We can dishonor God in our sex lives just as we can dishonor Him in any other area of our lives. We dishonor Him when we serve ourselves. We dishonor God in our sex lives when we fail to mirror the Trinitarian reality and beauty in our relationships.
God’s instructions for our sexual lives serve Him by bringing Him glory when we obey them, and they also benefit us. God’s rules are not limiting prohibitions, but rather ennobling, enriching guidelines.
As theologian George Weigel explains, when we view God’s directives for our sexuality this way, “the first moral question shifts from ‘What am I forbidden to do?’ to ‘How do I live a life of sexual love that conforms to my dignity as a human person?'”George Weigel, The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored (New York: Cliff Street Books, 2001) pp. 104-105.
This explains why Christian prohibitions against certain sexual practices aren’t based on reactive moralism in an effort to keep us from having fun. Quite the opposite! They’re based on how we can flourish in our God-given humanity and how we best reflect the image of God in us.
As reflections of the nature and qualities of the Trinity, our sex lives should be shaped by the qualities of the Trinity. Three primary principles apply to all of us and, if we keep these in mind, they’ll guide us in a life that is pleasing to God and beneficial to our families and ourselves.
We May Never Use Another Person as an Object, Sexual or Otherwise
The members of the Trinity never relate to each other as objects, to be used for their own good. They relate to each other in love, seeking to serve the goodness and glory of the other. Love is a self-donation. It never uses others as things or an end. When we use others, we diminish their dignity as well as our own. Animals do this. People shouldn’t, because it’s not what we were created for. It’s not what sex was created for. This is why pornography, masturbation, and rape fall outside of God’s intentions for us. Pornography dehumanizes sexuality and depersonalizes people by turning the viewer into a taker and the one viewed into an object. The danger is that we start to see others in our lives the same way we see the object in the magazine, movie, or website: as a nobody, a thing that exists for our pleasure. It also dehumanizes the user because we are made for intimacy with the other sex and intimacy can’t occur with illusionary images. It should take place with another person — a spouse. Similarly, sex is much more than mere physical stimulation. God created it to be a very intimate communion between two people. Therefore masturbation, like pornography, is incomplete because it doesn’t involve the communion of two self-giving people, one to another. It’s sex for one and isn’t God’s ideal for us; it’s merely taking from one’s self and doesn’t mirror the nature of the Trinity. No member of the Trinity turns in on Himself in any manner.God is the only One for whom it is permissible, and even necessary, to be self-absorbed because He is the proper focus of the whole universe. But because the Christian God exists in Trinity He is not narcissistic. While He is self-focused, each member is focused on the other members, marking a God who simultaneously reflects both a proper self-centeredness and an other-centeredness. Their relational expression is always to the others. Remember, God said it was not good for man (or woman) to be alone, and in sexualized form, that’s what masturbation is. Rape isn’t about sex, but about control and domination. It’s about taking by violence. It’s always wrong because it’s the complete opposite of what love is. It’s one of the most egregious violations of the Trinitarian ideal and, therefore, of human dignity.The Monstrosity of Premarital and Extramarital Sex
The human sexual embrace, this most intimate and ultimate of all human giving and vulnerability, ought to take place in a union of total and permanent surrender of two people. That’s what marriage is: both the public and personal dedication of a man and woman to forsake all others and give themselves fully — body, mind, and spirit — to another. Therefore, to give someone- Our body without exclusively giving him or her
- Our mind or will (total, unconditional, willful commitment) or
- Our spirit (emotions, affections, and adoration)