The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity

Chapter 16. Sex in Heaven? Eschatological Eros and the Resurrection of the Body

261 ChApter 16 Sex in Heaven? Eschatological Eros and the Resurrection of the Body Margaret D. Kamitsuka ( ( is there sex in heAven? Given the antierotic tendencies of Christianity historically, one might assume a resounding “No!” Nevertheless, various scholars have recently investigated how important theological figures within the Christian tradition of the past (Augustine and Dante Alighieri) might be read as answering: “Maybe.” In her article “Sex and the City (of God),” professor of historical theology Margaret Miles argues that Augustine’s late-fourth-century accounts of bodily resurrection hold open the notion of what we moderns, living in the shadow of Freud, would call sexuality. Miles explains that Augustine rejected the notion of postresurrection sex because “sexual intercourse can only take place between mortal bodies” for the divinely ordained sole purpose of reproduction to perpetuate a mortal race, which would be moot in paradise where no one dies. Nevertheless, it is possible to read Augustine as suggesting that “a quality and value we name as ‘sexuality’ will be a feature of resurrected ‘spiritual’ bodies.”1 In a similar 262 The Embrace of Eros move, romance languages scholar Regina Psaki argues for the possibility of heavenly sexuality in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Contrary to the consensus of scholars that Dante’s romantic desires are purified and transformed during his assent through purgatory and the realms of paradise, Psaki points to the poem’s “blatantly amorous language” and imagery. According to Psaki, Dante urges readers of Paradiso to imagine many divine unfathomable mysteries, including the possibility of “love that is no less sexual than blessed, no less erotic than salvific.”2 Miles and Psaki are not attributing to Augustine and Dante visions of an “eternal orgiastic empyrean”3 ; however, their scholarship does suggest provocative theological questions. If we are sexual beings in this life—sinfully and imperfectly—what would sexuality mean for resurrected bodies in the next? Should we expect perfect erotic happiness in heaven, and what would it entail? The way we go about answering questions about eschatological eros, I suggest, reveals much about how we view sexuality and treat bodies in this life.4 Eschatological questions like this, hence, are relevant because they are not just about the end times but are also very much about the here and now.5 To help us think about heaven and the present, this essay brings together three very different types of discourse: the discourse of Christian philosophers debating about personal bodily resurrection;6 the discourse of contemporary feminist and queer theologians debating whether resurrected bodies will be gendered and libidinous; and psychodynamic discourse about the nature of human sexuality. For most Christian philosophy, the issue of what the blessed will be and “do” in heaven hinges on what logically follows from coming into the presence of God—for example, are physical pleasures congruent with or canceled out by the beatific vision? Despite (typically conservative) Christian philosophers’ reticence to speak about sexual bodies, it is possible to extrapolate from their position on God’s beneficence that resurrected bodies would, in theory, be allowed to experience erotic fulfillment. Current (more liberal) feminist and queer theologians approach the issue of eschatological eros very differently. They use discourse about gender and sexuality in heaven as eschatological verification for combating discrimination and affirming marginalized aspects of gender and sexuality on earth. That is, if one can make the theological case for God’s inclusion in heaven of a particular gender or sexual identity, then it should be so in the Christian community in this life as well. My position emerges by engaging in critical dialogue with these two above-mentioned groups, in light of feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher Sex in Heaven? 263 Julia Kristeva’s views on psychosexual development. From Christian philosophy I adopt the viewpoint that insists that we carry our individual embodied identities—including our memories—into heaven. The category of memory, when inflected psychoanalytically, brings into play theories of pre-Oedipal desires and pre-Oedipal wounds as a result of the infant’s break from the maternal body (which Kristeva calls “abjection”). Christian philosophy deems that the blessed having natural bodily desires is congruent with the beatific vision. Over and above this affirmation of eschatological libido, my Kristevan psychoanalytic theological perspective insists that psychic wounds are not canceled out for the blessed in heaven.7 I also argue that gendered and sexed identity is not canceled out in heaven—though my reasons...