Does
God care whether or not we masturbate?
Wait, before you stone me on a Sunday
morning all dressed up to go to Church, here is my defence. I took my cue from
a wise man. He is a Nobel Laureate in Economics. But he is no economist. He is
a psychologist. He recently wrote a book to much critical acclaim.
I dare say that no one understands human
nature and behavior better than him. Of course, he would disclaim that honor.
But the proof is in the pudding and here is what professor Steven Pinker said
about him: "(He) is among the most influential psychologists in history
and certainly the most important psychologist alive today. He has a gift for
uncovering remarkable features of the human mind."
Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the
author of Black Swan, wrote this about his book: "This is a landmark book
in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud."
Lastly, Steven D. Levitt, the renowned
economist who wrote the Freakonomics series, said: "There may be no other
person on the planet who better understands how and why we make the choices we
make."
So, that's the background of the man,
here's his name: Professor Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University). His book is
entitled "Thinking fast and slow".
And here's my defence I told you earlier in the words of Michael Lewis (author
of "The Undoing Project"):-
"Danny (Professor Kahneman) made his
final decision about God. "I still remember where I was - the street in
Jerusalem. I remember thinking that I could imagine there was a God, but not
one who cares whether or not I masturbate. I reached the conclusion that there
was no God. That was the end of my religious life." (Page 60).
Now, before any die-hard believer of the
faith shakes his head at Professor Kahneman's most candid admission about God
(or his disbelief), he is not a man to be dismissed so easily. He once said
this: "My interest in psychology was as a way to do philosophy. To
understand the world by understanding why people, especially me, see it as they
do. By then the question of whether God exists left me cold. But the question
of why people believe God exists I found really fascinating. I was not really
interested in right and wrong. But I was very interested in indignation. Now
that's a psychologist!"
Notwithstanding his atheistic stand,
Professor Kahneman’s lifelong inquiry is strictly empirical as he leaves the
issue of God and his existence exclusively in the hands of others.
This brings me back to the question I
started with in this post: Does God care
whether or not we masturbate? I can safely say that Professor Kahneman's
answer to that question is in the negative. In the first place, to him, who
doesn’t subscribe to omnipotence in any form, it is a personal matter.
However, in the Bible, the one who was struck
dead for an act that comes closest to masturbation is Onan (Genesis 38). His
refusal to pass on his semen to his sister-in-law (whose husband, Er, had died)
to continue Er's lineage was a grave act of disobedience.
But then, Onan's offence was not masturbation
as it is defined, but coitus interruptus,
that is, it is a form of birth control. Theologians will say that he had broken
a covenantal law for his failure to complete the orgasmic package. But whatever
it is, Onan's hardness (of heart) cost him his life.
Now, when it comes to what the Scripture has to say about
masturbation, Dr James Dobson wrote: “Christian people have different opinions
about how God view this act. Unfortunately, I can’t speak directly for God on
this subject, since His Holy Word, the Bible, is silent on this point. The
Bible says nothing about masturbation, so we don’t really know what God thinks
about it. My opinion is that He doesn’t make a big issue of it.”
And as discussed above, Onan is not specifically on point. Further,
the scriptures about sexual immorality and corruption are too broad to be
helpful to address the issue fully. The best guide we have is what Jesus said
about adultery in the heart in Mathew 5:27-28. Although the verse does not
specifically refer to masturbation, it does to some extent.
Jesus was talking about covetousness here, that is, lust developing
in the heart or the appetite to satisfy lust. This appetite has to be consciously
and deliberately fed. It is a process, and not just one or two looks of the
eye. What our eye thus sees is not lust, but what our heart feeds on is.
So, this form of corruptible lust (or appetite) must be distinguished
from sexual desires and its development, without which the commandment to go
forth and multiply (in the context of marriage) would be a non-starter. Lust
and covetousness thus go together and they are categorically different from
sexual desires and marital intimacy.
