Here is the series so far:
Part 1 — Hypergamy is a Myth
Part 2 — Hypergamy Note
Part 3 — Luck
Part 4 — Reasons for Divorce
Part 5 — A Case Study on Marriage (Intermission)
Part 6 — What is Hypergamy? (Part 1)
Part 7 — What is Hypergamy? (Part 2)
Part 8 — Wants and Choices
Part 9 — Hypergamy or Adultery
Part 10 — Hypergamy and Adultery
Part 11 — Matters of Selection
Today we will discuss:
Part 12 — Matters of Fath (Intermission)
So far the focus on this series has been lopsided, with not much discussion of the theological import of what has been said. And readers are getting restless. So I’m going to discuss this topic from the perspective of the Christian faith.
I’m going to be discussing Bruce Charlton’s comment at “Hypergamy or Adultery,” Then, I’ll discuss a pair of comments by Elspeth. But, before I discuss those, let’s consider what adultery means spiritually.
The Ten Commandments
Adultery is very typically a violation of multiple of the ten commandments:
- You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife
- You shall not steal
- You shall not commit adultery
- Honor your father and mother
Adultery typically starts as lust and covetessness for another man’s wife followed by adultery, which is the theft of another man’s wife. This act inherently dishonors the natural bonds of family that God established:
This is why a man will leave his father and his mother and will join with his wife, and they will become one flesh.
That is four of the commandments.
But adultery also violates—in spirit—the prohibitions on idolatry and worship. Artisanal Toad once noted that adultery is the human equivalent of commandment against idolatry. Just as adultery is giving to another god what rightfully belongs to God, adultery is giving to one person what rightfully belongs solely to another. And, as reader Sharkly is fond of noting, adultery can quite easily be a vile act of idolatry and worship.
Did you notice that there are not one but two commandments (the 7th and 10th) pertaining to another man’s wife? The only other case where two commandments pertain to the same topic is idolatry (the first and second commandments). I think Artisanal Toad is right to see the direct parallel between the two.
Bearing false witness? How many lies are required leading up to, including, and subsequent to the act of adultery?
Murder? How many acts of adultery are accompanied by chemical birth control, an abortifacient?
Taking the Lord’s name in vain? It doesn’t take much imagination to see how that might happen.
Violating the Sabbath? Happens readily enough.
Graven images? I suppose that depends on whether you think pictures or videos of the act of adultery can constitute graven images.
Depending on how you count them and interpret them, adultery is the only human act in which it is possible to violate all ten of commandments at once. If Satan wanted to come up with an act that opposed God’s Law in as maximum a manner possible, he would be hard pressed to come up with an alternative.
But perhaps you think this is all legalism or, at the very least, not as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be.
The Spiritual Cost
Modern society treats the act of marriage as if it were mundane, without spiritual significance. It is viewed as a bodily function in the same category as any other function. It’s just another recreational activity…. like playing sports. But the act of marriage creates an unbreakable spiritual bond that lasts a lifetime:
This is why a man will leave his father and his mother and will join with his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? So should I take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body?
The one-flesh bond of marriage is the same spiritual mystery that is the joining of the members of the body of Christ. Paul explicitly equates the spiritual joining with Christ with the act of marriage as a spiritual act. The act of marriage results in the joining of flesh from two into one. Marriage represents the ultimate form of relationship and it mirrors the relationship with the divine. Nothing else does this.
A large majority of people have had multiple sexual partners and have thus committed adultery. They have joined their bodies with multiple people in an illicit violation of not only God’s commandments, but God’s plan for human relationships.
The physical and spiritual consequences of this wanton disregard for the will of God cannot be understated.
Now, let’s consider that comment:
While there are important *psychological* insights here; this rings ultimately false to me (i.e. from the perspective of my fundamental assumptions).
I regard it as imperative that marriage is understood as (ideally) a conscious and voluntary commitment to make a permanent mutually-loving relationship – with all that entails.
