics were right. If it was the origin of being but the antithesis of law, then the Gnostics were right, and purity could be found only in spiritual realities, never in the physical world. Stoicism turned one inward to self and the natural world. Gnosticism looked outward, away from the natural world.
Only in Jewish and Christian belief in nature as the creation of God “did the concept of natural law become significant, since man could relate himself to the Creator and Lawgiver as the ultimate critical court.” Koester suggests that only in Jewish and Christian thought is the antithesis of law vs. nature removed. If God creates nature and gives law, they both reflect His character or being.
There is a “natural” and there is a “lawful.” They are complementary and come from God. There can be no more terror of law vs. nature, says Koester in application. Knowing that God is love, the person knows that law and nature both contribute to a person’s highest good.
Only two senses of the word physis occur in the secular papyri at the time of the New Testament. To the general world nature meant “birth or physical origin” or “innate properties or powers—what comes from origin.” Physikos meant “natural, inward.”
Jewish and Christian Usage
No Hebrew equivalent to physis occurs in the Old Testament. The Jews did not have the Greek conception of nature, according to Harder. The Jews referred to all existing things as creation by the Creator God; further, the Old Testament focuses on the divine-human history and relationship. It has little concern for philosophy and none for speculation.
The Jews never needed a concept, apart from Creation, to explain the origin of all things or that viewed things as “natural.” All things came from God; He created and holds them in being. Their book gave the history of how all things came to be and how human beings responded to His overtures of love.
In noncanonical intertestamental literature, we find that the term physis occurs only in the LXX translation of the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, where it is used three times. In pseudepigraphal 3 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees it appears nine times, as well as in Testament 12 of The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The adjective physikos does not occur at all in the LXX.
The uses generally correspond to those found in classical Greek:
1. in the sense of endowment, character, and quality (4 Macc. 13:27; 16:3; Wisd. 19:20). Wisdom of Solomon 13:1 describes men as “foolish by nature” (mataioi physei), without perception of God from His works of creation (13:2–5). Instead, they worshiped God’s works as their gods.
2. in the sense of human nature, to which God adapted the law (“We know that the Creator of the world, in giving us the law, conforms it to our nature” [4 Macc. 5:25]). This (kata physin) is classical usage.
3. in the sense of the regular order of creation. Here Harder apparently places similar passages relating to parent-child affection (4 Macc. 15:13, 25), but this application is questionable.43 Also in category 3 belong references to “every mortal creature” (3 Macc. 3:29), “natures of animals” (Wisd. 7:20), and “kinds” of human passions (4 Macc. 1:20). I think that this last reference belongs in category 1. Fourth Maccabees 5:8–9 personifies physis as the giver of good gifts.
Oddly, Harder omits another use from pseudepigraphal literature (T. Naph. 3:4–5) that is relevant to the meaning of Romans 1:26–27. After affirming that God has “made all things good in their order” (2:7), the author notes that Gentiles “have forsook the Lord, and changed their order” (3:3). Then 3:4–5 concludes:
But ye shall not be so, my children, recognizing in the firmament, in the earth, and in the sea, and in all created things, the Lord who made all things, that ye become not as Sodom, which changed the order of nature. In like manner the Watchers also changed the order of their nature, whom the Lord cursed at the flood, on whose account he made the earth without inhabitants and fruitless.
The two uses of “the order of nature” (taxis physeōs) could be placed in categories one and two—character and human nature. It seems best to see them in category three, referring to nature as creation. The context (T. Naph. 2:7; 3:3–5) includes references to creation made by God and asserts that one can recognize the Lord there (similar to the thought of Rom. 1:18–23).
Physis occurs in other places in the Testaments in the sense of the “physical nature” of man (T. Reub. 3:1; 3:3) or “natural power” (T. Dan 3:4, 5). Anger “blinds one’s eyes literally” (T. Dan 2:4).
So use of physis in the literature of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha fits quite closely the classical Greek definitions. Two passages have ideas very similar to those in Romans 1:19–27. The Wisdom of Solomon 13:1 (with homosexuality and Sodom in its context) speaks of “men being foolish by nature.” Testament of Naphtali 3:4–5 refers to the sin of Sodom as changing “the order of nature.”
