Great video lecture on the Nephilim by Lynn Marzulli

[Byblos]

... it does NOT speak of sex but marriage ( two very different things) ...

Not according to the natural law.

[PaulSacramento]

... it does NOT speak of sex but marriage ( two very different things) ...

Not according to the natural law.

Context of the text is crucial:
Jesus Answers the Sadducees

23 On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him, 24 asking, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother; 26 so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”

29 But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” 33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.

It is clear that Christ is making a statement in regards to the fictitious situation put forth by the Sadducees that did NOT believe in the Resurrection and where making a case of how the resurrection ( as to their understanding) theology was flawed.
The believed that the "contracts" of THIS world ( in this case marriage) would somehow carry forth in to ( according to their critique of the Resurrection doctrine of their time) the resurrection.
Jesus simply pointed out that the resurrected will be governed by the laws of Heaven and not man.
This echos Paul comparison of the "soulish" body vs the "spiritual" body we will have after the resurrection.

[Jac3510]

Regardless, Paul, Byblos' point still stands. On natural law, Jesus' statement says something about the nature of angels which means He is also saying something about their capacities. It seems to me that you either have to deny natural law all the way around or else you have to show that the natural law argument I've been putting forward is mistaken. In short, you said before:

As for your other argument, I would say that you are assuming that angels do NOT have the capacity to procreate with humans based on your interpretation of what was written in Mat and Luke and to that I would simply state that it does NOT speak of sex but marriage ( two very different things) AND speaking of life in heaven in heavenly form, not terrestrial forms.

On natural, law this is incorrect. On natural law, Jesus is speaking of sex, and that sex and marrage are not "two very different things."

So, once again, you either need to deny natural law or else show that my argument fails--namely, that angels may procreate even given Jesus' statements understood from a natural law perspective. Because my argument is that when we understand Jesus' statements from a natural law perspective, then we see that it necessarily follows that angels cannot procreate (and especially not with humans).

[RickD]

Byblos or Jac,

Perhaps you could explain what you mean by natural law, and how what Paul is saying, goes against it.

[Seraph]

I have a very hard time believing that angels physically appeared on the earth and had offspring with people at any point in time, for many of the reasons Jac already mentioned. Angels seem to be celestial "non-physical" messengers based on their appearances in the Bible. Even if angels and humans had offspring, would the result necessarily be something evil that needs to be exterminated?

The "Cain bloodline vs Seth bloodline" explanation and their cultural differences being merged into something ugly seems to make a lot more sense to me.

[B. W.]

Byblos or Jac,

Perhaps you could explain what you mean by natural law, and how what Paul is saying, goes against it.

Well, this link and quote from New Advent may help explain what they mean:

- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm

According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II.94). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things, this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them determinism reigns. Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. Those actions which conform with its tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and immoral.

This Natural Law would be what Paul wrote about in Romans 2:14,15...
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[Jac3510]

The NewAdvent link is right insofar as it goes, but natural law is a lot bigger than that. To put it in terms that we throw around a lot here, natural law is closely related to objective morality. Now we know from the moral argument that objective reality exists. But the question is why does it exist? How does it exist? The very term "objective" implies that there is something in nature itself that has a moral component. So what does that mean?

NL starts with the well known definition of evil as the absence of good. It also understands (less popularly known) that at a fundamental level, the words "good" and "being" refer to the same thing, just on a different level. To give a very quick illustration of that and not go into all the long details, the eye is the kind of thing that can see. We call blindness "evil" because it is a privation, or lack, of the ability to see. A blind eye is, in that sense, a "bad" eye. If a "good" eye is one that can see, we are saying that the presence (that is, the existence or being) of sight in the eye actualizes a natural capacity it has. So we can see here that if something is present in the eye (sight) it is "good," but to the extent that something is missing in the eye that is supposed to be there by nature, that is, because of what it is, then it is "bad" and has suffered a privation or evil.

When you extend that out, what you ultimately find is that all instances of both moral and natural evil can be so analyzed, and that to say something is evil or has less than perfect or broken or bad or whatever is only to say that it is lacking some part of its existence that it ought to have--it is lacking a good, which is to say, good is just existence considered a particular way.

You'll see that all of this is based on the idea that capacities naturally exist in things because of what they are. We don't call rocks blind and we don't say that they have suffered an evil in their blindness because rocks are not the kinds of things that can see by nature. They don't have the natural capacity for sight. So what NL does, when it comes to morality, is tie what our natural capacities to what those capacities are designed to do and it recognizes that when we act in accordance with our natures we do right and when we act contrary to our natures we deprive ourselves of the fulfillment they are designed to reach and thereby commit an evil. So it's wrong to mistreat others because mistreating others is not what our minds were designed to do. Our minds were designed to act rationally, and to mistreat another is fundamentally irrational, and thus to act in a way that is not rational (e.g., to mistreat someone) would be similar to blinding yourself--the proper function of the intellect cannot be fulfilled, or is not being fulfilled, and is therefore suffering an evil--a moral evil, in this case.