Here, you are reducing this spiritual ideal to the psychology (or legalism) of a material and mundane physical act.
The material is indeed always and necessarily spiritual – but the spiritual is always greater than (more than) the material.
The key disagreement, I guess, is that I don’t view the act of marriage as fundamentally material and mundane. Rather, I view it as the most essential relational act of mankind, incorporating the dual concepts of unity and creation. If God is relational and the fundamental reality is relationship, then the act of marriage is of primary importance.
Hypergamy is a concept rooted in psychology, but adultery is not. The consequences of adultery are not primarily psychological. If anything, the psychological effects of adultery—like, hypothetically, hypergamy—are caused by the spiritual consequences of the act itself. Yet, the source of those consequences go largely unidentified and unacknowledged because the act of adultery is unrecognized for what it is.
I believe Charlton is making the typical “mystical fallacy” (as I call it). This is the belief that the physical and the spiritual are in some abstract way separate.
This can be expressed in different, even mutually exclusive ways. In the case of Radix Fidem, this leads to the belief that the intellect is fundamentally fallen and incomplete but the separate “heart” is redeemed and the source of all spiritual connection to the divine. In the case of Gnosticism, this manifests in the dualistic distinction between the physical and the divine and that divine knowledge is gained through esoteric mystical means. In the case of Charlton—who I acknowledge believes that the material is in some way always also spiritual—
—he nonetheless asserts that there is still a certain separate sense in which the spiritual is greater than the material. It is the belief that the two are not coterminous (at least in the context of the act of marriage and the one-flesh bond).
I maintain that the act of marriage is not a combination of the material and spiritual which can be compared to one another as greater than or less than. I do not think there is a meaningful distinction between the material and spiritual sense of the one-flesh bond. It is all one-in-the-same. It makes no sense to speak of the spiritual being greater than the material in this context.
The point is that the act of marriage is the actual physical reality of the “conscious” and voluntary commitment to a permanent mutually-loving relationship even when the parties do not acknowledge this or work towards it.
Readers will note that this last sentence is a blatant contradiction: they unconsciously engage in a physical act of conscious commitment. This contradiction is a lie. But, the lie is not with respect to the act of marriage itself, it is with respect to the persons engaging in the act. They are lying to themselves about what it means both physically and spiritually.
What scripture makes clear is that there is no such thing as casual sex. Humans treating it casually does not make it casual. This is not legalism, because it isn’t rooted in the Law. It is the fundamental metaphysical reality as set down by God at Creation.
There is a massive spiritual cost to violating God’s plan for marriage and deceiving ourselves about the significance of doing so. We are all paying that cost.
The Power of Grace
Throughout this series we’ve talked a lot about statistics, and we’ve discussed the perils of violating God’s plan. But we have not talked about the power of God through Grace.
But I’ve been married 31 years and going strong. The proof in the pudding. Meet cutes get divorced, while we have a marital tree loaded with spiritual fruit. There is no need defend against who I was then, or who my husband was then, because we’re not those people anymore.
Yet another truth the so-called red pill has bastardized, even in Christian circles. Anyone who claims to be Christ’s and still thinks, walks, and talks the same way after 10, 15, 20 or more years is probably not regenerate. And anyone who treats fellow believers as if the work God has done in them doesn’t matter is probably not regenerate either.
The choices we make every day matter. They matter A LOT. Even if we weren’t mature enough, righteous enough, or wise enough to be married when we got married, we made choices every day to stay together no matter what, and by God’s grace every day we continued to make better and better choices.
It is not an exaggeration to say that we have not had a bad relational year in nearly 20 years. Annoyances and miscommunications here and there, of course. But nothing even close to resembling a marital crisis. How’s that for two people who came from a high divorce rate ethnic group and a working class background while statistically better situated couples all around us have crashed and burned?
