A Christian’s Guide to World-building: Interspecies Romance Part 1

One of the staples of both Science fiction and fantasy is the inclusion of different species with intelligent life. On one hand, we have aliens, creatures from different worlds or dimensions, and on the other, we have any number of elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, and thousands of other popular permutations. Both genres can have an “anything goes” attitude when it comes to species creation, but that cannot be true of Christian fiction. For Christian fiction, we must start from a place of creatures created with intention. This is key because it is the subversion of that intention that defines what is Sinful. As our characters run around and fall in love, we must ask ourselves about the morality of an interspecies union. Has God separated the different races, intending that they remain each for themselves, or does he take a looser view?

I thought the answer was simple at first glance, that God made us each for our own, male and female. But as I interviewed other Christians, I found an incredibly broad range of views. I was surprised to find some of the arguments employed to defend interspecies sexual unions were familiar. Many were, after all, already in use to defend sexual relationships the bible declares sinful. As a result, The very heart of this issue (so far as humanity is concerned) boils down to how we define marriage for humanity, and how God does. We must also be mindful about making certain Laws universal for all intelligent life that may only apply to humanity, or vice versa.

In a large way, this argument cannot even be approached by the modern secular author. To make it, one must preassume that there is indeed any manner of morality tied to the time, place, manner, and/or participants in a sexual interaction. Such an idea is completely at odds with popular modern thought, which cares only about the capacity for ongoing consent of all parties. As Christians, we know that God created sexual intimacy with a particular intent, and set it aside for those who have a particular relationship (marriage). While I will discuss many factors, the two most important ones I want you to keep in mind are what constitutes marriage to God and what constitutes sexual intimacy. If you firmly hold to these principles then they can allow for plenty of nuance in the issue while staying on firmer ground.

Today I will spend a little bit more time in scripture than usual, but I want to be clear from the onset my goal is not to force anyone to write one way or another. Rather, as always, my intention is for all of us to think critically about the choices we make, and make them intentionally. While there are some firm scriptural conclusions for humanity, when we start to speculate about hypotheticals we can just as easily create a new world with new rules as we might apply objective truths of our own elsewhere. As such, I will simply be supplying some points of consideration, so that when you make your choice it is with careful wisdom. I will begin with what I would consider the two most important guiding factors. My next article will be about the main arguments I’ve encountered, explaining and responding to them.

Marriage

I want to start with marriage because I think it is easily the firmest ground from which to build firm objections. Now, if a race has no version of marriage (such as angels) then one might expect them to not have sexual contact. But even if they do, it still would not give them free rein to engage in such behavior with a race that does have marriage as a divine prescribed reality (such as humanity).

How we define marriage is at the very heart of this issue, because sexual relations outside of the covenant of marriage are held up as sin throughout scripture. And so, for sexual contact to be at all permissible in any circumstance, it must be proceeded (for humans) by marriage. the question we need to answer is whether the bible leaves room for marriage outside of our species. It is easy to establish that the stance of scripture is that it is both heterosexual and monogamous, but is it necessarily human? We know that Angels are not given or taken in marriage, yet are seen as objects of human lust in Sodom and Gomorrah. We also know that bestiality (an inherently interspecies relationship) is specifically prohibited. More than either of these issues, however, I think the strongest case comes from Genesis 2:18-24:

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

A careful reading reveals not only was no other creature suitable for Adam, but that instead of simply creating Eve as Adam himself was created, God made women out of man, so that the two might be suited for one another and become one flesh. It is hard for me to read this section of scripture and not be fully convinced that the human relationship God intended it as intensely biological. Creatures not merely made similar, but made out of one another. Indeed the event is later echoed by Paul in this way in Corinthians 11:8-12.

8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

See what he says about being made for one another. Human marriage being between humans does not seem anything less than the specific intention for our people under God. The Bible speaks of sexual consent, and indeed the new testament elevated women in the ancient world to an unprecedented level by giving them rights over their husband’s bodies and the ability to say no to sexual congress. But sexual consent is meaningless outside of the bonds of marriage, for any sexual contact there is sinful.

Sexual Contact

The simplest rule of thumb is no different than when I was in youth group. If you wouldn’t do it in front of Jesus then you shouldn’t do it outside of marriage. Different races will have all sorts of anatomy, and what might be sexual for one may not be for another. And while the types of sexual acts are as varied as human imagination, they mainly fall into two categories. One which is symbolic of the unity in marriage through the giving and receiving of pleasure, and one which is purely reproductive.

Acts intended for sexual pleasure get complicated to define as the differences in anatomy escalate. If the Cat people of Yarnball 4 groom each other with their tongues it carries a very different connotation than if humans went around licking each other. You will have to define for your own species what constitutes sexual contact. I won’t wade into graphic detail, but I do have a number of principles worth expressing. If the act is meant to give or receive sexual gratification (regardless of procreative success), it should be out. If the act is sexually exhibitionist or voyeuristic, it should be out. If the act inspires extramarital lust, as opposed to expressing attraction to your spouse, it should be out.

Reproductive acts are easier to ascertain. If it’s an act used by the species to propagate itself, it is inherently sexual. If two separate creatures cannot procreate, then engaging in any reproductive acts would obviously fall outside God’s intention. I do not speak here of infertility, but rather of genetic incompatibility caused by God’s intentionality. Again, I want to reiterate that consent is not an issue here, because we are not assessing this based on free will. Free will is capable of choosing sin, and thus cannot be used to determine whether or not an act is sinful. We must instead asses sin by God’s intentional design, which is consistently tied to reproductive activity regardless of if conception is successful.

Conclusion

In part two of this article, I will cover the various defenses I’ve encountered that argue an opposing view. I do this to be thorough and fair. However, I would not go so far as to say they ever caused me to reconsider my view. For me, the argument ends the moment you determine what marriage is, for any sexual relationship outside of that is by definition fornication. As a result, any argument for an interspecies romance must erode the firm biblical definition of marriage. Given the modern world is deeply involved in doing exactly this, it is no wonder that many have such a loose hold of the biblical view. Where the interesting speculation comes in is when we remove humanity from the equation and start introducing races that are created with different intentions or designs. This gives a significant amount of freedom, and is worthy of careful exploration, so long as we are mindful of the implications of our World-building. I hope to cover this more in a separate article on how to build a christian fantasy race using the considerations I’ve been promoting.