Now, this goes on much deeper, and then we have to get into the virtues and how they contribute to all this, yada yada yada. All that's important for our discussion, really, is the idea that things to good when they act in accordance with their natures and they do evil when they act in opposition to their natures. Non-sentient beings, of course, cannot act in any way other than according to their natures, but sentient, rational beings have the ability to choose to act against their rational nature. That is why we, and not the animal kingdom, have an idea of morality in the first place, and that's why morality is objective. It is objective because our natures are real things that really, objectively exist.

If all that's clear enough, then the connection to my argument shouldn't be too hard to make. If I have a capacity by nature to do something, then on NL that necessarily means that, in principle, it is a good thing to fulfill that nature, to actualize that capacity. So to go to our example, I have the natural ability to procreate, so in principle, procreation is a good that ought to be sought. Of course, that good also needs to be sought within certain contexts, but that's all part of our natures, too and all rather objective in the end analysis. The fact that some people don't procreate either by choice or happenstance doesn't mean that they are evil. It just means that, for some reason (perhaps a good one!), they did not actualize that capacity. Fine. No harm, no foul. But if all people refused to actualize the capacity for procreation, there would be terrible results! And, just so, if I universally forbade all people from procreating, I would be doing a terrible evil. In fact, I cannot declare procreation evil precisely because it is good in principle.

Let me say that again: on NL, I cannot declare procreation evil because it is good in principle. It may be wrong in this or that circumstance, but in principle it is good. How do I know that? Because I have the ability to do so by nature. Remember, everything God makes is good (and in light of the above conversation, that is a very heavy statement!). If God gives me the natural capacity to procreate, that means that the means of procreation, the act, when joined with the proper end, procreation itself, is a good, supposing it is done in the right context. To declare either procreation or the act that leads to procreation evil is to declare that the fulfillment of the nature is evil; but that is contrary to natural law. The fulfillment is nature is, by definition good. Thus, to call procreation or the act evil for those that have the natural capacity for it is literally to call good evil!

But in that case, it is incredibly obvious that angels cannot procreate for all the reasons I already explained. Sex and marriage cannot be separated, for marriage is the context by which sex is a good (and that for a lot of other reasons we can talk about if necessary). That means that if a rational being has the ability to procreate, it also has the ability to enter into marriage, since marriage is a sexual union. But from that it follows that any class of rational creatures that are forbidden to marry--that do not marry by nature--it must be the case that they do not have that as a part of their nature. They do not have that as a natural capacity. That is, they are not capable of engaging in the act itself.

In short, if angels don't marry by nature, then by nature angels can't have sex.

fdit: sorry for the length. I hope this is clear, although somehow I bet it is not.

edit:

The point, by the way, that BW's excerpt was getting at is that natural law is a subset of the eternal law. Things have their natures because God has so willed them to have those natures, and in that sense, those natures being what they are and things acting in accordance with those natures is the working out of that eternal law. The natural law, then, participates in the eternal law--it exemplifies it. It is the job of human law to express the natural law, so there is a direct connection between human law and natural law.

For those who want a detailed discussion on this, I recommend (yet again) Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide by Ed Feser.

[neo-x]

Jac, I'm being D.Advocate here...

I don't think Paul's point is that so much far off. He is right when he says there is no explicit statement regarding sex in angels. Now personally I don't think angels came down and procreated...but that being said, there is some good cause to see why the procreation story carries some food for thought. First Angels have passed themselves around as humans, secondly, they ate, with the lord when the visited abraham. Now, eating is as much a part of nature as sex, so I would ask how do you guys explain that, do angels have stomachs, disgestion and a large intestine?...because for them to have stomachs and then not eat is against natural law, hence evil and that can not be, since that can't be then how come they are eating in the first place, do they have teeth, saliva? Can they change themselves? What about satan, does satan has power? how come he turned the sticks of Pharoah's magicians into snakes?

EDIT
By the way, Angels always show as males when in human form, that atleast establishes a bias towards the appearence. They don't appear as females for some reason. Why do you think that is? I am not saying that angels are males but why not appear as human females then? One must wonder.

But in that case, it is incredibly obvious that angels cannot procreate for all the reasons I already explained. Sex and marriage cannot be separated, for marriage is the context by which sex is a good (and that for a lot of other reasons we can talk about if necessary). That means that if a rational being has the ability to procreate, it also has the ability to enter into marriage, since marriage is a sexual union. But from that it follows that any class of rational creatures that are forbidden to marry--that do not marry by nature--it must be the case that they do not have that as a part of their nature. They do not have that as a natural capacity. That is, they are not capable of engaging in the act itself.

