Author: David Bradshaw

David Bradshaw is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 with a specialization in ancient philosophy. He is the author of Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (2004) and the editor of Philosophical Theology and the Christian Tradition: Russian and Western Perspectives (2012) and Ethics and the Challenge of Secularism: Russian and Western Perspectives (2013), as well as co-editor of Natural Theology in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (2021). He also edited the section on “The Greek Christian Tradition” for Medieval Philosophy: A Multicultural Reader, ed. Bruce Foltz (2019). He and his wife attend St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, KY.

Christian Sexual Ethics: What Went Wrong? pt. 4

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This is the final installment of this series. For the full series here is Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3, of this series. This brings me to the second way in which Christianity performed an end-run around the entire complex of assumptions that governed ancient thought about sex and marriage. It did so, not by addressing these subjects directly, but by presenting a model of holiness even higher and more exalted than the ascetics. I have in mind, of course, the Virgin Mary. Her elevation to a central place in Christian life and devotion revolutionized how…

Christian Sexual Ethics: What Went Wrong? pt. 3

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This is the third installment of this series. For the full series here is Part 1,  Part 2, Part 4, of this series. The first was monasticism. It is unfortunate that early in western Christianity monasticism came to be set in opposition to the married life, as if the two are rivals that must be judged against one another. Views on this subject were crystallized by the writings of a monk named Jovinian, who held that virgins, widows, and married women, if they are equal in other respects, are of “equal merit.” St. Jerome and others…

Christian Sexual Ethics: What Went Wrong? pt. 2

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This is the second installment of this series. For the full series here is Part 1,  Part 3, Part 4, of this series. We must begin by recognizing that Christianity was born into a world whose assumptions about sex and marriage were radically foreign to our own. Aristotle devotes a chapter of the Politics to discussing the ideal age of marriage. Questions of mutual compatibility or love do not enter the discussion. The issue as he frames it is that of how to maximize the couple’s childbearing potential. Since a man (as he believes) remains fertile…

Christian Sexual Ethics: What Went Wrong? pt. 1

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This is the first installment of this series. For the full series here is Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, of this series. On September 12, 1966, William F. Buckley hosted Hugh Hefner on his weekly talk program, Firing Line. Their subject was the “Playboy philosophy” that Hefner advocated through his magazine and associated enterprises such as the Playboy Clubs. Hefner was an articulate and thoughtful spokesman for his views. He described his goal as to replace the “old legalism” of “thou shalt not” with a more flexible and realistic approach to sex that truly promotes…