A clear identification of the physical creation as “nature” is lacking, in line with the Old Testament silence, which affirms a Creator of nature and a Lawgiver, contrary to the Greek idea and its worldview of a self-existent universe. The canonical Old Testament never uses the Hebrew equivalent for physis.
Apparently, the Greeks never conceived of a Creation out of nothing (as a study of ktisis shows) but viewed nature as always existing. Koester seems to recognize this distinction between Greek and Hebrew worldviews, as does Harder in his category three.
In addition to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the writings of Philo and Josephus provide additional insight into Jewish thinking about physis. Philo in particular makes a significant contribution in his extensive use of the word. Koester writes,
As a central concept in his philosophy and his exposition of the Law, φυσις [physis] in Philo unites for the first time in Greek literature the elements in Old Testament and Greek thinking which were to be of decisive significance for the thought of the West: God and natura -creatrix, Creation and the natural world, natural law and divine demand.
Philo adopts virtually all of the earlier Greek definitions of physis; he even uses it of the Creation. Philo’s special contribution is to combine the Greek (Stoic) concept of nature with the Old Testament understanding of God and the Law. The nomos physeōs is always Torah, to which even God seems subject. The law follows nature and nature ratifies law.
The phrases contrary to nature and according to nature occur frequently. For Philo, sexual aberrations are a violation of natural law (On the Life of Abraham 135–36).
Philo also writes of the seven natural human capacities as kata physin chrēsis (“use according to nature,” Rom. 1:26; On the Change of Names 11–12): sexual potency, speech, and the five senses. These and additional uses by Philo, which I give in excursus 4, are sufficient to see his employment of the terminology involving forms of “nature.”
Josephus uses physis frequently, reflecting all of the common definitions accepted in the first century A.D. As does Philo, he speaks of the “law of nature” and divine law. Marital intercourse and child birth correspond to the order of nature (kata physin), but sexual deviation is para physin.
In Antiquities (1.200–1), he speaks of the “violence and outrage” of the Sodomites, In Against Apion (2.199), he affirms that homosexuality deserves the death penalty. “No sexual connections” are lawful except the natural union of man and wife.
These uses in Philo and Josephus emphasize the special understanding that the Jews had of physis. They understood nature to refer to the creation and what is “natural” to correspond to the law of the Old Testament. Nature is not autonomous or independent of God and His law.
When we turn to the apostolic fathers, who come immediately after the New Testament, we find that, as in the New Testament, physis occurs rarely (three times), and physikos does not occur at all.
The phrase law of nature is also very rare. No doubt this lack of usage reflects the Jewish and Christian concern that all nature constitutes what the Creator has made. There is no place for an autonomous nature in concept or terminology.
Frequency increases after the first century in certain apocryphal books of “Acts” and in the apologists. Lampe’s Patristic Greek Lexicon shows that church fathers use the term profusely. All types of uses occur, but only a dozen or so refer to the creation or the natural world. This latter usage is in keeping with the New Testament occurrences.
The Historical/Cultural Setting of Physis
The meaning of physis, as derived from its historical setting in the cultures of the biblical era, is even more important than its linguistic use. However the meaning of physis varied through linguistic development, the more important task is to learn how the word was used in Paul’s contemporary context.
We also would do well to discover the prevalence of homosexual practice in the society Paul was addressing and how practice informed what he meant by physis in Romans 1.
We should examine whether the term or practice was limited to pederasty in that culture and whether pederasty was the only homosexual practice known to Paul. Did the ancients know of a mutual homosexual relationship among adults? Did they accept homosexuality as a natural condition?
Ancient Greek and Roman Sources
Homosexuality seems to have existed more widely among the ancient Greeks than among any other ancient people. Excursuses 3 and 4 provide substantial quotation of Greek sources relating to the place and forms of homosexual behavior. From those sources it is apparent that the predominant form of homosexuality was pederasty between men and boys.
