Church Documents on Contraception

[BlackFriar]

It is not playing with words to say that in one scenario that absolute avoidance of pregnancy is exactly the intended means for achieving the licit good. In the other it is not.

Therefore a proportionality argument may be used to decide if the intended good end outweighs the indirectly evil of the means.

Clearly the runner could not do so for just a trivial event.
Also clear is that the physical evil of a one off lost chance of pregnancy is not anywhere near the same as an abortion - as Pope Francis has stated.

 

[MichaelP3]

I really do get your point. I just think it it not a good point.

 

[BlackFriar]

BlackFriar:

I suggest we can see that in one case the temp negative result has nothing to do with attaining the good result. It is but an unintended side effect of supressing a single period. The intent is to suppress her period not pregnancy.

If I speed to the hospital because my wife is in labour, my intent is to get her safely there and for my child. But because of my recklessness I kill a pedestrian?

I suggest that for the same reason you want to get her there safely that good intent should also include the even greater safety concern for the lives of your brothers and sisters on the road???

Your scenario also fails the proportionality test.
That is, even if the situation did reasonably allow speeding the good sought must be in proportion to the risks taken. If you wife is not at risk of immediate death then you still have no excuse for driving at such a speed as to likely risk the lives of others.

There is also the foreknowledge test.
If you were speeding but still reasonably so and the death was due to a rare “black swan” event (a child in the middle of the night came running out of their concealed driveway straight across the road after a nightmare) then you would not be morally culpable anyway. You would have still killed her at an accepted road speed.

All moving of a large weight over the ground at speed is dangerous.
Its a proportional risk that is licit daily in every country of the world for the greater good of efficient public mobility. We know a certain % of the public will die every year. Those deaths are not the means to our mobility.

 

[MichaelP3]

Your scenario also fails the proportionality test

How do we relate this test to my question on having better finances and waiting for an internship to end? Before having a child? (Again the intent not “not having a child at all”)

Actually? Please do that entire analysis on this?

 

[BlackFriar]

While you may not be right in this scenario you are correct that this “principle of double effect” logic still has speed wobbles in some ethical cases.

There is no single explanation of this principle (there are 3 or 4 versions) that covers off all hard ethical situations that most Catholics accept as licit.

 

[MichaelP3]

Your scenario also fails the proportionality test

How do we relate this test to my question on having better finances and waiting for an internship to end? Before having a child? (Again the intent not “not having a child at all”)

 

[BlackFriar]

It probably doesn’t.
You car scenario fails the proportionality test.
The intern example fails the necessary evil means test.

The PODE argument has 3-4 conditions to be met to be valid.

 

[MichaelP3]

Okay but this leads me even further. You may be good at philosophy (I am not) but how do we relate this PODE test to God? (And this assumes Contraception is evil in the first place). Does He go like "but you managed 3 conditions and it’s valid?

 

[BlackFriar]

Have a go yourself, that’s the best way to learn.

This may help:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/

 

[MichaelP3]

Does the link state by what philosophy God works?

 

[BlackFriar]

If God is Wisdom (Sophia) then true philo-sophy is love of God is it not?

That is, trying to discern His rules for living in difficult circumstances by applying the gift of reason he gave us to the creation he placed us in.

I see it is time to take a break from discussing this further with you.
God bless.

 

[MichaelP3]

I see it is time to take a break from discussing this further with you.

You and me both man. Have a good day!

 

[Vonsalza]

I’ll have to be careful here because 1. I’ve received a ban warning from the good moderators of this site on an adjacent subject/thread and 2. my 9-12 college hours in philosophy may put me ahead of most people on the subject, but a trained Dominican is not “most people”.

That said;

Perhaps I am wrong but either you may not fully understand “virtue based ethics” thinking (and how it influences Catholic moral definitions) OR you point blank disagree that ethical definitions should incorporate them into the medical definition itself.

Oh I’ve serious doubt that my secular education framed ethics in the same way as your Catholic education. So to your second point here - I’d hazard to say you’re correct. An “ethical definition” espouses things like intent and that shouldn’t be included in definition that is simply describing a mechanical act.

