Switzerland wants to de-criminalize adult, consensual incest. What do you think of this move? Do you think incest should be de-criminalized? All of it, or just certain forms (e.g. de-criminalizing incest between siblings, but keeping father-daughter incest illegal)?
For Christian readers of this blog who may disagree with it, I would like to know how you reconcile your opposition to incest with examples of incest in the Old Testament.
Thinking to Believe 
December 15, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Keep it criminal. How do I reconcile it? In the OT there was no social stigma on certain forms of incest. To practice those forms of incest in a culture and society that does have a stigma on it and sees it as naturally disgusting and depraved (even if it isn’t actually natural but only perceived that way) makes it bad.
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December 16, 2010 at 7:00 am
Its an interesting thought in de-criminalising it. I would argue that if the majority of the population want it de-criminalising, then it should be.
While I disagree with it, when non-religious states cease to care about a particular moral, there is no point in legislating it.
From the perspective of father/daughter – mother/son and indeed father/son – mother/daughter, it would not be sensible to de-criminalise it unless they were not brought up by their parent since if you allow it, then you will get scenarios where the child is groomed by the parents for when they’re old enough. (possibly)
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December 16, 2010 at 2:34 pm
El Bryan Libre,
So are you saying you think certain forms of incest are morally acceptable, but because of their social stigma in Western society we should not de-criminalize it? If so, what would you say to the counter-argument that the first step to removing unnecessary stigmas is by de-criminalizing that which has been stigmatized?
Jason
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December 16, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I’m saying incest is morally unacceptable but if our society did not see it that way then would likely think differently about it. If I lived in the middle east I might not think that cousins marrying was morally unacceptable. But since I don’t, I think it is morally unacceptable (at least for us who do not live in that society). And those who practice incest in a culture that does see it that as morally unacceptable are doing wrong if they practice incest.
As far as the counter argument I wouldn’t say it’s a real counterargument since it doesn’t try to show that this is a case of an unnecessary stigma. I would agree that unnecessary stigmas should be decriminalized but the burden lies on those who think a particular stigma is actually unnecessary.
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December 16, 2010 at 6:09 pm
El Bryan Libre,
By speaking of stigma vs. non-stigma, and saying incest would be morally wrong for those who do not live in a society in which it is accepted, you seem to be talking about cultural preference rather than intrinsic morality.
If you think incest is instrinsically morally wrong, then is God morally culpable for requiring Adam and Eve’s children to have sex with one another in order to fulfill His command to fill the earth? If incest was necessary to propogate the human race by God’s own design (since He started with two people rather than four or more), then how could incest be intrinsically immoral?
Jason
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December 17, 2010 at 5:38 am
Jason,
Are you deliberatley bringing pre-flood incest into the argument? Since it is clear that incest was fine before the flood, but once the bottleneck of DNA due to the flood and only Noah’s family surviving, then it is no longer allowed. Presumably due to the deformities in their children becoming more pronoun.
You could argue I suppose for allowing sibling incest on the grounds that they are infertile. That would seem to remove the problematic consequences.
I do not believe it was ever allowed for the parent/child to have a relationship in scripture and so that position is harder to argue for.
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December 17, 2010 at 6:19 am
Jason,
I don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve (at least as the first two humans) so I’m not worried about incest among their children. I think some forms are intrinsically wrong such as brother/sister parent/child, and some wrong but the severity of their wrongness depends on the culture (cousins).
I guess that would be my view. It’s all wrong, it’s just the severity varies with culture. Some forms don’t vary much and remain severe no matter what culture, whereas others can vary widely in their severity depending on the culture.
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December 17, 2010 at 8:40 am
Jason,
I thought when Cain was banished he went to a town, implying that there were other humans created after Adam and Eve?
(Or, more likely in my view, the other humans evolved from lower life forms over millions of years, and God created Adam and Eve to be reproductively compatible with the evolved humans. This explains why humans have things like the appendix and mixed air/food passages that appear to be legacies of evolution, the fossil record, etc. All surviving humans have both Adam and Eve and those evolved humans as ancestors.)
So I don’t believe Adam and Eve’s kids engaged in incest.
Arthur
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December 17, 2010 at 8:45 am
Jason,
I think the more interesting question is, if you think anything should be permissible between consenting adults, why not adult incest?