Therefore, when Jesus talks about lust in the heart, I believe He is indirectly
talking about masturbation, but to what end. In other words, I believe it is
not the act that is condemned. It is the ultimate object (purpose) of the act
that we as believers ought to be concerned with. It’s not so much concerned
with the how but the why.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant puts it aptly when he wrote that “its
(masturbation) immorality lay in the fact that a man gives up his
personality…when he uses himself merely as means for the gratification of an
animal drive (lust).” So, lust always demands. It is insatiable. However, love unfailingly
devotes. It deeply satisfies.
While different religions view masturbation differently, with
Catholicism reserving the highest condemnation for it, and Protestantism and
Anglicanism refraining from calling it sin outright, the consensus here is that
when masturbation becomes obsessive, chronic and self-directed, it becomes
self-destructive, pathological or sin.
When masturbation makes an addict out of you or turns you into
someone who looks at another lustfully in order to fuel your fantasies, you
know you have crossed the morality or sanity line. By then, your heart will be
inextricably entangled with the appetites of the flesh.
Coming back full circle, does God care whether or not we masturbate?
I think the answer to that is not whether God makes a big or small issue out of
it (aka Dr James Dobson). On this, I
take my lead from Jesus.
Of course, apart from adultery of the heart, Jesus made no mention of
masturbation in his ministry. As such, I will have to understand the issue at
hand by looking at the totality of his life and teachings on earth.
But first, let me say this: Jesus did not come to eradicate masturbation
per se. He did not come to stop us from enjoying the gift that our sexuality
offers. More importantly, Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to redeem us.
He came so that we may live fully and to live fully in Him. In other words,
Jesus did not come to minus from life, but he came to add to it and all the
pleasures that come with it – be it sexual, physical, emotional, intellectual
or spiritual.
It is thus not a religious life of do’s and don’ts. Nobody is keeping
scores here. The freedom that comes from Him is not a freedom within regimented
or religious boundary. You cross it and you will be morally electrocuted. No. It is a freedom that transforms all
man-made boundaries, all rules and laws. It changes our perspective from how we keep His commandments to why. And Calvary, His sacrifice and His
grace that pours out from them is the why.
So, when it is said that knowing the truth
shall set us free, this freedom is one that transforms us from the inside out,
and not just from the outside.
Ultimately, we cannot understand our spiritual growth without understanding
that it is something we grow into progressively, taking one day at a time. It
is therefore not a sudden, blind sprint to the finishing line. The kingdom of
God is always about something growing like a seed, and how that seed blooms
over a lifetime into a canopy of outreaching leaves. Our walk in faith and
discipline grows through all seasons with the usual stumbles and falls, rising and
overcoming.
The late Dallas Willard once wrote that, “Life in all its forms
permits distortion within limits, of not becoming what it was meant to be. But
in the nature of the case, one who really understands who Jesus is sees their
own situation in a realistic light and wants to take measures to remedy their
condition by staying as close to Jesus as possible. Discipleship is a natural
part of confidence in Jesus as he really is.” And this confidence takes time to
take shape, to spread her wings, and take flight.
So, God cares more than we think about masturbation, but He cares
even more about how we grow in Him, how we overcome in our own unique ways and
season, how we fall and rise again in faith and hope, and how we persevere to
complete the race meant for a lifetime - notwithstanding the repeated struggles,
the biting remorse, and the moments of broken humanity.
It is said that the heart of the law is love and love is the
fulfillment of the law. Conversely, the law of the heart is sin and sin is the
defilement of the heart. While the old covenant aims to prevent us from
transgressions, the new covenant seeks to empower us to transformation. Calvary
therefore reverses the order of submission from form to substance, from
appearances to enduring growth, and from the law to love.
At the end of the day, love will see us through. Love will make a way
to keep our eyes always on Calvary. Love will cajoled us back to Him when we
fail to live up in thoughts and deeds. And love will gradually replace the
perversions of our heart with the perfection of His Spirit.
By which time, masturbation will no longer have an addictive hold
over us. We will be able to turn from the pleasure that it once brings to the
pleasure that the pursuit of His Spirit brings. The rising of a new dawn in our
walk in Him will then be the rising of a new devotion that satisfies our heart
adequately and fills us with inexplicable joy. It will be a “hedonic mill” of a
different kind. It will be the kind that makes us crave eagerly for the pleasurable
things that find favor with our loving Savior. Cheerz.
