The power and inadequacy of biological determinism

Yes, it’s been a while since I last posted. And so you may be forgiven for forgetting where we’re up to. I’m talking about my preparation for an evangelistic talk on sex (see the start of the posts). And last time, I tried to show that biological determinism lies at the heart of the modern story of sex. To put it simply, we’ve evolved in such a way that we’re made to have sex—lots of sex, with multiple partners. And because it’s biologically determined, we have no choice. Today, I want to reflect on the power and inadequacy of this position.

The power of the argument from biological determinism lies not so much, I suspect, in its deep explanatory power, but in its emotional appeal. The appeal works at multiple levels. Firstly, if there is a particular behaviour that we would like to justify, then any argument will do. As the old puritan saying puts it, “what the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies”. None of us like to admit this, but we all accept false arguments on the grounds that they suit our position. We are strongly motivated by what we wish was true, rather than what is actually true.

However, that is not the only emotional appeal involved. When it comes to questions of ethics, the emotional appeal nearly always involves reducing another’s pain. And this makes the appeal personal. When you sit with a young man who is struggling with pornography, who has enough testosterone to fuel a small army and a libido strong enough to power a Mack truck, and he says, “Why shouldn’t I, if this is the best option I can come up with? At least it isn’t hurting someone else!”, how do you respond? It’s less painful for you and less painful for him to say, “Yep, I guess viewing pornography is the lesser of two evils”. The call to celibacy is seen as being inhuman because it causes pain. The same problem occurs with Christian calls to curb homosexuality. If a person really struggles with same-sex attraction (and some people genuinely do), then aren’t you being inhuman to deny them the opportunity to express who they actually are?

At this point in time, the biological argument serves to provide a ready explanation for who someone actually is (whether such genes have actually been discovered or not—and they haven’t). To hold onto the teaching of God about what our created nature is actually like takes a great deal of courage and an acknowledgement that there is pain involved. So I guess, at least in part, we need to keep arguing for the virtue of pain. But I’ll leave that for another day.

The other argument we need to be making is that no-one really believes in biological determinism. As scientific work on genetics progresses, we find out that all sorts of characteristics have a genetic component. For example, anger and irritability have a genetic component. But of course, nobody would claim that justifies the inappropriate expression of anger. The point is that where something is deemed as socially inappropriate, our biology is not determinative. This is made even more obvious when issues like bipolar disorder come into view. If biological determinism is right, then why is biologically driven bipolar functioning a disorder at all? The bottom line is that nobody really believes in biological determinism, but it is a convenient argument when coupled with emotive appeals.

Yet in spite of all of this, I don’t think that most people believe in biological determinism because it is ultimately dehumanizing. Not surprisingly, most people still struggle to think of themselves as a genetic reproduction machine. Apparently our human experience suggests that we are something more. At this level, there is, I believe, a profound appeal in the Christian message. Being created beings, made in the image of God, grants us a dignity and significance that biological determinism never can—a dignity and significance that is still widely recognized.