The ethics of Greek love for boys was based upon “an aesthetic and religious foundation,” and it was sanctioned by the state. It was a supplement to marriage and an important factor in education, so it was decidedly bisexual. Not surprisingly, women objected to such sexual diversions. Pederasty goes back forty-five hundred years in ancient Egypt and occurs in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Solon issued laws to prevent slaves from having connections with free-born boys. The rape of boys was an established “custom.” The Greeks even used boys for paying tribute.
However, the Greeks knew and practiced additional forms of same-gender behavior. Plato, in his last work (c. 348 B.C.), both implies and speaks openly about the ubiquity of homosexuality. Plato advocates legislation to regulate it (Laws 636a–c; 835c; 836a–e; 838b–839b; 840de; 841de). There were laws against homosexuality as early as Plato’s lifetime in Greece; some prescribed the death penalty for certain behaviors.
Hans Licht asserts that Christian church fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, cite Greek poetry to “prove the immorality of paganism.” Lyric poetry had its “origin in homosexual love.” Licht finds references in Greek culture to such forms of sexual perversion as mixoscopy, transvestitism, exhibitionism, pygmalionism, flagellation, sadism and masochism (although Licht discounts these forms), necrophilia, and sodomy. Licht defines sodomy as sex with animals.
Plato treated homosexual love from a philosophical perspective, which suggests that such a thing as a homosexual orientation was known. Examples of lesbianism or female homosexuality and mutual adult-adult homosexuality occur.
Plato differentiated between the “natural” and the “unnatural” (esp. Laws 636a–c, 836a–c; 838; 841de).60 In addition, it is significant to discover that Greek religion supported homosexual expression (see pp. 252–57).
What was the situation in Rome and elsewhere at the time of Paul? As in Greece, homosexual pederasty and prostitution were widespread. We have seen that Philo and Josephus condemned homosexuality in general, in the Roman context, in the strongest of terms. Their comments cannot be restricted to pederasty.
Moral philosophers in Paul’s day questioned the merits of homosexuality. Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–A.D. 65), the statesman and tutor to Nero, condemns homosexual exploitation (Moral Epistles 47.7–8) that forces an adult slave to dress, shave his beard, and behave as a woman. Plutarch, the Greek biographer and priest, born A.D. 46, speaks of homosexuality as “contrary to nature” (Dialogue on Love 751c, d, e; 752b, c). Dio Chrysostom (A.D. 40) exposes the exploitative and lustful nature of homosexuality and commends “natural intercourse” and “union of the male and female” (Discourse 7.133, 135; 151–152; 21.6–10; 77/78.36).
Bailey also gives evidence from Roman legislation of the prevalence and form of homosexuality during Paul’s day. As early as 226 B.C. the Lex Scantinia penalized homosexual practices.
Cicero refers to subsequent application of it in 50 B.C., and other references are made to it by Suetonius (applied under Domitian), Juvenal, and others, including Tertullian. Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis (about 17 B.C.), initially concerned with sexual offenses against a virgin or widow (stuprum), came to be applied to sexual acts committed with boys (A.D. 3d century) then to homosexual acts between adults (4th century). Justinian’s Codex (6th century) applied Lex Julia to homosexuality with specificity, setting the legal tradition in Western civilization (see pp. 257, 258).
Further evidence of homosexuality comes from the poets, satirists, and historians of the day. Juvenal (c. 60–140) and Martial (c. 40–102) wrote of formal marriage unions of homosexuals. Historians and others viewed the second century B.C. as the turning point in Roman social morality. With military conquests achieved, Rome underwent, in the words of historian D. Earl, “a moral crisis from which she never recovered.” It came about from the direct influx into Rome of “Asiatic luxury and Greek manners,” including homosexuality and other sorts of debauchery.
Jewish and Christian Sources
The Old Testament witness to adult homosexual behavior cannot reasonably be doubted, as is apparent in the record of Sodom (Genesis 19), Gibeah (Judges 19), and the condemnations of Deuteronomy 23:17–18 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The level of understanding in intertestamental literature has also been documented. On the other hand, only in Testament of Levi 17:11 does pederasty occur.