Arthur
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December 17, 2010 at 9:08 am
Only with the Law was incest made wrong. Why so? One reason might be the curse. The curse has caused life to deteriorate. Usually, at least in the cases I have heard of, incest causes deformities or retardation. Immediately after the fall, man was still very near to his perfect state of creation. It was only many years later, after the curse had taken serious tolls on human health, did it become sin because it almost always causes a propagation of health issues.
Here is an article on AiG about where Cain’s wife probably came from. It covers this issue. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/who-was-cains-wife
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December 20, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Scott,
Yes, I am deliberately bringing pre-flood incest into view. Incest is incest, whether it happened before the flood or after. The point I am trying to make is that if incest was ever required by God, then it cannot be intrinsically immoral. That’s not to say it could never become a sin. Indeed, God made it a sin once He outlawed it in the Mosaic Covenant. But as you and Beaux Hargrove mentioned, the reason it was outlawed by God probably due to the practical consequences of close relatives having children that would eventually arise after the human genome had collected enough mutations over time.
Jason
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December 20, 2010 at 2:50 pm
El Bryan Libre,
Well, denying a literal Adam and Eve would allow you to escape the issue of necessary incest, but it opens a host of other theological problems for you. But that’s off-topic, so we won’t go there.
Again, your view sounds like you don’t really believe that incest is intrinsically wrong from a moral perspective, because if you did it wouldn’t make much sense to speak about it being more wrong in one culture than another. If it is intrinsically wrong, then it would be just as wrong in one culture as in another, regardless of how those in the culture perceive the wrongness to be. It would be like adultery. While adultery is viewed as more acceptable in some cultures than others, it is just as wrong for both cultures because God considers it objectively wrong.
Jason
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December 20, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Arthur,
As I told El Bryan Libre, this is off-topic so I won’t go there.
As for your second question, who says I think anything should be permissible between consenting adults? I would not agree to that. Nothing sexual is permissible between two unmarried consenting adults. Nothing sexual is permissible between a group of three or more consenting adults.
Jason
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December 21, 2010 at 10:24 am
That’s not my view.
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December 21, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Jason,
I’d reconcile my opposition to modern incestuous relationships by pointing out that the need to “be fruitful and multiply” is no longer there. Then by pointing out that God outlined incest in Lev 18:6-8 and condemned it. It should not be allowed in any form. Imagine such a climate of perversion that would allow kids to be preconditioned to be sympathetic to incest. This, in my opinion is allowing an authority figure to “program” a child to behave in a certain way when they are older. Incest, in any form, should remain illegal if not for no other purpose than to protect the family and to dissuade predatory programming.
This includes adopted children as well.
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December 26, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Those times of ignorance God winked at–but NOW commandeth ALL men to repent!
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December 31, 2010 at 1:05 pm
cs,
Could you explain in more detail the connection you are making between why incest was ok for Adam and Eve’s children and the command to be fruitful and multiply? Why would the inapplicability of that command today mean incest is now immoral?
Even if I agreed there is no longer a practical need for incest (as there would have been for Adam’s kids)—and I do—that wouldn’t mean it is immoral per se. Indeed, I think the fact that God required it in the beginning demonstrates conclusively that sibling incest is not intrinsically immoral.
You point to its prohibition under the Mosaic Law to show that it is immoral. While I agree that it was prohibited under the Law, I also believe the Bible is clear that the Mosaic Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant. We are no longer under the terms and stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant, but of the New, and the New Covenant does not prohibit incestual marriages.
It sounds like you have adult/parent-child incest in view. What about adult/sibling-adult/sibling incest? What would be morally or practically wrong with that?
Jason
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December 31, 2010 at 1:05 pm
El Bryan Libre,
Then what is your view?
Jason
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January 2, 2011 at 8:07 am
Jason,
If adultery is so “objectively” wrong, how do we explain not only multiple wives, but also the use of concubines? In the pure definition this is adultery. Murder is intrinsically evil, and David received God’s judgment for it. Why is there not at least a rebuke from God for his adultery?
James
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January 3, 2011 at 11:30 pm
James,
Polygamy is not the same as adultery. Adultery is having sex with a woman who is not your wife. A man who has entered into multiple marriages may be having sex with more than one woman, but he is not having sex with women to whom he is not married. That’s not to say polygamy was God’s ideal, because it wasn’t. It’s only to say that if we are going to charge a polygamist with sin, it can’t be the sin of adultery.
