Topics Sex

Question Is it correct that Saint Augustine first came up with the idea that sex is primarily for reproduction and should only be used for this purpose and did the Vatican pick up on this idea from him? Is there any philosophical reasoning that can support this view?

Accepted:
April 10, 2007

Comments

The idea can be found in Augustine. In the early 5th Century, he wrote, "A man turns to good use the evil of concupiscence . . . when he bridles and restrains its rage . . . and never relaxes his hold upon it except when intent on offspring, and then controls and applies it to the carnal generation of children . . . not to the subjection of the spirit to the flesh in a sordid servitude" (On Marriage and Concupiscence, bk. 1, chap. 9). But the idea did not originate with him. I'm sure (in my intellectual heart) that it can be found in the ancient Greeks (late Plato?) and maybe even the Hebrews, in the West. (I dare not speak about Eastern thought, about which I am untutored.) But I cannot, offhand, provide sources. If we restrict the question to Christianity, the idea occurs earlier than Augustine --- not in St. Paul (note the absence of any talk of reproduction as the purpose of sex in 1 Corinthians 7) --- but in the once-sainted and controversial (and de-sainted) Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215), who regarded sex even in the context of marriage as consistent with virtue only if performed for the sake of procreation and not for the pleasure of the act (the so-called "Alexandrian rule"). [See Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Vintage, 1988), p. 29, who cites Clement's book Stromata 3:57-58. You might also consult Clement's Paidogogus (2.10.92; 3.2.26).] The doctrine, and the reasoning behind it, were, I think, not formulated rigorously until St. Thomas Aquinas did it in the mid-1200s. Influenced by Aristotelian teleology, Aquinas formulated a Natural Law theory of sexuality in his stupendous Summatheologiae, a theory that became (by Leo XIII's 1879 encyclical) the authoritativefoundation of Catholic teaching. Aquinas was willing to admit that sexualpleasure was something good because, after all, it was created by God: It is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself. Heterosexual coitus results from a naturalinclination implanted by God and in it the sexual organs fulfill their naturalpurpose (see Summa contra gentiles III.2.122-126). Seekingsexual pleasure was not sinful, according to Aquinas, only when pursued during a conjugal sexual act that is procreative in form, for God designed sexual pleasure as aninducement to perform and a reward for performing procreative sexual acts. In Arthur Miller's 1972 play, The Creation of the World and Other Business, God's giving humans a pleasure-motive to engage in procreatve sexual acts was an afterthought, not part of His original design, and God was provoked into making this alteration by, of course, the serpent (or Satan). For Augustine, prelapsarian Adam and Eve would have engaged in procreative sexual acts solely out of a love for God, and/or to abide by His commandment to be fruitful (see City of God, bk. 14).

Question Is it correct that Saint Augustine first came up with the idea that sex is primarily for reproduction and should only be used for this purpose and did the Vatican pick up on this idea from him? Is there any philosophical reasoning that can support this view? Accepted:April 10, 2007

Question Is it correct that Saint Augustine first came up with the idea that sex is primarily for reproduction and should only be used for this purpose and did the Vatican pick up on this idea from him? Is there any philosophical reasoning that can support this view?

Accepted:
April 10, 2007