From your experence why does NFP feel better than contraception?

[Blacksword]

The Early Fathers were pretty specific in their teaching. It doesn’t make sense that they would omit such a detail as it would affect so many people.
It would be pointless to teach against pleasure in marital relations. It’s inherent in the act for men and should be present for women too.

In Genesis, God tells us husband and wife become ‘one flesh’. If that’s not unitive, I don’t know what is. Both Jesus and St. Paul restate this teaching, so I doubt the Early Fathers missed it. Maybe they thought it was a given.

I agree with you that the Fathers may have “allowed” sex during infertility, concerned for the lust husband and wife might experience and I think they were right to teach this way. Sex itself is good, but due to our fallen human nature, it’s hard to have 100% lust-free relations even with with your spouse. At least it is for us sinful people.

They lived in a time when people died usuly before 45, child-bearing was a desperate need and marriages did not have a good chance of having 25 years or more of fertility, or of lasting 40 years or more. Not very similar. They considered people not wanting children at all, and rightly denounced this.

And, not to be too joking, but if you struggle with lust for your husband in marriage, then I envy him! Would that more wives had this issue, especially as the marriage goes on. I daresay lust in marriage for one’s spouse is probably one of the least pressing societal issues we face…sexlessness and total loss of desire at all seem far more widespread to me…

 

[Nate13]

Gluttony is not a trivial matter, it’s a grave sin as deadly as lust! You think eating a candy bar is trivial, I think a husband and wife using a condom or “pulling out” may be trivial. The difference is one ( eating the candy) is clearly ONLY being done generally for pleasure and no other reason. The clear testimony of many couples is that sex not always following the Rule gives pleasure, brings them closer, helps their marriage, etc. So which is worse? Why does the Church not declare Krispy Kreme or Cold Stone Creamery gravely sinful? They are analogous to brothels obviously, serving only gluttonous and pleasure-seeking ends!

haha no your the one saying eating a candy bar is gluttony.

Gluttony, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow, means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, intoxicants or wealth items to the point of waste. In some Christian denominations, it is considered one of the seven deadly sins—a misplaced desire of food or its withholding from the needy.[1]

Key in on OVER-indulgence and OVER-consumption of food, drink, ect. Indulgence in and of itself is not a grave matter and we all do it, its when we over indulge that things like food and alcohol become grave matters.

in·dul·gence (n-dljns)
n.
1.
a. The act or an instance of indulging; gratification: indulgence of every whim.
b. The state of being indulgent.
2.
a. The act of indulging in something: indulgence in irresponsible behavior.
b. Something indulged in: Sports cars are an expensive indulgence.
3. Liberal or lenient treatment; tolerance: treated their grandchildren with fond indulgence.
4. Self-indulgence: a life of wealth and indulgence.

 

[Nate13]

They lived in a time when people died usuly before 45, child-bearing was a desperate need and marriages did not have a good chance of having 25 years or more of fertility, or of lasting 40 years or more. Not very similar. They considered people not wanting children at all, and rightly denounced this.

And, not to be too joking, but if you struggle with lust for your husband in marriage, then I envy him! Would that more wives had this issue, especially as the marriage goes on. I daresay lust in marriage for one’s spouse is probably one of the least pressing societal issues we face…sexlessness and total loss of desire at all seem far more widespread to me…

haha so your over hear bearing down on gluttony and the one hand and sloughing off lust on the other? Have you never heard the opposite of love is not hate, but lust?

 

[AAArose]

Why does the act feel better? From my experence I feel like I’m not using my wife and the act is more complete. An anology I use with prople who do contracept but are currently trying to have a child cannot not say that there is something different from the act of when you attemt to have a child vs the times you contracepted. No one can argue that there is that something there that was not before that makes the act feel more complete. Cannot quite put my finger on it. So I would like more help on possibly making this analogy better or from some of your own experiences. What make NFP better for you?

I’m going to answer the op question asking for my option. sorry for just jumping in I don’t have time to read 45 pages. openess to life with every marrage act is for my marraige a renewal of the marriage covenant (my vows) and the result of our openess is unreserved giving for better or for worse. It love without reservations. for example if my husband and I choose to have sex on a day that is questionable if we will get pregnant we make a choice trust in God when we have sex on a day that seems infertile we are still trusting in God we have unprotected sex! nfp is hard but the road to heaven isn’t easy and we trust in God. we have 4 kids under 5 years old. my husband and I feel that we love eachother so much that if our love results in a baby then thats Gods will. Please read Birth Control and Christian Discipleship by John Kippley its 48 pgs and only $5!