What about concubines? Concubines were not one-night stands or casual sexual encounters. They were wives of a secondary rank. According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary: “The concubine was a wife of secondary rank. There are various laws recorded providing for their protection (Ex. 21:7; Deut. 21:10-14), and setting limits to the relation they sustained to the household to which they belonged (Gen. 21:14; 25:6). They had no authority in the family, nor could they share in the household government.”
Smith’s Bible Dictionary says of concubines, “The difference between wife and concubine was less marked among the Hebrews than among us, owing to the absence of moral stigma. The difference probably lay in the absence of the right of the bill of divorce, without which the wife could not be repudiated. With regard to the children of wife and of concubine, there was no such difference as our illegitimacy implies. The latter were a supplementary family to the former; their names occur in the patriarchal genealogies, (Genesis 22:24; 1 Chronicles 1:22) and their position and provision would depend on the father?s will.”
Again, this is not to say it is right. But I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it is described as being morally acceptable.
What about David? We are told in the Bible that adultery is wrong, and there is no doubt that what David did was adultery (Bathsheba was neither his concubine nor his wife). So even if we didn’t hear God condemn David directly for the adultery, we have His condemnation of David’s act in His general condemnation of adultery.
But I do think we see God condemning the adultery. In 2 Sam 12:9 God, through Nathan, condemns David not just for killing Uriah, but also for taking Bathsheba to be his wife afterward. Surely if God had a problem with David sleeping with her after she was loosed from her bonds of marriage to Uriah and united in marriage to David, then I think it goes without saying He had a problem with David sleeping with her while she was still Uriah’s wife!
Jason
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January 4, 2011 at 7:58 am
Adam and Eve were the only two created. If this is true then their kids had to have procreated with each other. Cain and Able had wives who were also their sisters. Being fruitful and multiplying was a by-product of incest.
The inapplicability isn’t what makes it immoral, the Law made it immoral. I point to the inapplicability to show it should remain immoral because of the availability of a better option.
I do agree if God allowed it, as with divorce, then it isn’t intrinsically immoral. However, as with divorce God declares there is a better way and shows plainly what he considers to be immoral.
You point to the New Covenant does not mention incest but I beg to differ, 1 Corinthians 5:1, this does not name sibling incest but it clearly points to the Old Law as a moral directive.
Maybe I slanted too much toward Parent/Child but was trying to keep it broad to cover all forms of incest. Adult/sibling-adult/sibling is still impractical and, as a believer, should be considered immoral on the grounds of the Word of God. From a pure practical standpoint, sibling incest still raises the risk of genetic issues.
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January 7, 2011 at 1:06 am
cs,
Thanks for the clarification. I think we’re roughly on the same page.
I’m not sure the comparison to divorce is the best comparison. While both were allowed even though both were not ideal, divorce was never necessary whereas incest was. It was required in virtue of the way God created man. If God thought incest was best to be avoided, he could have created mankind in such a way that incest would not be necessary. For example, he could have created mankind using 5 sets of people rather than 1.
As for 1 Cor 5:1, this would prohibit parent-child incest, but this form of incest was never allowed, even prior to the Law when there was no specific condemnation of incest. So I don’t see this as an appeal to the Law, but to common decency. That’s why Paul said this kind of behavior wasn’t even practiced by the Gentiles (who were known for all kinds of sexual deviancies).
I agree with you that incest is neither ideal nor necessary, particularly in our own day, and thus should be avoided even if it would be morally acceptable.
Jason
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August 24, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Why is sexual relations between two people anybody else’s business beyond the two people involved in this union? The world consists of people of many different beliefs. Quoting the bible is meaningless to people who don’t believe in the bible, just as quoting the Quran is meaningless to people who don’t believe in the Quran. Why do some people always think that they know what is best for others?
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August 25, 2011 at 12:08 am
Are you fine with a mother having sex with her adult son? Does one have to be religious to see that this is morally repugnant?
Many non-Christian cultures prohibit incest, so it has little to do with the Bible. It is a social concern more than a moral-religious concern. People of all stripes are generally opposed to it for practical and aesthetic reasons. The fact of the matter is that it tends to result in disease and defects.
Jason
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August 28, 2012 at 1:13 am
i reckon legalize all type of incest sex, im not religious or anything i just think if if a father asks his daughter for sex for example and shes age of consent (between 16 and 21 in some countries). it shouuld be allowed.
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