In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Trent Horn to discuss the Catholic teaching on sex outside of marriage. Trent clarifies the Church’s stance that sex is intended for the expression of marital love, emphasizing the importance of the relationship context. Tune in to hear the engaging dialogue and explore the moral implications of this topic.
Transcript:
Caller: Talking about two mature adults, well educated, neither one of them are married and they choose to engage in a sexual relationship with no coercion. They’re in love, they want to do it. I don’t have a problem with that. Now I guess I want to get some clarification on why that would not be okay too, Tim.
Trent Horn: So let’s try another example. Let’s say two young people meet each other on an online dating app and they agree, they think each other, they’re both really cool people, and they just want a one night stand. And then after that, nothing else. Would you say that was wrong?
Caller: Yes, I would also say that.
Trent Horn: Okay, so it sounds like they have to be in love. Why does that matter?
Caller: They have to have some kind of a relationship going. Yeah.
Caller: Do they? Okay, what if they said, well, we’ll do this, but we’ll probably break up in three months anyways the end of the summer when we go to different schools?
Caller: I guess you could ask, you could ask the what if questions forever.
Caller: But that’s the thing, Tim. I’m trying, I’m trying to figure out what your, your standard is. Because if you say, well, they have to be in love, that seems like kind of a nebulous concept, right? Like, how do you define that?
Caller: It’s like, it’s like pornography. You know it when you see it.
Trent Horn: Sure, but. But I guess here’s what, here’s how. What the Church would say and then you and I can talk about it a little bit. Ultimately, to see if sex is wrong. We have to ask the question, what is sex for? We have to, what is it for? And I would say that here’s my summary based on the Church teaching and natural law. What sex is for. Sex is for the expression of marital love and what marital love is. Marital love is the faithful lifelong union that includes a complete bodily union that only exists between men and women. And so to me, that makes sense on a number of levels. The one that jumps out the most is that if marital love is this lifelong, permanent, faithful bond, and sex is that expression of it, that makes sense because sex is ordered towards a permanent consequence. For example, Tim, isn’t often the case that two people, if they’re in love, they might have sex, and more often than not, a child comes into existence. But. So now there’s something biological that ties this man and woman to the child, but nothing except feelings that tie the man and woman to each other. And that can make problems later, right?
Caller: Well, yeah, but using that logic, Adam and Eve were committing a sin because they were never married, technically.
Caller: Well, they weren’t married in the sense that they went in front of a priest or anything like that, but God created them for one another, and God was a witness to them coming together.
Caller: But would you agree that marriage is really more of a social construct than anything else? Now, man invented marriage. God invented sex.
Trent Horn: Actually, I think sexual. You could possibly reverse that. I would say that God invented marriage. God gave us marriage. And sex is something that’s just a natural part of our being as mammals that, you know, that’s a drive we have naturally. I think man invented many modern ideas about sex, like that it’s for pleasure, that it’s ultimately not that big a deal as long as everybody is consenting. So for me, though, I mean, I would go back to that. Wouldn’t it make sense, though, that if sex is ordered towards something that has a lifelong consequence, like the creation of a child, and children have a right to their mothers and fathers, then wouldn’t it make sense you’d want something that unites mothers and fathers, that unites men and women together, like marriage, before they come together physically to create a child. Wouldn’t that at least make sense?
Caller: That would make sense, but. Okay, well, maybe they do plan on getting married someday. Maybe they. Maybe a child happens and, oh, boy, looks like we’re going to have to get married, and they’re okay then, and the marriage lasts forever.
Trent Horn: But hopefully. But that’s not necessarily ideal. And I guess I’d use this example. Which would you rather have? Let’s say you’re. You get sick and you go to the hospital and you’re getting ready to be ready to be operated on, and two people walk in. One guy says, hi, you know, I became a doctor, you know, a year ago and got my license, and we’re ready to operate on you. And another guy says, I’m going to be a doctor in a year. Don’t worry, I’ll get that license in a year. But I’m still learning. I’m not technically a doctor yet, but I’ll be there in a year. I think most people would say, I want the one who actually is a doctor who actually has a medical license, not the one who. I hope he will be a doctor in a year. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. And I think that’s the same for marriage, that ideally, when a child comes into existence. When a child comes into existence, they should have. At the very moment they exist, at that very first moment, they should have a mother and father who were united to one another in the bonds of marriage, that lifelong, permanent, faithful bond so that that child can know, hey, here’s mom, here’s dad. And I don’t have to go across town to see Mom. I have to go across town to see dad and be divvied up on different weekends. These two have been bonded to each other before. They’re bonded to me. And when people do that, that provides health and welfare and well being to the family. When they don’t, we’ve seen sociologically what happens now. I’m making just essentially a pragmatic argument. There’s other arguments for why sex outside of marriage is wrong. But I think the ultimate way I would boil it down to is this. We have to ask what is sex for? If we don’t answer that question, if we say it’s just for the expression of love, well, why, why should we think that among human beings? Where does that category come down to? I think we know it is, but. But then we don’t really know why it is. But to me, if we say it’s for the expression of marital love, then we understand the lifelong element, why it’s only two people. Because if sex is for love, then would it be okay for a man to have his girlfriend and other girlfriend, another girlfriend, people on the side? I mean, you can love lots of friends, right? Well, yeah, but you can’t love lots of spouses, lots of romantic partners. Romantic love desires, exclusivity. And that really only makes sense if sex is for romantic love, is for the communication of exclusive, lifelong, permanent marital love. And if that’s the case, then we see sex outside of marriage is wrong because it communicates this powerful kind of love in a fraudulent way, because you’re not really married when you engage in that activity. So that might be something that I would think about. And I’d also recommend a book that’s coming out from Catholic Answers soon, similar to these themes called Inseparable. And it’s a book with five contributors about the Church’s teaching on sexuality, the ends of sex, and how it relates to things like contraception. But thanks for calling.
Caller: Thank you, Tim.
Caller: Thanks very much. You’ll be able to buy that book soon in our@shop.catholic.com.