Rather, most realise there has to be an intent to use these technical things (or technical methods like Mr Onan) for the very purpose of preventing pregnancy.

I agree fully. And I think practicioners of NFP exercise identical intent. They’re trying their darndest to prevent a pregnancy. I wager most would use other methods if no one told them they’d go to hell for it.

You may disagree. Medically you are correct.

As you predicted, good friar…

Nevertheless, whether we agree or not, the Church does not define human actions in a post-enlightenment “physicalist” way.
It operates from a pre-enlightenment manner of defining human actions, one based on the virtue ethics of Aristotle, such definitions also embed the agent’s purpose to some extent.

Very well.

So when we speak of NFP is that “contracepting”?
The Church says it isn’t.

“NFP isn’t ‘contracepting’ per the Catholic Church via bald fiat; appeal to authority” - I would agree with that.

“NFP isn’t ‘contracepting’ per the Catholic Church because the intent of the couple practicing NFP is different from the intent of a couple practicing hormonal birth control” - I think that’s erroneous. I see their intents as identical.

 

[Vonsalza]

Medically, perhaps it is … its a sort of physical technique, although even at a physical level it is perhaps a borderline predication. No chemicals are involved, no physical barrier is involved.

For sake of fair disclosure, I find that the most successful implementations of NFP require ovulation kits which would discredit somewhat that claim of “au naturel”. The leap in technology is what makes it “different” from the old Rhythm Method that NFP’s supporters try so hard to distance it from. It’s why you don’t read about NFP in 13th century manuscripts.

SO there is the difference I see between NFP and say onanism. The former respects the inherent teleology of coitus, the latter does not.

Again, we disagree. The teleology of coitus is multidimensional (unitive and procreative) and both onanism and deliberately avoiding coitus during presumed fertile periods both intentionally frustrate the latter dimension.
The fact that unplanned pregnancy is, statistically, a failure of NFP evidences the point.

The intent to “contra” the coital teleology (not the “coeptum”) is the real issue.
Perhaps we should really speak of the immorality of contracoitum not contracoeptum.
(Yes I know “coitus” is masculine not neuter ).

Yes. Philosophical walls/distinctions can be very thin - if not outright imagined.

But that distinction still doesn’t relieve the tension for most Catholic families. Instead of being accused of contracepting, they would then be accused of a form of mutual masturbation that very, very closely resembles coitus.

 

[BlackFriar]

I’ll have to be careful here because 1. I’ve received a ban warning from the good moderators of this site on an adjacent subject/thread

God’s rain falls on the secular and religious member alike in that regard so you are in good company!

Oh I’ve serious doubt that my secular education framed ethics in the same way as your Catholic education. So to your second point here - I’d hazard to say you’re correct. An “ethical definition” espouses things like intent and that shouldn’t be included in definition that is simply describing a mechanical act.

Excellent, I thought this might be the case and now understand where you are coming from re the way we need to deal to the way the Catholic Church formulates its moral precepts.’
BTW I observe that a majority of thinking lay Catholics also unconsciously adopt your conscious approach in this regard. We are all children of the post enlightenment period care of our scientific school education. I wouldn’t have it any other way myself. It does mean we are a schizophrenic lot when we try to mix science and ethics and nowhere is that more apparent (to me) than in the discipline of Catholic bioethics. Hopefully I am more conscious of this schizophrenia than most Catholics you will discuss these abstract issues with .

I agree fully. And I think practicioners of NFP exercise identical intent. They’re trying their darndest to prevent a pregnancy. I wager most would use other methods if no one told them they’d go to hell for it.

It is disconcerting you agree so readily on this point. I do wonder at times whether I have passed over to the dark side and am no longer a real Catholic in accepting that NFPers are directly intending to avoid pregnancy. Can we call that a direct intent to “contracept”. Well, even in secular terms I think there is mist…but lets presently leave that for later.

 

[BlackFriar]

“NFP isn’t ‘contracepting’ per the Catholic Church via bald fiat; appeal to authority” - I would agree with that.

