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‘Glorify God in your bodies’: 1 Corinthians 6, 12–20 as a sexual ethic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Timothy Radcliffe OP
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Based on a talk given during a Catholic People’s Week

“‘All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful’ (v. 12). The Corinthians have a sexual ethic which starts from the question, ‘What is allowed? What may I do?’. And doubtless they could quote Paul back to himself to show that since they were free from the law, they could do anything; ‘For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery’ (Galatians 5:1). It follows, then, that there can be no restrictions upon what is permitted to the Christian. We are allowed to perform any sexual acts that we wish.

Paul’s reaction is not to revise his view that we are not under the Law but to suggest that asking what is permissible is not the right starting point. A proper sexual ethics is not, in the first place, about what is lawful, but about what is ‘helpful’. In this passage Paul subverts the Corinthians’ basic presuppositions in thinking about sexual ethics. Two thousand years later most Catholics need to submit to the same gentle subversion. The Church’s teaching on sexuality is normally seen in terms of what is allowed or forbidden; sexual ethics are classified as ‘permissive’ or ‘restrictive’, and the Church authorities are usually happy to oblige by stating the limits of acceptable behaviour. We all need to submit to the Pauline therapy, and this works, like any decent therapy, by means of a dialogue between the patient and the therapist.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 67 , Issue 793-794 , July 1986 , pp. 306 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See O'Connor, J. Murphy, 'Corinthian Slogans in 1. Cor. 6: 12–20, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 40/3, 1978, pp 391–396Google Scholar.

2 This translation of 1. Cor. is taken from the RSV, except that I have changed the location of some of the quotation marks, and altered v. 18, which the RSV gives as ‘every other sin’. The Greek is clearly ‘every sin’; the RSV alters it presumably because it can make no sense of statement. When, as Murphy O'Connor claims, this is recognised as a Corinthian slogan, then of course it makes perfect sense.

3 ‘A Long Sermon for Holy Week — Part 3: The Easter Vigil: The Mystery of New Life’, New Blackfriars, April 1986, p. 167.

4 in Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought, Edinburgh, 1980, p. 287ffGoogle Scholar.

5 op. cit. p. 288.

6 An unpublished sermon to which I am deeply indebted.

7 op. cit., p. 393.

8 Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revenge against Nature, London, 1981, p. 1Google Scholar.

9 ibid., p. 122.

10 After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory, London, 1981, p. 190Google Scholar.

11 ibid., p. 203.