Will There Be Sex In Heaven?

Now that I have your attention:

The above title is taken from an article earlier this year in the New Oxford Review; “Will There Be Sex in Heaven? The Seven-Husbands Question Revisited”.

As with so many other profound theological questions, – like can angels dance on the head of a pin? and, if so, how many? And would they all be Roman Catholic angels? – this question about heaven can be dissected and explicated ‘til the cows come home. There is a plethora of words out there explaining why it is a useless, pointless, and/ or meaningless question; and, not surprisingly, another plethora questioning the first plethora.

The article does however, present some interesting thoughts in response to the title question that  will, at least, appeal to anyone who has or has had a deep, real love for a spouse in marriage, especially anyone who is looking forward to again being blissfully happy with their spouse in heaven.

Professor Smith focuses on Luke’s Gospel account of comments of Jesus on marriage in eternity:

The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. (Luke 20:34-36).

Professor Smith goes on to note that what are seen as the goals of marriage here on earth will no longer be pursued in heaven. He suggests, however, that two who were married will again be whole persons, with each other, with glorified bodies:

What remains, however, is the sacramental union of the spouses “in Christ.” This union would still be “bodily” in the same way Christ is bodily present to the disciples in the Upper Room or on the road to Emmaus.

This new reality, the reality outside of time since there will no longer be any time in which we exist, will not negate the fact that there were many earthly loving marriages. There is no “proof,” but it would seem impossible for two who loved each other here within a sacramental marriage that they would be strangers in heaven. Eye has not seen nor ear heard what can be possible for such people who experienced true [earthly] love and intimacy; i.e., the title question can be recast as, “How and how much will such a relationship be better in heaven?”

Professor Smith explores this possibility this way:

If this is so, then marriage could be intimate without necessarily being sexual in the limited way we experience the act.  . . . As God is the Source of All Good, whatever is good about the sexual act could not be missing in Heaven. I will ignore for the present any argument suggesting that there will not be marriage in Heaven because marriage is not “good.” The Church’s teaching simply does not allow this view. So too, if we must say that nothing truly good can be missing from God, the Source of All Good, then if marriage is good — and it clearly is — then it must exist somehow in God.

Now, on to an even deeper theological concept related to this discussion – partaking of the divine nature and how two best friends forever, with glorified bodies, might so partake in heaven.  The biblical warrant for this concept of partaking of the divine nature  is referred to in the second epistle of St. Peter:

Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord:  As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us, through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.  By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world. (2 Peter 1:1-4; emphasis added).

If there is a plethora of writing about heavenly sex, or the impossibility thereof, there is an even more humongous plethora about what is the meaning of “partaking of the divine nature.” Various terms have been used for this doctrine: each person “becoming God”;  theosis;  divinization; deification; divine adoption, and man’s participation in the life of God. (short discussion in the article at Catholic Stand, January 20,2 019-https://catholicstand.com/mary-deified-human-hypostasis/).

In summary, one begins here on earth to partake of the divine nature by doing good, making good, by bringing good into existence here on earth. Such acts, done again and again, over and over, become a habit – they become who a person is. In the context of a loving marriage, each spouse does selfless, loving actions for the other, and, in this small way here, makes a good no one else can make, and partakes of the divine, individually and with each other.  By doing this, each spouse engages in what St. Peter calls “ flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.”

God’s every action results in good. It cannot be otherwise. We are not like that. In His omnipotence and is His love, he makes each person in His image and likeness, but with free will. Each person can choose freely to do bad or to do good. God’s voice for us, our conscience, tells us to do good and to avoid evil; and it always tells us what choice will result in good. Still, we are free to choose. Following God’s voice, each loving spouse freely chooses to make a good exist, and exist for the other spouse, which no one else on earth can make. This is how God uses spouses to bring each other home to Him, to “partake” of Him, together.

In a brilliant book, After Aquinas, Fergus Kerr, O.P., in a chapter entitled “Deified Creaturehood,” writes about the relationship between good human actions and deification, divinization, and participation of the creature in God.  After going through the history of this concept  – participation in  God –  and summarizing various treatments of it, Kerr refers to the “most remarkable discussion in recent scholarship” from Anna Williams. For Williams, according to Kerr, a ‘mystical theology’ of St. Thomas

is concerned with the union of God and the human being created in God’s image. . . . Anna Williams insists that the project is wholly shaped by Thomas’s relentless portrayal of God as the God who is intent on union with humanity. (Kerr. page 157)

Kerr comments further:

Thus, our beatitude is not other than God himself; and as our participation in the divine beatitude it is something that God creates in us. But now this created beatitude is the life of human activity in which our human powers begin to be fulfilled here and now. Human beings become what they are meant to be only in union with God; and the specifically human activities, the practice of the virtues, are a form of participation in divine beatitude in this life.

To apply Kerr’s thinking in terms of spousal relationship in heaven:  Human spouses grow here on earth into union with God through their human actions, practicing the virtues in selfless actions directed to the other spouse; this is an incomplete form in this life of participation in divine beatitude; and is a sign of what their relationship will be in heaven, partaking fully of the divine nature together.

For many spouses, especially those who are here while their beloved wife or husband has gone on to eternity, there is no concern about whether or not there will be sex in heaven, none; but there is a profound longing, a sincere hope that they will again be with their loved one. For them, a group hug in heaven with Jesus will be, to paraphrase Rick’s last line in the movie Casablanca, the beginning of a beautiful partaking.