You are the first interlocutor who has conceded this observation. I concede your further observation that it is ultimately an appeal to authority to impose one’s own idiosyncratic definition of “contraception” on a contentious debate than crosses religious. secular, scientific and cultural boundaries.

May I humanely observe this communication issue is a little more complicated than being a bald assertion of authority. My experience is that all disciplines and cultures have their ivory towers, a systemic hegemony, an unconscious jargon and vocab and unconscious limitations. It is the human condition that we all wade through when dealing with persons and communities brought up very differently from us.

Has the Catholic Church been more insular than most coomunities in that regard and is therefore somewhat more blameworthy. I, personally, am ashamed to say that is likely true. Instead of holding our enlightenment and reformation dissenters more closely to our chest in constructive dialogue … we arrogantly spurned them. When that failed we filled the moat and pulled up the drawbridges some 500 years ago. We are now paying the price with Babel as we see in this small discussion. I am as well trained in science/engineering as I am in philosophy/theology. I have been living this intellectual comms schizophrenia of the Church for near on 40 years. I seem to be the only one who notices (or cares) that our parents no longer speak the same language anymore.

Like the local Maori making first contact with Capatin Cook I have been able to make some progress in higher level communication beyond sign language. But this is a tangent.

“NFP isn’t ‘contracepting’ per the Catholic Church because the intent of the couple practicing NFP is different from the intent of a couple practicing hormonal birth control”

• I think that’s erroneous. I see their intents as identical.

Even by the Church’s own definition of “contracepting”? I will assume this is your meaning…

Lets continue by avoiding the word altogether for the moment. If we do that I agree that NFP’ers certainly intend to avoid pregnancy at all costs. My only small provisio would be that even NFP sex may well be considered immoral if it was permanently desired from the beginning of the marriage. That would be an explicit denial of an essential meaning of the sexual act itself

So I would agree that both NFPers and BCers (birth control) have the same intent to temporarily avoid pregnancy at all costs.

 

[BlackFriar]

For sake of fair disclosure, I find that the most successful implementations of NFP require ovulation kits which would discredit somewhat that claim of “au naturel”. The leap in technology is what makes it “different” from the old Rhythm Method that NFP’s supporters try so hard to distance it from. It’s why you don’t read about NFP in 13th century manuscripts.

I don’t think I have any issue with this observation. The au naturel argument so endeared of many and even Catholic lay “theologians” has never been convincing to either my Thomistic or scientific training. Nor does it run well with any serious clerical theologians. “Natural” is always an equivocal word whether we are discussing unnatural acts (which seem very natural for some) or Natural Law theory (of which there seem to be at least 4 major and incompatible variants).

Do note I was predicting the possibility of disagreement here (“borderline predication”) re Onan and NFP as I was thinking off the cuff and see grey areas.

 

[BlackFriar]

Again, we disagree. The teleology of coitus is multidimensional (unitive and procreative) and both onanism and deliberately avoiding coitus during presumed fertile periods both intentionally frustrate the latter dimension.

The fact that unplanned pregnancy is, statistically, a failure of NFP evidences the point.

You might be overthinking what I meant by the teleology of becoming one flesh. I meant its biological causal trajectory on each and every occasion which will differ. I was not doing a typical Catholic Aristotelian abstraction to an alleged single teleological “universal” exemplar on the basis of a finite number of concrete instances!

What I am saying is that every concrete conjugal act has different possible biological outcomes. Some will result in pregnancy, others will not.

The Magisterium is saying that as long as you don’t intend to “contra” the normal, concrete sex act itself then you can happily intend to “contra” the normative results (conception) all day long without guilt…so long as it isn’t a permanent contra intent from the foundation of your marriage.

Mr Onan intended to “contra” the normal sex act itself as well as the normative biological consequences of it.

Mr NFP does not “contra” the sex act itself, though as you say he certainly “contra’s” the normative biological results by craftily taking advantage of the “blanks” of nature. Crafty though it may be the Church sees nothing immoral in this.