In short, if angels don't marry by nature, then by nature angels can't have sex.

How do you assume that angels are rational beings or that they are forbidden to marry? how rational is rational here? And Jesus' words don't say angels are forbidden to marry but that in heaven there is no marraige. one reason being that there are all males, atleast that is how they show up to be.

In the last sentence here you said,

They do not have that as a natural capacity. That is, they are not capable of engaging in the act itself.

But even animals can have sex, but sex is not just marrige then. If someone has the natural capacity to have sex, then going backwards from this reasoning that just means they are married...and that is how earlier, most early marriges worked. If we can count Adam and eve and family and the rest and down the line to even times of patriachs too.

My problem with this is, how do you define, as to how rational does one have to be to qualify as a rational being?

Second, how is marriage and sex intertwined like this? I can understand under NL, when one has the ability to have sex, then marriage is one outcome. What I don't understand is that is does not necessarily carry forwards the conclusion you are trying to get here. Lets say we follow your reasoning, and say that angels came down, procreated, and according to NL the procreation is not evil. Ok fine, thats okay. But then God would have to see how each creature born from such procreation behaves, right? Then sin and punishment which we see via the flood would be on how these creatures behaved, not how were born...because on the flip side, if I argue that sons of seth and the worldly people got married, the result was the same, and the reason was not that seth descendants married the ungodly group but what they did afterwards, because on your own reasoning, the act of procreation between these two groups can't be called evil under NL.

Third, satan being a fallen angels was able to change sticks to snakes, as I wrote above, if angels don't have sex organs, then can they not change themselves?

So how do you see it?

[PaulSacramento]

Regardless, Paul, Byblos' point still stands. On natural law, Jesus' statement says something about the nature of angels which means He is also saying something about their capacities. It seems to me that you either have to deny natural law all the way around or else you have to show that the natural law argument I've been putting forward is mistaken. In short, you said before:

As for your other argument, I would say that you are assuming that angels do NOT have the capacity to procreate with humans based on your interpretation of what was written in Mat and Luke and to that I would simply state that it does NOT speak of sex but marriage ( two very different things) AND speaking of life in heaven in heavenly form, not terrestrial forms.

On natural, law this is incorrect. On natural law, Jesus is speaking of sex, and that sex and marrage are not "two very different things."

So, once again, you either need to deny natural law or else show that my argument fails--namely, that angels may procreate even given Jesus' statements understood from a natural law perspective. Because my argument is that when we understand Jesus' statements from a natural law perspective, then we see that it necessarily follows that angels cannot procreate (and especially not with humans).

I don't have to deny natural Law, I simply state that going against natural law IS an option, ie: free will.
Satan and his allies certainly went against Natural Law, don't you think?
And to keep stating that sex IS marriage and marriage is sex doesn't make it so.

[PaulSacramento]

I have a very hard time believing that angels physically appeared on the earth and had offspring with people at any point in time, for many of the reasons Jac already mentioned. Angels seem to be celestial "non-physical" messengers based on their appearances in the Bible. Even if angels and humans had offspring, would the result necessarily be something evil that needs to be exterminated?

The "Cain bloodline vs Seth bloodline" explanation and their cultural differences being merged into something ugly seems to make a lot more sense to me.

Angels have physical form on earth, this is consistent in the OT.
Jacob wrestle with an angel, remember?

The term "sons of God" is used consistently in the OT to refer to angels, see Job for example.

I am not saying that is the case in Genesis 6 mind you, I am simply stating that the possibility can NOT be dismissed so easliy because the OT tends to lend some weight to it being the case.
Job chapter 1 reads: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” (Job 1:6-7)

Job Chapter 2. Verse 1 states: “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.”

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? — Job 38:4-7

Jude tells us that angles left their natural state:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Some suggest that these "giants" did not just "go away" because of the flood ( different views about how this came to be):
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. – Numbers 13:31-33.

Again, my point is that while there is enough evidence to warrant the possible interpretation of Genesis 6 as "sons of God" meaning Angels.

[RickD]

I have a very hard time believing that angels physically appeared on the earth and had offspring with people at any point in time, for many of the reasons Jac already mentioned. Angels seem to be celestial "non-physical" messengers based on their appearances in the Bible. Even if angels and humans had offspring, would the result necessarily be something evil that needs to be exterminated?

The "Cain bloodline vs Seth bloodline" explanation and their cultural differences being merged into something ugly seems to make a lot more sense to me.

Angels have physical form on earth, this is consistent in the OT.
Jacob wrestle with an angel, remember?

