Our world has features that find no place in the predicted new earth. (Revelation, chapters 21,22) We have darkness and light, good and evil, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, the righteous and the wicked, and pretty faces but less-than-pretty excretory organs. St Paul made reference to our "vile body", which he contrasted with the post-resurrection "glorious body". (Philippians 3:21 KJV) No toilets in the new earth!
Clearly the creator could have done better by us in His original creation efforts if He wanted to. We are less than glorious.
The Bible indicates there was and is a power struggle between the forces of good and evil in the universe. So if new creatures were to be introduced in the earth they needed to be compliant with their creator's wishes. Thus our world has always had arbitrary tests of obedience.
Scholars now generally rule out St Augustine's claim that the first test for humans, forbidden fruit, was actually sex because the naked couple were instructed to reproduce and multiply. Nevertheless sex could be just as much a test of human obedience as forbidden fruit was. Indulgence in adultery is the most obvious of the sins proscribed in the Ten Commandments that could trace directly to hormonal influences. Given the way we are, to forbid adultery would seem to be just as arbitrary a decree as forbidding the eating of certain fruit.
Singles' sex is also very much a hormonal problem but is not viewed quite as seriously in the Bible as adultery. In the Old Testament the guy in singles' sex would have to pay fifty shekels to his girl friend's dad whether he later married the girl or not. (Exodus 22:16,17; Deuteronomy 22:28) That should slow him down a little, but he wouldn't be put to death as in adultery. In the New Testament the offence appears to be downgraded from adultery to fornication, though there is much dispute about the matter, both in translation and interpretation.
The Bible, of course, offers a fall-back provision of forgiveness and restoration for the appropriately repentant if they get caught physically and spiritually naked with the wrong partner. It has numerous reports of the rise and fall and rise of people caught up in what are basically hormonal problems. But if anybody tries to exploit the system insincerely it is helpful to remember that God is a mind reader (Job 21:27).
But what's the point of living a continual life of sinning and repenting? Well, we might actually gain a victory over our besetments, but in any case a sense of human weakness could help us to develop faith and trust in God, a necessary pre-condition for promotion to a better life hereafter. It would also help to ensure that such repentant and appreciative sinners would be on God's side in any ongoing cosmic conflict.
The tradtional Christian view was that God created man so that they could reproduce and eventually replace fallen angels. That the crucifixion of Jesus was foreordained hints at an entirely different purpose. (1 Peter 1:20 KJV) If this ghastly scenario was anticipated before the creation of the world God must have anticipated a need for it. That does not mean the Fall of man was predestined. Once the Holy Trinity decreed that man's privilege of immortality depended on continual obedience (don't touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil) the consequences were absolutely predictable. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. Any knowledgable creator would conclude that sooner or later curiosity would get the better of Adam and Eve, and they would choose to disobey.
Humans are a lower order of creatures than angels. Yet we have certain features that make us in some respects superior to angels. Man was created in the image of God; the Bible does not say angels were created in the image of God. God has creative power; humans have pro-creative power; angels have neither. The human family in some respects mirrors the characteristics of the Holy Trinity -- father, mother, children are a family group united by mutual love (ideally) just as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united by love.
Reproduction also appears to be unique to this benighted world. When viewed dispassionately the brutish sex process itself, closely associated as it is with excretory functions, inconvenient pregnancy, painful childbirth, and incessant toil thereafter may be unappealing to women. But it's marvellous what hormones can do.
The reproductive process may have been set up, in humans anyway, for a larger purpose than just producing little humans. The process should demonstrate many of the characteristics we associate with God -- love, unselfishness, close relationships. The unpretentious circumstances of our birth and our vile bodies may also be a divine attempt to keep proud and arrogant man humble. If this was the intention it failed, but it was a nice try.
If the weird world we live in is a custom-designed testing laboratory then the intriguing ramifications of sex are peculiarly appropriate for exposing the issues to the gaze of extraterrestrial observers. They provide a fertile field for illustrating vital spiritual truths, and the Bible makes full use of such imagery, including virgins and harlots.
We may be, like the apostles, "a spectacle to the whole universe". (1 Corinthians 4:9 NIV)
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