Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

In Augustine’s entire framework, his treatment of sex is both odd and seemingly logically necessary. As a product of the latter 20th century some of his ideas seem strikingly ad hoc, starting with the idea that if the fall had not happened, “Eve would have remained virginal in intercourse and parturition, never losing her bodily integrity.” It is hard to understand what that even would mean, let alone why it is necessary. I do not identify with the idea that virginity is necessarily better than non-virginity. From my Christian tradition, sex is a wonderful thing in its proper place; it is a gift of God to married couples. This thinking would exclude the idea of Eve being a perpetual virgin in an unfallen world. Ruether also has Augustine setting Eve closer to the “lower soul” than Adam. I think that Augustine has male/female as parts of a whole and they are only whole in union as the image of God, but I might have misread something in the readings. The idea that Eve was lesser than Adam and Adam’s sin being obeying his wife is similarly curious.

With these things said, it is very easy to identify with the movement that would completely sweep away with Augustine’s ideas of sex and gender hierarchy and all that comes with it. What West argues for is the keeping of some of the stuff that came along with the ideas of sex and sin for Augustine. She implores us to not throw out the baby with the bath water. Augustine did have some good things to say about the misappropriation of desires.

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