So many Christians seem to have a knowledge of God and understand the forms of godliness while denying the possibility of true power.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No man is good, not even one. We are all works in progress. It is only through the grace of God that we are redeemed.
Statistics are great and tell us a lot about how populations behave and what we can expect from them. They can guide a man and help him discern where he should go with his life. But, as Elspeth attests through her written testimony of faith, God can and does transcend all of that. He is the potter and we are the clay.
There will be genetic factors that influence who you are and what you do. There will be environmental factors that mix and mold you into who you become. Who and what you are includes both the mutable and immutable, what can change and what cannot.
None of that negates the importance of letting God guide you to where you should go. Your life is not predetermined.
Doing things God’s way greatly increases the likelihood that you’ll have a blessed life. But it is no guarantee. You can do everything right and still fail. And there are some who make miserable mistakes and learn something from the experience, and God still blesses them anyway. But both of these are rare. It is up to you to work out what works for you between you and God.
If you can use the information contained in this series to your benefit, please do so. But do not neglect the importance of your faith and the role that God has in bringing order to chaos.
i noticed those ””readers” that are getting restless” also like to say you say ”you can’t blame women” when they were the ones saying ” PSS…. & SHH…DUDE JUST LEARN GAME TO GET Dasex out Dawomminz as that is what must be Donesz and is redpillo correct too as you shouldn’t blame Stella for how she wants to groove as that’s her prerogative and none of your biz anyway as WE say in the sex revolutionsz brah in danightclubs and bars !!!” before they went black pilled.
Deti really thinks he can gaslight MOSES, JESUS & GBFM!?
After he spent a decade+ preaching game as the solution to all problems with women before turning to the ”dark side” of the,the ”blackpill”-which says according to you once ”redpillers” ”CAN’T DO NOTHING ABOUT MY SITUATION, SO JUST COMPLAIN & NOT GAME”?UN-UH Deti who likes to circlejerk with betas and deltas at Spawnys, Dalrock, and SF!
i, MOSES, JESUS & MOD are the main witnesses that testify against you feministic pro-sex ”revolutionsz” ex-gamers and now ”blackpillers” dude!
It is not anyone in particular. Almost all the readers have been getting restless of late, except perhaps for you. Readers demand balanced coverage of a topic!
Surely my sentence you quote; “The material is indeed always and necessarily spiritual – but the spiritual is always greater than (more than) the material.”
Demonstrates that – at least theoretically – I do not hold the views you ascribe to me as: ” the belief that the physical and the spiritual are separate. “?
But to be more specific; when you state “the act of marriage is the actual physical reality of the “conscious” and voluntary commitment to a permanent mutually-loving relationship even when the parties do not acknowledge this or work towards it.”
That is to deny any distinction between conscious voluntary commitment and unconscious involuntary acts.
Yet they Are (and ought to be) distinguishable, and vitally so – even though they cannot be completely separated due to the nature of this mortal life and world.
That was indeed the medieval legal assumption – that if, for instance, somebody could be compelled to say certain words they would be morally binding; or that if someone did an act (including murder) then they had meant to do it (such that animals could be tried and executed for murder).
It also seems to be the way that young children think, even nowadays. It is the complete conflation of symbol with symbolized.
But that is not how you and I think, nor how modern people in the West think; nor have they thought this way for some centuries.
We are different from ancient people and young children in the way that we think and experience the world- that is, indeed, the reason that makes possible genuine atheism and materialism, and our current malaise; and there is nothing that you can (or should) do about this (as a starting point. Of course we must strive to g beyond it – but such striving must necessarily be conscious and voluntary).
To impose ancient laws and practices here-and-now is (or would be) known at the deepest level to be monstrously unjust, very stupid, or manipulatively dishonest.
It is silly of wishful to pretend otherwise – and I think we all know this, really.
I can genuinely understand the hunger and desperation behind a desire to re-impose an external, objective logically-coherent moral-spiritual framework on this most evil of civilizations. That was my own conviction c 2010-12.