Still call it “contraception” if you will (afterall scientists still call aircraft blackboxes “blackboxes” when in fact they are bright orange). Its just a label.
But this type of avoidance of pregnancy is not actually immoral.

I believe it is relatively easy to describe/identify the specific/qualitiative difference between NFP and Onan.

The fact that unplanned pregnancy is, statistically, a failure of NFP evidences the point.

This makes me think I have not quite understood your argument as it seems a non sequitor?
Or perhaps you misunderstood my point?

Yes NFP even amongst the experienced is only 97-99% successful.

 

[BlackFriar]

Yes. Philosophical walls/distinctions can be very thin - if not outright imagined.

I don’t think the distinction I observed above between Mr NFP and Mr Onan is imagined though I await your response.

But that distinction still doesn’t relieve the tension for most Catholic families. Instead of being accused of contracepting, they would then be accused of a form of mutual masturbation that very, very closely resembles coitus.

Well Mr May would say use of a condom or even the Pill turns a conjugal act into m.m.
May he RIP but I do disagree with that conclusion myself (I note he is a lay theologian).
I have seen no Magisterial view on the matter.

Mr Onan, well its likely getting much closer to what Mr May is saying for obvious reasons because if it is denied then it seems to become impossible to define the difference between m.m. and coitus.

On this matter the Church does not seem to use virtue based definitions. Canon Law, unlike Moral Theology, cannot afford to indulge embedding too much intent into its definitions which need to be objectively verifiable I suppose.

I believe the description of coitus is “sex acts suitable for the generation of offspring.”
Mr Onan fairly clearly neither did this nor intended this.

Mr NFP gets the big tick.

Mr Condo or Mrs Pill …the jury is still out. These look like they meet the definition, though if seed is not deposited the Mrs may have met requirements but the Mr may not.
(But the intent of both is clearly contra regardless of whether they met the definition of coitus).

Its complicated when seed is not deposited because the outward “two become flesh” description is met but the exchange of BF is not.

 

[Vonsalza]

Still call it “contraception” if you will (afterall scientists still call aircraft blackboxes “blackboxes” when in fact they are bright orange). Its just a label.

This may be one of our fundamental points of separation - the semantic of “contraception”.

As it pertains to the actual word itself (contraception), most would argue that NFP comfortably fits as an exemplar and isn’t even remotely a stretched euphemism.

As you mentioned, Catholics do seem to have a more nuanced definition of this word than is found in, say, Oxford’s dictionary.

As I see neither side really budging, this will likely be a sticking point until either language drifts the word into obsolescence or Catholics pick another descriptor.

I believe it is relatively easy to describe/identify the specific/qualitiative difference between NFP and Onan.

I would agree.

As you seem to speak at some length about Onan, I would like to state that I’m not particularly married to onanism as a “solution”. I readily agree that it frustrates the procreative aspect of sex in a way that lacks artifice, but then also creates room to debate whether or not the marital act was thus completed due to procreative frustration and whether that is even an important standard.

I do find it interesting, though, that our Protestant friends don’t think Onan was struck down because he placed his seed in the dirt. They argue he was killed for deceiving his wife/sister-in-law and failing to uphold is familial oath and duty. The spilling of seed was merely coincidental.

This makes me think I have not quite understood your argument as it seems a non sequitor?

The line about failure was included to further proof the intent of the NFP couple to frustrate the procreative aspect of relations. As you wrote “Yes NFP even amongst the experienced is only 97-99% successful.” then that means 1-3% are not and this is, statistically, a failure rate. Nothing more intended.

Mr NFP does not “contra” the sex act itself, though as you say he certainly “contra’s” the normative biological results by craftily taking advantage of the “blanks” of nature. Crafty though it may be the Church sees nothing immoral in this.

Then in fairness, the Church doesn’t seem to require that the marital act be open to life. It can be as closed to life as humanly possible with full, unveiled intent - so long as no artifice is used and climax occurs fully and properly coupled.

Which is fine, I suppose. But that’s not the line we typically hear “out in the world”.