Notes about Sexuality and Religion

by Alan G. Soble

…Augustine’s theology of sexuality (for example, that Adam’s prelapsarian erection would have been under his voluntary control; that the passionate, troubling, disobedient sexual impulses we experience in our own postlapsarian existence are part of the punishment visited on humankind by God. That sexual activity between married spouses, if done for its own pleasurable sake and not for procreation, is a sin but forgivable…

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According to Garry Wills, “the expectation of sexual excess in Augustine’s life leads people to add sexual scenes and themes to his story – incestuous feelings for his mother or homosexual feelings for his friend.”

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