Are Protestants sinning by using contraceptives?

[NickVA]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

 

[mark_a]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

I’m with you.

 

[Apryl]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

Well, let’s look at it this way: are those people who are not Catholic who have abortions killing their babies? I say that the are. I say that 'ignorance is no excuse"

Why is it that artificial contraception is considered a bad thing? Well, The Pill is an abortive device. Taking the pill, women sometimes DO get pregnant, but the baby is expelled from her body. It was still a baby. For me, that’s still bad.

What about barrier methods? Well, I don’t know about that one. I see how, for a Catholic, it’s a bad thing because it’s keeping the husband and wife apart, and I can see the logic in that. I would think that for non-Catholics, it shouldn’t be ENCOURAGED, but I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.

In answer, I dunno

 

[1ke]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

Contraception is an objectively grave act. Whether or not one believes this does not change the reality of the gravity or the wrongness of the act.

From the Catechism:

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

So, it is possible such a person does not meet the requirements of mortal sin. However, the Church also teaches:

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man.

1862 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.

So, yes, they are culpable for sin, but we cannot say that it is *mortal *sin. It may be only *venial *sin.

 

[Dysmas1]

I agree with 1ke.

 

[Dorothy]

Christians of all denominations were against contraception until the Lambeth Conference of 1930.

You can read more about it here:

catholic.com/library/Contraception_and_Sterilization.asp

 

[Dorothy]

And, I should add, once the door was opened for that kind of thinking, a whole mess of other not-so-good
things followed.

 

[andrew4096]

Every decision is eternal.

Not true. That’s why most text editors on computers have an “undo” function.

 

[markomalley]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

No full consent of the will – they have invincible ignorance on the subject.

(Now, having said that, this would not apply to a Catholic who left the Church and joined a Protestant community. He or she would already know, from the time he/she was a practicing Catholic, that the use of artificial contraception was grave matter)

The above applies to non abortifacient contraception.

But here’s the interesting question, though. Would a Protestant woman still be guilty if she read the insert that went with the IUD or the hormonal contraceptive pill. You know, the part of the insert that says that it can act to prevent adhesion of the blastocyst to the uterine wall?

Abortion is not covered by ecclesial or spiritual law. It is covered by the natural law…Catholic, non-Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, theist, atheist. So if you learn that the pill you’re popping is an abortifacient…and you pop that pill anyway…followed by sex…are you then guilty of a mortal sin?

In that case:

• it is objectively grave matter.
• once you read and understand the package insert…you should recognize the action as potentially killing your young.
• nobody’s forcing you to take the pill day after day after day (well, maybe, sometimes…but not usually)

So how about that little twist?

 

[andrew4096]

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Many years ago I heard that the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reportedly stated that “printer’s ink is the best contraceptive”. If that’s true, then we’re all culpable as soon as we learn to read.

 

[StTommyMore]

I would understand that they are indeed sinning, but their culpability would be reduced (though the gravity of the action would not).

 

[GEddie]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

Hmmmm…

1 group of people says that if you do a certain thing, you risk going to Hell.

Another group holds that in doing it, you do not risk going to Hell.

The problem is that the various religions do not have separate Hells. Either you avoid the real one, or you don’t. The rules are the same, and come from our LORD.

Since we cannot ask HIM directly about the rules, we need the church body HE has established, to make rules that hold. What the Church says is a sin, is a sin.

Now, being outside the Church might mitigate the culpability. But the sinfulness does not go away altogether.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[Pug]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

To know “in the eyes of the Church” I think you need something more than an opinion from a poster. Yet, I plunge ahead…

Since the inadmissibility of contraception is not a direct/obvious corollary of the Decalogue, I don’t recognize a pressing need to classify them as culpable. A married couple could be ignorant.

I am unsure what you mean about “not held to the same standards”. They will stand or fall based on grace, just the same. But, for example, they are not required to celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception, things like this.

 

[ORD_NASILA]

Well, let’s look at it this way: are those people who are not Catholic who have abortions killing their babies? I say that the are. I say that 'ignorance is no excuse"

Why is it that artificial contraception is considered a bad thing? Well, The Pill is an abortive device. Taking the pill, women sometimes DO get pregnant, but the baby is expelled from her body. It was still a baby. For me, that’s still bad.

What about barrier methods? Well, I don’t know about that one. I see how, for a Catholic, it’s a bad thing because it’s keeping the husband and wife apart, and I can see the logic in that. I would think that for non-Catholics, it shouldn’t be ENCOURAGED, but I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.

In answer, I dunno

Contraception has the same motive and the same result as "spilling seed on the ground. In Gen.38:9 we are told that, “… Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled (it) on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. (10) And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore He slew him (also).” (Gen 38:9 & 10). So the answer to your fellow poster’s question would appear to be, it “displeaseth the Lord” therefore it is a sin regardless of your denomination.
Protestants should be viewed as the rebellious children of the Mother Church and as such they are liable to be at variance with the Mother Church from time to time, but they would be very foolish to place themselves in a position where they are at variance with God.

God Bless!
Regards, ORD.
*"Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows"* (Matt. 10:31)

 

[puzzleannie]

anyone who commits a mortal sin, including use of artifical contraceptives for that purpose, is objectively sinning. In order for them to be subjectively culpable or guilty they must have also full knowledge and full free will consent. Obviously if someone has been instructed falsely, by an authority he has cause to believe, that the action is not sinful, he does not have that full knowledge and is not guilty of sin. However, and this is a big however not often discussed, if that action is gravely sinful because of the harm it does, and most mortal sins are evil precisely because of that harm, the action still brings the harmful effect. In the case of ABC, the contribution to further immorality, destruction of marital intimacy, the destruction of a human conceptus in some cases, and so forth. If the sign says “don’t drink the water” but my pastor tells me the water is fine, and I drink it, I still imbibe the poison in the water and suffer the ill effects.

 

[twoangels]

I am curious whether or not in the eyes of the Church, Protestants marriages are sinning by using contraceptives, when there particular denomination does not condemn their use.

I personally believe that protestants are not held to the same standards as those who belong to the True Church, but is this true?

Do protestant marriages sin against God by using artificial means of contraception?

Are they Culpable?

Are they committing a sin? Yes. Are they culpable for it? No. I think we get confused because some of us were wrongly taught that if we’re not culpable for our actions, its not a sin. I think this comes from a faulty idea of what sin is.

 

[vz71]

Are they committing a sin? Yes. Are they culpable for it? No. I think we get confused because some of us were wrongly taught that if we’re not culpable for our actions, its not a sin. I think this comes from a faulty idea of what sin is.

Agreed.
This is not a question of sin, it is a question of culpability.

 

[manualman]

culpability, invincible ignorance… It’s a lot of lingo.

Put it like this: If a person who somehow didn’t know about gravity stepped off a cliff, would he still be guilty of the sin of suicide? No. But he would still be dead. He just wouldn’t be “culpable.”

Sins aren’t just arbitrary things on a list. They are things that are genuinely harmful to us! Someone may not realize that contraception is harmful to his/her marriage, but (like with the cliff) Natural Law doesn’t care. The consequences occur regardless, but the guilt depends on intent.