Throughout Scripture, condemnation of homosexuality is consistent, universal, and absolute. The text never suggests that it condemns some specific form of homosexuality while it tolerates or accepts other forms. For example, it was not for homosexual rape alone that Sodom was judged; the attempt on the angels confirmed God’s decision to deal with the larger pattern of degradation. We have seen (pp. 43–47, 73–101) that homosexual acts generally were later described as part of Sodom’s pattern. The parallels to Genesis 19 in Judges 19 obviously mean that hideous “Sodom” had infected the children of Israel. Whatever applied to Sodom now applied to Benjamin—including God’s condemnation on them for homosexual acts other than rape.
Nor does any other text restrict the condemnation. The prohibition of Deuteronomy 23 applies beyond male cult prostitution (as does Leviticus 18 and 20; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; and 1 Tim. 1:8–10). New Testament teaching in Romans 1:26–27 cannot be made to fit only pederasty or any other specific perverse act, such as the abandoning of one’s “natural” sexual orientation. In Paul’s thinking, both the passive (malakoi) and active (arsenokoitai) homosexual partners are outside the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9; see pp. 196–201).
New Testament Contextual Setting
Non-Pauline uses of Physis
In the New Testament the noun physis occurs fourteen times, eleven times in the writings of Paul. The adjective occurs three times (twice in Rom. 1:26–27 and once in 2 Peter 2:12). The adverb naturally occurs once in Jude 10.
In the rare non-Pauline uses, the noun has the common Greek sense of “kind of beast” and “human nature” in James 3:7 and refers to the divine nature in 2 Peter 1:4. The adjective in 2 Peter 2:12 and the adverb in Jude 10 refer to natural, irrational understanding, comparable to that of beasts.
Pauline uses of Physis
Paul uses the term seven times in Romans and four times (the noun only) in other Epistles. Outside of Romans, Paul uses the noun to refer to the general order of nature and what is culturally fitting in regard to hair style (1 Cor. 11:14; without allusion to Creator or creation).
In Galatians 2:15, physei Ioudaioi refers to the essence of being Jewish in true nature, by descent. Similarly, Romans 2:27 refers to the “uncircumcision by nature,” that is, Gentiles essentially—or in their true nature. In Galatians 4:8, Paul says that those “which by nature are no gods” had no divine quality or essence. In Ephesians 2:3, the word refers to the fallen nature of Jews (note the possible bearing of Eph. 2:1–3 on Romans 2).
Physis in Romans 1:26–27
In Romans, excepting chapter 1, the noun refers to the Hellenistic-Jewish idea of natural law (2:14; see p. 250). Paul identifies natural law with the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament.69 Gentiles possess a natural law that they obey naturally, but this law must be compatible with the Jewish understanding of God as the Lawgiver.
In Romans 1:27, “the uncircumcised or Gentiles by nature” refers to what Gentiles essentially are (see the above discussion of Gal. 2:15). Finally, physis occurs in Romans 11:21, 24 in reference to the olive tree grown naturally, kata physin, with no artificial intervention (Israel). The Gentiles are a wild olive tree by nature (kata physin), and God grafted them contrary to nature (para physin) into the cultivated olive tree of Israel.
Three main considerations must be addressed in Romans 1:26–27:
1. the definition of physis and physikos;
2. the nature of the homosexuality involved; and
3. the significance of this text for contemporary ethics.
We have seen that context determines the meaning of physis. The meaning is the same for the noun and the adjective, which appears twice in verses 26–27. Physis occurs in an adverbial prepositional phrase that can be translated “changed the natural use into the [use] contrary to nature” (v. 26). Koester remarks: “The stress on sexual faults corresponds to the so-called Noahic commandments of rabbinic Judaism, but in both tenor and formulation it is in every way Greek in Paul, the idea being that of a violation of the natural order.”
Harder basically concurs. By way of Hellenistic Judaism this Greek Stoic concept found a limited place in Christian thought. Paul’s use points in two opposing directions: “It emphasizes the gap between Jews and non-Jews”; and “it indicates what they have in common.”
If these observations are correct, we can come to a conclusion regarding nature: Paul uses conventional Greek terminology to express a Jewish-Christian worldview that “nature” and what is “natural” must correspond to what God has created and legislated. It cannot simply be equated with culture.
