All my life, I've been trying to figure out what it means to "do the right thing." As a Coptic Orthodox Christian, you would think it would be simple - just follow the rules of your religion, and you'll be fine. Even if I were not one to question everything (which I am), it has not always been clear to me what it means to be Coptic Orthodox Christian, or who even makes the rules.
Let's not be so naive to say "God makes the rules." Anyone who likes a rule will tell you that God made the rule, and anyone who doesn't like a rule will say "God never said that." To speak for God is a presumption that should be reserved for the foolish or the divine, and you never know which one you're dealing with.
Sex before marriage
We all think we know the rules for a good boy or a good girl in the Coptic Orthodox Church: you do not have sex before marriage, and as soon as you get married you only have sex so you can make grandchildren and deacons, the prized possessions of any Coptic community. This is not complete nonsense, but it's hard to parse out what's the truth, what's the Truth, and what's the nonsense.
The truth is what we really believe as a community. The Truth is what God would want us to believe if we could truly discern the Mind of God. The nonsense is what happens when we allow culture to speak for God.
A community is defined by its members, and it can be any size. A recently immigrated Coptic family is a small community. Egypt is a large community. Each community will have a way of establishing and enforcing norms, which are often framed as both enforceable and unenforceable rules. These rules are not arbitrary, but they are a combination of existential realities and sociocultural preferences, both of which are key to forming a shared community identity.
An existential reality is a rule that you cannot change even if you try. It is a rule that God made that becomes clear to us as a rule through what I like to call spiritual physics. Just as there are physical laws of nature, there are spiritual laws of nature. Just as we can discern the law of gravity, we can discern the spiritual world that God created for us.
Sociocultural preferences will vary from one community to another. Depending on the size and complexity of the community, they can even vary within a community. We have Coptic Orthodox Christians who think it is "not Christian" to dance, get tattoos, or drink alcohol. Are these things inherently bad? If you dance provocatively, get a naughty tattoo, or drink irresponsibly then yes these things can become damaging to your body, soul, and spirit.
I understand there may be genuine confusion about what is an existential reality and what is a sociocultural preference; however, we must resist the temptation to declare something to be True, when all we mean is that we believe it to be true and have agreed together as a community that we will behave as if it were true. Unlike murder, which is universally recognized as morally wounding to the murderer, it is hard to make a strong case that sex outside of marriage is inherently evil.
Let's pause to take a deep breath and reread what we have said so far to be crystal clear that I have not said "It is ok to have sex outside of marriage." What I have said is that there are different reasons that we choose to do or not do things. We choose to wait for marriage as Coptic Orthodox Christians because this is the sociocultural norm that we have agreed upon as a community. This is as good a reason as any to do something.
Managing Diabetes
Let's take a little detour and settle our frustrations by talking about diabetes for a few moments. We have many people in our community who struggle to control their blood sugars, and their success or failure in doing so relies on the rules that govern their diabetes management. These rules are not arbitrary, but they are a combination of existential realities and sociocultural norms that each individual uses to create a personal rule book to follow.
It is an existential reality that consuming carbohydrates elevates your blood sugars, some people have insulin deficiency/resistance that makes it impossible/harder for them to clear that sugar from their bloodstream, and consistently elevated sugars wreak havoc on all of your organs including your heart, your kidneys, and your brain.
It is a sociocultural norm that Egyptian people love to eat carbs. It is simply cruel to expect a human being to feel truly alive knowing that macarona bechamel exists, but you can't have any. There is a reason my good friend and colleague, Dr. Tamer Yacoub, is a very busy diabetes specialist in Fall River, MA. Most of the population near our medical practice is Portuguese and for some reason, it is typical for a Portuguese meal to be served with rice, bread, and potatoes.
A friend recently told me that one of the reasons he has trouble managing his diabetes is because he does not want to live longer at the expense of his happiness. His father lived to a ripe old age but at the cost of not being able to eat anything more than chicken and vegetables. My friend would rather eat whatever he wants and be happy than extend an unhappy life.
The tensions between our existential realities and our sociocultural norms are real. Biology tells us that we should eat healthy, and our culture tells us we are required to gain 30 pounds in the Holy 50 Days. We do not have to submit ourselves to a false choice between two extremes. Finding a balance requires an understanding of what is the right thing to do, and what would make us more or less likely to do the right thing.
