Against Nature - Glenn Conjurske

“Against Nature”

by Glenn Conjurske

“For this cause God gave them up unto VILE AFFECTIONS: for even their women did change the NATURAL use into that which is AGAINST NATURE. And likewise also the men, leaving the NATURAL use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is UNSEEMLY.” (Romans 1:26-27). The sin of which Paul speaks here is said to be against nature. It is, of course, also against conscience, and therefore those who commit it, or approve it, naturally feel a need to justify it. This they sometimes do by endeavoring to prove that it is not “against nature”—-that it is rather the result of natural tendencies, that the tendency to it is inbred and genetic. “Scientific studies” are cited to prove this. Alas, I have known a Christian—-and one who had a reputation for superior spiritual understanding, too—-who was taken in by such so-called scientific evidence, and ready to offer proof that these vile affections flow from a person’s genetic constitution.

But to all of this we need only reply that God says it is against nature. “Science” may be wrong—-often has been, even where men have been sincerely seeking the truth. But in matters of this nature, we have no reason to believe they are sincerely seeking the truth. When God is rejected, when men say, “let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,” they lose their capacity for objective searching after truth. They have an agenda to support. They must rid nature of nature’s God. They must find evidence for evolution—-and find it they will, and find it they do, though their evidence in reality proves nothing beyond the bias of their own hearts. They must find evidence to prove that what God has forbidden is in fact natural. And those who are looking for such evidence will no doubt find it. But all their findings will leave the truth just as it was, just as God has spoken it, and the sin which they defend will yet be “against nature.”

Now we must understand that that which is against nature is against God, for nature is God’s handiwork. What nature is (sin excepted) is what he has made it. What nature is, therefore, is an expression of the purposes of God. What nature is carries with it the sanction of God. We need not inquire whether it is proper to breed the bull and the cow together. If we leave them to themselves, and take down the fences, they will manage that of their own accord. This is natural, and therefore it is right. But to breed the bull and the sow is against nature, and this is therefore not right. If it is against nature, it is against God. If it is of nature, it is of God. “Nature is the true law,” as an old proverb truly says. The very defenders of sins against nature evidently perceive this, and hence the need which they feel to justify their sin by an appeal to nature.

But that such sin is in fact against nature is altogether too obvious. The very existence of male and female, with all of their respective physical and emotional characteristics and capacities, is not only a profound expression of the wisdom and goodness of God, but is also an obvious expression of his purpose. The very constitution of male and female, both physical and emotional, is full proof to all who are not stone blind that they were made for each other. I say, “MADE for each other,” for it is simply unthinkable that so perfect a match—-and replete as it is with so many soul-ravishing delights—-could have come into being by mere chance, or in any other way than as the creation of the God of all wisdom and all goodness. Male and female were obviously made for each other. Their getting together, therefore, has the evident sanction of their Maker.

Fornication, then, and adultery, though sinful, are not sins against nature. Thus men excuse fornication on the ground that it is natural—-“doing what comes naturally,” they call it in our day. But this is nothing new. Six hundred years ago John Wycliffe called attention to the same manner of excusing such sin. “Poul,” he says, “biddiê here to trewe men, êat no man bigile hem in bileve bi veyn wordis which êei speken, êat êes ben no synnes or li3t; as lecherie is kyndeli, as êei seien. … Siche veyn wordis êat excusen synne done myche harme among men.” “Kyndeli” (that is, “kindly”) is Wycliffe’s common word for “natural,” as he constantly used “kind” for “nature.” The whole rendered into modern English reads, “Paul here biddeth true men that no man beguile them in belief by vain words which they speak, that these are no sins, or [only] light [ones], as `Lechery is natural,’ as they say. … Such vain words that excuse sin do much harm among men.” Lechery is of course fornication and adultery. For such sins men may plead the sanction of nature, and so suppose the sanction of God. Of such sin Jude speaks when he says, “What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.” (Jude 10). Thus those who plead nature to excuse their fornication and adultery place themselves on a level with the brute beasts, who know by nature the passions which belong to the male and female natures, and indulge those passions without restraint. Not that this argument from nature any way excuses them. Eve might as well have pled that it was natural to eat fruit, that the savor of the fruit was obviously created for her tongue to taste—-and it was, but this was no excuse for taking what God had forbidden.

But those who indulge their passions male with male, and female with female, have no plea even from nature. They do not know this by nature. The brute beasts have no such inclinations, nor has man by nature. It is perversion, against nature. It is against the natural, God-implanted desires and inclinations of male and female natures. It is against the well-being of human nature, and indeed, against the very being of human nature, for if the whole human race were to descend to this shame, the human race would soon cease to exist.

Glenn Conjurske

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