But it Will Not happen, and the attempt to do it, would be a disaster that Would – for sure – be hijacked by the powers of evil.
Bruce,
You are correct, I did not mean to ascribe that view to you in the way that I did. I’ve modified the original post to reflect this. I’m not sure that this will satisfy you either, but let’s see how it goes. Let me know if you still believe I have misrepresented you and I will try again.
“That is to deny any distinction between conscious voluntary commitment and unconscious involuntary acts.”
Yes. This may surprise you, but I more-or-less agree.
I’m well-aware of the metaphysical consequence of what I am saying, as well as how this departs from your own metaphysical understanding.
But it’s not just your metaphysic that this goes against, it also stands against the modern evangelical Christian metaphysic regarding God’s grace (which I believe conforms closely to your own belief), as I said this earlier today:
There are a lot of Christians who truly believe that God’s grace allows one to marry—to use Artisanal Toad’s terminology—a non-eligible non-virgin woman. What they are basically saying is that God, in his grace, allows divorce due to your hard hearts. But Jesus gave no exceptions for divorce other than adultery, and you can’t intentionally commit the sin of adultery to trigger the exception clause. That would be absurd.
Paul said that you can’t sin so that grace gets bigger and better.
I can see why you would call this legalism, per your comment:
To impose ancient laws and practices here-and-now is (or would be) known at the deepest level to be monstrously unjust, very stupid, or manipulatively dishonest.
It is silly of wishful to pretend otherwise – and I think we all know this, really.
You argue your viewpoint well. I doubt I can even begin to refute what you have said. Yet, I have reasons for believing this above other explanations, and so it is what I believe. If I am anything on that list, it must be “very stupid” for I do not consider it possible for the sovereignty of God to be unjust and I am not being (intentionally) dishonest.
Now with respect to this…
I can genuinely understand the hunger and desperation behind a desire to re-impose an external, objective logically-coherent moral-spiritual framework on this most evil of civilizations. That was my own conviction c 2010-12.
But it Will Not happen, and the attempt to do it, would be a disaster that Would – for sure – be hijacked by the powers of evil.
…I largely agree with you. My view diagnoses the problem, it does not offer a solution. I’m not sure there is a solution. Maybe one day, but maybe not.
Peace,
DR
Happy if I said something useful. And yes, this is definitely a more positive approach. I’m not a blankslatist, but God is not limited to the natural and we must, however rare the occurrences, acknowledge that reality when we see it. Else, we are left with no other philosophy to embrace except fatalism.
Thanks again, Derek!
You’re welcome. I appreciated that you pushed me towards a more balanced discussion of this topic.
Im not restless. I’m just perplexed by “Gods love” and “He has a plan for your life” and then I read stuff about IQ, predetermination, “nothing can be done”
Its kind of a hopeless message for the masses and the only picked, dry bone is:
“Oh dont worry, in heaven everything is going to be great, but you know….sucks to be you now”
While at the same time a “talking down” to the lower IQ people about how they breed like rabbits, and the problems in the world are somehow now their fault.
I just look at the situation and think, and know: Bubba in the trailer park doesnt cause wars, but he will be “expected” to go die in war to defend the “interest” of the “elect” and “high IQ people”
Leroy in the ‘hood didnt ask to be black, but somehow its his own fault that policies and laws, and rules, and “solutions” by the “intelligent” people have destroyed his neighborhood, encouraged a breakdown of community while told about “IQ” but then told “to pull himself up by the bootstraps, you can have a great life. You are just lazy”
Jose in the barrio works hard, is taxed hard, wants better for his kids but evidently isnt smart enough to own a business…..and if he starts one, these elites pass laws, taxes, policies and regulations that just make it easier to stay in his situation….while told he’s lazy, has too many kids….is trying to follow Christ and and stay right with his wife but is told his life is “predetermined”
Really sad. No hope for anyone with an intellect or IQ that falls in the average range now. “You should have been born different” seems to be the only answer.