Proclivities and Propensities
We all have different proclivities and propensities. Our proclivities are the sources of dopamine that we are drawn to, and our propensities are the potential negative consequences that we are prone to facing. A person who has a proclivity to eat Nutella out of the jar and a family history of diabetes is in a risky place.
We only have partial control of our proclivities and we have little control of our propensities. The partial control we have of what gives us pleasure comes in the form of how well we are able to control our personal experience. Once we expose ourselves to a source of dopamine, it is impossible to un-know how it feels. Different people respond differently to the same exposure. One person's temptation is another's poison.
The goal is not to avoid all sources of dopamine. The goal is to be aware of which sources of dopamine are most appealing to us and which are the most dangerous for us. This awareness of our proclivities and propensities helps to inform us what rules we should put in place for ourselves to protect us from ourselves. I am not saying that nicotine, cocaine, and alcohol are not dangerous, but I am hoping people realize that sugar may be the most dangerous substance for the Coptic community.
Back to the Sex
The core question that we are wrestling with is "Why should we wait till marriage to have sex?" The answer, as you have already suspected, is a combination of existential realities and sociocultural norms. I do not think it is possible to make an airtight argument for waiting till marriage based on just logic and data. There are definitely very good reasons to wait, but at the end of the day, we will still be left with a remnant of reasonable rational skepticism. Just as we cannot prove that God exists, we must be comfortable declaring our faith, not because we think we are right, but because we are seeking the mystery of what it means to know God.
Sex outside of marriage is a common practice outside of, and not unheard of inside of, our Coptic community. Let's not pretend that this is not the case. Does sex outside of marriage make sense to some people? Yes. Are there objective issues and concerns about sex outside of marriage? Also, yes. Even serial monogamy without a lifelong commitment puts couples in a position where one may be expecting more than the other is willing to give.
The value of the Sacrament of Marriage is more than just the obvious theological and pastoral requirements prescribed by the Coptic Orthodox Faith. There are universally generalizable reasons why it makes sense for two people to stand up in front of everyone they know and make a commitment. It is not just a matter of having witnesses to hold each of them accountable - it also requires each of them to truly examine himself and herself before entering into a hasty decision.
Sex is the ultimate unitive and procreative human experience. It is unitive because of the hormonal release of oxytocin that promotes human bonding and the dopamine that evokes a sense of pleasure. It is procreative in that this is how we create more humans. Are there other acts that are unitive? Yes, but less so. Are there other ways for humans to be productive, generative, and participants in God's divine plan? Yes, but they are all shadows of this unique gift that we have been given to co-create human life with God.
Once we have shared in the making of life, we are responsible for that life. It helps to know that someone will share that responsibility with us, no matter what happens. This partnership is an icon of the Trinity who are the origin and source of love. Parenting is hard, and it is only by the grace of God that we become icons of Christ to our children, as we are helping them to be formed into icons of Christ themselves. It is important to mention briefly here that it is possible to raise children outside of marriage, and some of the clearest images of God's love are seen in single and adoptive parents.
Going back to proclivities and propensities, I do believe that it is a nearly universal proclivity to want to have sex and a universally risky propensity to desire sex in a way that is not edifying to yourself or the object of your desire. This is why it is so important to understand that sin of any kind, including sexual immorality, is damaging to not just your body, but also damaging to your soul and spirit. Like the diabetic eating Nutella out of the jar, any human indulging in sexual promiscuity is playing with fire.
A Godly marriage is one in which each person individually is growing in virtue as an icon of Christ, and the couple collectively is working in cooperation as an icon of the Trinity. This is an existential reality that is True. This is much easier to do if both people in the marriage share the same sociocultural norms and work out of the same rule book.
In Conclusion
I realize I have not made any friends here. The hope of some is that we can prove the inherent wisdom of abstinence from sex before marriage in the same way that they hope to prove the existence of God. Others hope that we can justify all of the ways that we put ourselves in harm's way simply because it is hard to do the right thing.
I started by saying that I am always trying to figure out what it means to do the right thing. Knowing what to do and doing it are not the same thing, even for the great St. Paul as he writes the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans. As he also says in 1 Corinthians 13 we now see dimly, as in a mirror, and we are working to discern what it means to love.
Sex is a beautiful thing, and it teaches us more than we hoped to know about love, intimacy, and the sacrifice that is required for two to become one. It is not out of judgment for those who do not wait, but out of encouragement to those who do, that we honor the sanctity of this beautiful act by encouraging everyone to wait.