The term "sons of God" is used consistently in the OT to refer to angels, see Job for example.

I am not saying that is the case in Genesis 6 mind you, I am simply stating that the possibility can NOT be dismissed so easliy because the OT tends to lend some weight to it being the case.
Job chapter 1 reads: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” (Job 1:6-7)

Job Chapter 2. Verse 1 states: “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.”

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? — Job 38:4-7

Jude tells us that angles left their natural state:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Some suggest that these "giants" did not just "go away" because of the flood ( different views about how this came to be):
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. – Numbers 13:31-33.

Again, my point is that while there is enough evidence to warrant the possible interpretation of Genesis 6 as "sons of God" meaning Angels.

Again, show from scripture where "Sons of God" ever refers to fallen angels. Unless you're suggesting that heavenly, unfallen angels mated with humans. Then you would have to believe if they weren't fallen angels, that God approved of their behavior. It's just not logical.

[PaulSacramento]

I have a very hard time believing that angels physically appeared on the earth and had offspring with people at any point in time, for many of the reasons Jac already mentioned. Angels seem to be celestial "non-physical" messengers based on their appearances in the Bible. Even if angels and humans had offspring, would the result necessarily be something evil that needs to be exterminated?

The "Cain bloodline vs Seth bloodline" explanation and their cultural differences being merged into something ugly seems to make a lot more sense to me.

Angels have physical form on earth, this is consistent in the OT.
Jacob wrestle with an angel, remember?

The term "sons of God" is used consistently in the OT to refer to angels, see Job for example.

I am not saying that is the case in Genesis 6 mind you, I am simply stating that the possibility can NOT be dismissed so easliy because the OT tends to lend some weight to it being the case.
Job chapter 1 reads: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” (Job 1:6-7)

Job Chapter 2. Verse 1 states: “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.”

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? — Job 38:4-7

Jude tells us that angles left their natural state:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Some suggest that these "giants" did not just "go away" because of the flood ( different views about how this came to be):
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. – Numbers 13:31-33.

Again, my point is that while there is enough evidence to warrant the possible interpretation of Genesis 6 as "sons of God" meaning Angels.

Again, show from scripture where "Sons of God" ever refers to fallen angels. Unless you're suggesting that heavenly, unfallen angels mated with humans. Then you would have to believe if they weren't fallen angels, that God approved of their behavior. It's just not logical.

No, sons of God does not refer to "fallen angels" per say.
I have shown where it refers to actual angels but nowhere is it explicit that they are "fallen".
I do think, however, that we can agree that IF angels mated with humans that they were going against God and as such, they were "fallen angels".

[RickD]

PaulS wrote:
No, sons of God does not refer to "fallen angels" per say.
I have shown where it refers to actual angels but nowhere is it explicit that they are "fallen".
I do think, however, that we can agree that IF angels mated with humans that they were going against God and as such, they were "fallen angels".

That's my point. Any angel who mated with humans had to be a fallen angel. So with that said, Sons of God in this context, would have to mean fallen angels. And I don't see any scriptural backing for Sons of God being fallen angels. Do you see what I'm saying?

[Stu]

PaulS wrote:
No, sons of God does not refer to "fallen angels" per say.
I have shown where it refers to actual angels but nowhere is it explicit that they are "fallen".
I do think, however, that we can agree that IF angels mated with humans that they were going against God and as such, they were "fallen angels".

That's my point. Any angel who mated with humans had to be a fallen angel. So with that said, Sons of God in this context, would have to mean fallen angels. And I don't see any scriptural backing for Sons of God being fallen angels. Do you see what I'm saying?

Why can "sons of God" not refer to fallen angels? Can "sons of God" not just refer to angels in general.
Even though they are fallen do they not remain angels.

[PaulSacramento]

PaulS wrote:
No, sons of God does not refer to "fallen angels" per say.
I have shown where it refers to actual angels but nowhere is it explicit that they are "fallen".
I do think, however, that we can agree that IF angels mated with humans that they were going against God and as such, they were "fallen angels".

That's my point. Any angel who mated with humans had to be a fallen angel. So with that said, Sons of God in this context, would have to mean fallen angels. And I don't see any scriptural backing for Sons of God being fallen angels. Do you see what I'm saying?

No, I don't see what you are saying since nowhere in scripture is there a explicit reference to fallen angels at all, even Satan isn't directly called a fallen angel.
If your point is that the sons of God can't be angels because if they were they would be fallen and they are not called that but called sons of God, I remind you that nowhere is ts stated that Satan and the angels that rebelled with him are NOT "sons of God" anymore.
We use the term "fallen angel" to describe an angelic being that has rebelled against God, you won't find it in the OT or NT.
I don't think that you have a valid pint in that context Rick, sorry.