How Language Softens Our Resolve, Part 1

I still notice a filmy skirt on a lithe body jauntily strolling down the walk. Anything wrong with that? I’m a delightedly married man and wouldn’t consider trading my wife for any sweet young thing. …but I notice. Is that bad? Can I help it? I was “born that way” so it can’t be wrong.

But what happens after I notice? I was also born wanting to take impulse into action, is that still okay… since it’s “natural?” What comes after the first heart palpitation? Some people refer to pretty women (especially pictures of nude women) as “eye candy.” Naturalists tell us that evolution has hardwired the male for pursuit and conquest. So I guess that’s just my luck. Evolutionary genetics would declare me quite alright. I’m not lustful; I’m poly-erotic.

Wait. Problem. My wife doesn’t believe in evolution, at least not the kind that would excuse any philandering. (There’s nothing like a threat to our social sensibilities to make us commence vigorous Bible-thumping.) God said, “No,” and Jesus said, “Don’t even think about it.” Starkly clear, if you ask me.

But what if some naturalists are right, and “God” is just the personification of one particular moral code? What then? Do I only imagine a God who frowns on lust, because someone sometime invented God as an icon for a set of moral behaviors?

(Hmm… back up a minute: Why is it that the naturalist personifies their worldview as “evolution” and we blindly accept their pronouncement as somehow scientific, i.e. “true”? “Hardwiring” (a term they use) is a result of intentional action, not dumb luck. “Evolution has hardwired…” this is blatant personification. We’ve got to be honest about it when it happens. So “The male is hardwired” is a naturalist’s statement of personified personal opinion, not empirical fact. The fact that we see some human males acting like creatures of less nobility, does not prove a point.)

Or what if God is real, but His prohibitions—stated clearly in both Testaments—were only the personal opinions of those particular authors? Couldn’t something written 2,000 year ago in a very different cultural setting no longer be binding on us? Maybe self-control was necessary when pregnancy and disease were harder to control. Perhaps modern science, medicine, and technology have made moral restraint unnecessary. Again, my wife would assert that on the issue of sexual self-restraint, the Bible is still wise. Okay, but I really didn’t start this post to write about that.

Here’s what happens in me after the first head-turning moment when my eye wanders. I have a choice. I can, as a happily married man (who would like to remain so), entertain either of two thoughts. First, I can give in to Old Man Naturalism and say, “I was designed this way for some purpose important to our species, so even though I believe in marriage, I’ll just enjoy a little daydreaming. It is my heritage.” The problem is that I’m not an innocent little boy. My adult, sophisticated daydreams lead into all kinds of dark alleys and dead ends. So, yes, I can give in to a brutish interpretation of what it is to be human, but why? Why volunteer for a fractured life where the mind and heart follow a path which is forbidden to the body?

Well, here’s a bigger problem. Those who choose to freely explore the meanderings of mind and heart usually find a way for the body to join in, at least secretly. I recently read an article in Psychology Today where four women faced this problem. Each had a marriage that was less than perfect. Think about that; what a shame. But if they gave out a gold star to every person who is currently in a perfect marriage, there’d be a huge warehouse of unawarded gold stars, I’m thinkin’. “Perfect” doesn’t happen very often in this real life.

Anyway, each wife found a different solution. One found a lover and has decided to enjoy the romance without her husband’s knowledge, indefinitely. Another found a lover and then, after some emotional turmoil, induced her husband to find a partner and then to agree to an ongoing marriage “with extras.” A third moved a long way from her husband to take a job on the opposite coast. She is free to do as she will while on her own, and they manage to work up a spark for each other on their rare times together. A fourth has simply invited her lover into their marriage and though it causes some tensions, it’s “working.” The psychologist reviews all four as viable options and dissects the pros from the cons of each case. Curious that he didn’t find the wife who refused an extramarital partner. Perhaps she never needed the “advantage” of his counseling. Maybe that’s why he was unaware that she, and thousands more, still believe that fidelity, with all its challenges, still works better.

Here’s a second thought I can entertain. I can follow Charles Wittschiebe’s advice. During his heyday as Adventism’s sex doctor back in the ‘70s, Wittschiebe suggested that men enjoy the beauty God has created. “God made all kinds of beautiful things in nature, and the female form is one of them. Enjoy, but don’t let it lead to infidelity.” This advice is preferable to the naturalist’s because it has the remembrance of God in it. And I have great respect for Wittschiebe and his attempt to counter misconceptions about God and sex. But I, personally, have a hard time “enjoying” a plate of brownies that I know I will never taste. Gazing at them makes it all the worse.

So whether I am “naturally hardwired for conquest” or I am a “justified lover of beauty,” I still have a struggle ahead if I have chosen to live by God’s law. In the two following posts I will look at additional features of our language that make it even harder to prevail in that struggle.