While Paul on this occasion uses physis to refer to the creation order, he is borrowing conventional language to express a ktisis (“creation”) idea or worldview. He uses the word exchanged (v. 26) to point to a violation of creation when people make idols and “change” the glory of God into an image made from the Creation.
Also, he may use the term aschēmosynē (“indecent acts”) in Romans 1:27 as a subtle pointer to schēma, which is used by Paul only in Philippians 2:7. In Philippians 2:7, it describes the earthly “form, appearance, or essence” of Christ, suggesting that Christ is the only perfect person, the pattern for all humanity. Those who engage in same-gender sexual intercourse do not emulate Christ as our pattern or image, but rather make an idol from the creation.
Such reinterpreters as Boswell, Mollenkott, Scanzoni, Edwards, and to a lesser extent Nissinen, who read in physis the meaning “what is natural to me,” see a justification for inversion or orientation. But never does the term receive such a meaning in Greek literature or biblical contexts.
If Plato could earlier write (in Symposium) about Platonic homosexuality and orientation (i.e., “what is natural to me”), he does not connect it with physis. Plato’s last work (Laws) gives no hint of the meaning of “orientation” for physis and makes it clear that homosexuality (apparently in any form) is something that law should legislate as “unnatural” and harmful to society.
Even his Symposium acknowledges the existence of such legislation. Plato seems to present a mixed picture of Greek morality.
What about the nature of the homosexuality involved? If, as some say, physis did not encompass orientation, two questions arise. First, was Paul ignorant of orientation (or “inversion”) and knew only about perversion? Second, if Paul knew of it, would he approve orientation while condemning homosexual behavior?
Concerning the first question, we have seen that the ancients (Plato and others) knew of orientation and inversion, so the well-educated Paul was no doubt aware of what the Greeks and Romans said about it. It is hardly conceivable that Paul and everyone else were ignorant of it.
Regarding the second question, Paul would not have approved orientation. Orientation, like homosexual behavior, violates what God created as His image (Genesis 1, human beings as male and female) and what He legislated regarding sexual behavior and marriage (Genesis 2, Leviticus 18 and 20). It violates what Jesus said about marriage.
Only a monogamous union of male and female constitutes marriage on the Maker’s model (Matt. 19:1–19). Contrary to the critics, Paul and other Jews and Christians did have a concept of “natural law.”
Using common Greek terminology, it substituted a biblical worldview for the Greek and Roman view by embracing a transcendent Creator (in place of nature deified). This transcendent Creator made all life and all things, including people and marriage, and He has revealed His law. Homosexual orientation violates the nature and law of this Creator and reflects the fall of Genesis 3. The corporate whole of created humanity “has a heterosexual orientation that has been corrupted by rebellion against God.”
It seems best to view Paul as encompassing within his understanding of “against nature” and “natural” any and all forms of homosexuality, whether orientation or behavior. This means that physis refers to the constitution of man, his being, as derived from the Creator (Genesis 1–2).
The terms Paul uses in verses 26–27—female and male rather than woman and man—call to mind the account of human creation as “male” and “female.” The order of “female” before “male” here is a significant cue that Paul has in mind the order of the Fall as well as Creation.
To say that Paul is influenced by Greek thinking is to stand against context. Paul is carefully avoiding Greek formulations as he writes this part of Romans. He avoids the use of physis to refer to the works of nature, so that none will hear him say that nature is self-existent or the source of all. Rather, in the immediate context, Paul refers to that which comes from the Creator, to creation (cf. his similar progression in Acts 17). This is the pattern in the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Old Testament. The rest of the New Testament also follows this pattern.
Because Philo and Josephus, contemporaries of Paul, frequently use physis to refer to “nature,” Paul shows himself to be a Hebraist or biblicist, not a Hellenist. Although natural moral law is present, Paul prefers to follow the strictly theological and linguistic path of the Old Testament (Levit. 18:22; 20:13)77 and the Jewish intertestamental literature. Koester agrees that this pattern is no accident.