I dont like it
I dont like it
And you shouldn’t.
It is an indisputable fact that the people advocating the castration of children, the selling of babies to same sex couples, “minor attracted persons”, illicit sex positivity and the socialist agenda are the “educated”, elite, high IQ people. If the poor, unwashed masses are not intelligent enough to reject what they are being taught, then that makes the smarties in the political, academic, medical, and media classes all the more evil, and the dummies all the more innocent, doesn’t it?
But since God has said no partiality is to be shown to rich or poor, then it must be true that poor as well as rich are capable of living righteous lives and making sound decisions.
Your objections are not without merit, Jason.
[Editor’s Note: Your two comments were pulled out of the spam filter]
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. My discussion so far has been leading to frustration. I needed to read the room and act accordingly.
I’ve made no assertions in favor of (pre)determinism, I have not said that the poor should not breed, nor that we should abort the disabled, nor have I said that we should do nothing (though we should cease doing what cannot work!). I’ve led no support at all to any of those.
Nevertheless, a discussion about God’s love and grace was quite necessary to balance out the discussion.
*like* In response to Jason’s comment.
The high IQ elite set are the kid castration, gay designer baby creating, socialist touting, illicit sex posivity, insert-all-other-leftist- insanity-here group.
If the poor unwashed masses are “too dumb” to resist what the smarties are feeding them through academia, media, and legislative action, then is it their fault if following their leaders produce poor outcomes?
And why does God explicitly command no partiality to poor or rich if poor are unable to choose well and live righteously? If their slates are mostly filled in at birth? How did my dad manage to do it even with all the cards stacked against him?
This is the heart of the nature-nurture debate I suppose, with determinists on the nature side, blank slatists on the nurture side, and almost no one on the “with God all things are possible” side.
[Editor’s Note: Your two comments were pulled out of the spam filter]
Well said, Elspeth.
Here are some references that discuss this:
Old Testament
Exodus 23:6
Leviticus 19:14
Deuteronomy 10:17
2 Chronicles 19:7
1 Samuel 16:7
New Testament
Acts 10:34
Romans 2:11
James 2:1-4
Galatians 3:28
The Bible teaches that each man is to be judged according to his own words and deeds without respect to their social status, wealth, race, sex, or other such external considerations. The application of justice must be fair and applied without playing favorites. But justice must still be applied, or else it would be injustice.
I’m not aware of any passages that describe being unable to choose to live well and righteously. Scripture does teach that all have sinned and no one can be righteous without God, but I found no explicit example where unrighteousness is excused due to inability. Even those who are enslaved to sin and are unable to live righteously on their own are still held to account for their sins. Not even ignorance of the law excuses them, for everyone has the capacity to know right from wrong (see Romans 1:20).
Accountability must, presumably, be applied without respect to nature vs. nurture.
The only possible exception I could find is Luke 12:48 and James 3:1 but in neither of these cases does the requirement disappear due to inability, it only gets lighter or stronger according to what each has been given.
Scripture does teach that all have sinned and no one can be righteous without God, but I found no explicit example where unrighteousness is excused due to inability.
Exactly.
And keeping one’s marriage vows (and doing so scrupulously), working hard, being financially responsible and paying your bills, properly training your children etc. These are all moral issues. These are all things we act on based on our understanding of how we should live, and God’s word clearly and unambiguously speaks to each one of them.
You have pointed out, and stats support your assertion, that lower socio-economic groups are often correlated with lower IQ, and that certain groups of people (my group, for instance) produce terrible metrics in many of the above categories. It’s worth noting that many of these metrics began to slide in direct correlation to the smart peoples’ introduction of Marxist-lite policies.
If this low morality way of living is inbred and a direct result of simply being lower IQ, hence inability, then accountability becomes a sticky issue, does it not?
I would think so, yes.