If it was always immoral for sexually mature men and women to consensually sleep together without a government-recognized marriage ceremony despite there being no promiscuity, insincere commitment, adultery, incest, or objectifying motives involved, then the first humans of the Genesis creation account could never have produced the next generation of the human race without sinning. There is no mention in Genesis of God creating human governments, and the church as it is commonly conceived of is not formed until the times of the early New Testament. God only created the people who could eventually form governments. Thus, there were no governments or church communities for men and women to go to in order to form a "legitimate" marriage.
This fact alone disproves the idea that the Bible is even possibly against all cases of "premarital sex," as it would require a fundamental inconsistency at best. The core of Biblical morality--matters of sexual morality, justice, and so on--is presented as being unchanging because it is rooted in God's nature, which is itself presented as unchanging (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). It follows that if premarital sex is inherently wrong, it could not have been morally permissible in even the early stages of human historical/social development after Genesis 3. Of course, if premarital sex is not inherently wrong, it is irrational and unjust to oppose it by default.
I have yet to see even a single person bring this set of facts up either to refute or defend the idea that all premarital sex is sinful. It is rather specific, but a total lack of awareness of these ramifications from the evangelicals who assert that all sex before a legal marriage is immoral according to Biblical ethics. Casual sex--that is, sex with random partners or sex with a lack of premeditated commitment--is not promoted or even permitted by the verses that allow premarital sex (Exodus 22:16-17). Evangelicals may have difficulty realizing this even when it is explicitly pointed out to them by Christians more intelligent than they are, but not all premarital sex is the same. There is a vast difference between noncommittal sex and mere sex outside of a legal marriage.
Beyond the inability to account for the necessity of premarital sex before governments had even been established, there is other Biblical confirmation that marriage is not legitimized by government, church, or community recognition. If it was, all it would take to morally legitimize a homosexual relationship is the approval of some social body such a government. Evangelicals vocally recognize that this is not the case. To say this is true would clearly contradict the Bible--but consistency demands that government or church approval is never the factor that makes a sexual relationship morally permissible. It is not as if political/social approval makes only some sexual actions legitimate. It is either all or nothing, and reason and the Bible agree: cultural norms and human legal systems are irrelevant to morality.
The evangelical world brims with thorough intellectual hypocrisy concerning a great many subjects (moral epistemology, the nature of death and hell, the Biblical attitude towards sexuality, and so on). Premarital sex is only one of many issues evangelical Christians treat with layers of cognitive dissonance, and all it takes to expose the folly of universally condemning sex outside of a legal marriage is pointing out that 1) Genesis contradicts this by describing people forming governments after the creation account and 2) Mosaic Law gives clear examples establishing that the legal status of a marriage has nothing to do with whether a sexual behavior is morally legitimate or not. What Christian who cares about reason and the actual contents of the Bible would reject these points in favor of tradition?
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