At least partly, he says, it is “a deliberate theological decision which rests on the fact that there is no place for ‘natural theology’ in the thinking of the N.T.”78 Paul also may follow the lead of the Testaments of Naphtali 3:4–5; Asher 7:1; Benjamin 9:1; Levi 14:6; 2 Enoch 10:4–5; 34:1–3; and The Wisdom of Solomon with regard to the nature of homosexuality.
So the claim by Scroggs that Paul “must have had, could only have had, pederasty in mind” (emphasis his).79 is untenable.80 First, Scroggs’s statement rests on his assumption “that Greco-Roman culture decisively influenced New Testament statements about homosexuality” and that “Paul is dependent for his judgment that it is against nature ultimately on Greek, not Jewish sources [, and] … not on some doctrine of creation.”
Scroggs overlooks the context and the Hebraist Paul’s continual dependence on Old Testament concepts, here as throughout his writing. He preaches the Jewish doctrine of “nature” in relation to ethics and worldview. He is dependent on such texts as Leviticus 18 and 20 that speak of adult-to-adult homosexual practice and says nothing about pederasty.
Second, given Plato and other evidence, it seems beyond reasonable doubt that the ancients knew virtually all forms of homosexuality, including orientation, centuries before Paul (see excursus 3). Third, Paul’s words support a much more general idea of homosexuality, including adult-adult mutuality and the homosexual condition:
1. Paul writes of “males with males committing indecent acts”; he does not say “men with boys” (as Plato is capable of saying in Laws 836a–c). The “male-to-male” phrase appears to be unique to Paul.
2. He compares lesbianism with male perversion (note the use of likewise). Female pederasty was virtually unknown but occurred between adults in mutuality, so the force of the comparative argues for male adult-adult mutuality.83
3. The phrase “the natural use of the female” or “function of the female” (v. 27) argues for activity or “relations” (NIV) of adults, not adult-child behavior. The “natural use of the female” can refer only to adult heterosexual behavior that has been abandoned in pursuit of adult male homosexual behavior. These words cannot refer to orientation alone or to a Platonic relationship.
4. The graphic language demonstrates that this is neither morally neutral behavior nor a Platonic relationship. He refers to “degrading passions” (“shameful lusts,” v. 26 NIV), “burned in their desire” (“were inflamed with lust,” NIV), “indecent acts” (v. 26–27). This is a harsh moral characterization, whether referring to propensity, orientation, or activity.
5. The terms, toward one another (involving a reciprocal pronoun), men with men, in themselves, and their error all argue for reciprocal adult mutuality and mutual culpability that would not characterize pederasty. As the error is mutual, so is the recompense.
6. “Exchanged … abandoned natural functions” suggests that adult sexual relations are meant. They assume the normal sexual procreative functions belonging to adults.
7. Paul’s phrasing in Romans 1:32 (“although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death”) suggests that he is reflecting on Leviticus 20:13. Leviticus demanded death for those committing any form of adult homosexual behavior. This connection allows Paul to prohibit any form of homosexuality, be it homosexual or lesbian, adult mutuality, rape, prostitution, or pederasty.
8. This sexual behavior is purposefully chosen (“leaving the natural use,” v. 27 KJV). People are held accountable for their choices; they are not “born this way,” without culpability.
If, as some aver, the “model” or form of homosexuality makes a difference, why is Scripture silent on the matter? Why is there no debate over the matter in Philo or Josephus? The Greeks (e.g., Plato in Symposium) could discuss the differences involved when a man has sex with a boy or an adult, but this does not seem to be part of Jewish-Christian discussion.
Even if Philo and Josephus use the biblical accounts of adult homosexuality (Genesis 19) to condemn contemporary pederasty, does this fact not argue that they would view both as abhorrent? If interpreters limit the model in Romans 1 to pederasty, then Paul has no comment on bisexuality or male prostitution (both of which were common in his world) or on adult mutual homosexuality.
Scroggs’s position suggests that the model of adult mutuality was unknown or little known in ancient times. That is a two-edged argument. If it exists now and is a universal cultural phenomenon, or based on genetic disposition, as some who argue the homosexual agenda claim, it certainly would have existed then.
Human nature has not changed, nor has the power of the gospel. Scroggs has no evidence that mutuality is any more common today than it was then.
De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 142–159). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