 

[Blacksword]

Ok I understand your position. I’m simply saying it doesn’t conform to the Church’s position on what unity means. That release in oxytocin is in no way one of the purposes for which we are to have sex, no matter how trivial of a purpose you make it. The pleasure we experience is in no way supposed to have be seen as one of the ends of the act. Like I said before, it it did matter you would basically be saying that some couples are not capable of achieving the same fullness of the unitive bond that you are.

Please note the Church doesn’t say we can’t enjoy sex, but rather quite the opposite. The point is that the pleasure we do feel should never be seen as one of the ends of sex. Its a motivation.

It’s both, both, both…it motivates us to have sex, and we have sex, PARTLY, because it feels good! When that mutually reinforcing chain is broken, watch how quickly the desire and sex disappears in a marriage.

 

[Blacksword]

haha make fun of it all you want. All of those things you described are trivial compared to the importance of sex. I’d also add that chocolate has proven nutritional benefits for mental health. I don’t eat white bread (wheat bread for the win!) and McDonald’s does the favor for me by making me feel awful after I eat it haha. None of these things are “gravely” disordered though and would all be considered venial sins because of their trivial nature. I doubt you would really miss any of them if you gave them up. We should strive to perfect ourselves in the little things though so that we are ready to meet the challenge when something of importance arises.

They are not trivial, gluttony is as serious a matter as lust! And as for how much someone misses them, ask a fat person who’s prevented from eating twinkies anymore how trivial it is and see what response you get!

 

[Blacksword]

I know this is totally off topic, but eating Mc Donalds is a morally neutral action. Not even venially sinful. As is eating a snickers bar, or drinking a glass of white wine.

The Catchism touches on Gluttony only here

Eating a snickers is not gluttonous per se. Having a pleasurable time eating or enjoying food is not sinful. Pleasure is not sinful per se.

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate on the Virtues of NFP

So you say. It is just as sinful under the reasoning some are using in this debate. It’s pleasure-seeking as an end itself for no other purpose, totally sinful therefore, even, gasp, utilitarian!

 

[Nate13]

So you say. It is just as sinful under the reasoning some are using in this debate. It’s pleasure-seeking as an end itself for no other purpose, totally sinful therefore, even, gasp, utilitarian!

haha apparently you don’t understand the difference between indulging and over indulging. I love how things are either grave matters or nothing by your standards haha. Luckily the Church does not look on this in a black and white matter as you sarcastically try to accuse of. Think of it like this. The purpose of having sex could be 10% personal pleasure and 90% with your spouse in mind. Are you not only being 90% selfless? I don’t think the description of what love means in Corinthians stated the love is only mostly selfless

You are also missing the difference between a grave matter and a mortal sin. A grave matter is only one of the three conditions by which something is a mortal sin.

Also note I’m only going into this because you are using pleasure as the reason by which contraception is ok. I’m not saying this is at all easy to actually put into practice because as was stated earlier we all struggle with lust while having sex regardless of the birth control practices used.

 

[ahs]

It’s both, both, both…it motivates us to have sex, and we have sex, PARTLY, because it feels good! When that mutually reinforcing chain is broken, watch how quickly the desire and sex disappears in a marriage.

Yes, we have sex and it feels good…I’m not seeing where gluttony ties in there. Also, the unitive is PART of the 2-fold end of marriage. There is also the procreative aspect that all our sexual acts must be ordered per se towards. If you thwart that with a contraceptive, the act is disordered.

2369 "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood."156

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.157 These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil:158

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality… the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.159

Catechism of the Catholic Church

If you are trying to say that contraception does not thwart the act, because of this pleasure that we still derive from it (I admit I may be misunderstanding the last several posts) or due to the hormone release that Debora123 is speaking of, please provide the Church teaching or Scriptural reference or writing of a Church Father that states that contraception is either permitted or is a matter of personal discernment.

 

[Nate13]

So you say. It is just as sinful under the reasoning some are using in this debate. It’s pleasure-seeking as an end itself for no other purpose, totally sinful therefore, even, gasp, utilitarian!

I’d also add that she is right. Eating McDonald’s is morally neutral and I’m not disagreeing with that. Rather the intent of the act is what makes it wrong. If the intent is I want McDonald’s because it pleasurable thats wrong. If it because its cheap and we need food i don’t see how you can consider that gluttony especially considering where the Bible says we are to nourish and cherish our bodies. We can argue about how well McDonald’s nourish’s and cherish’s our body another time haha.

 

[ahs]

I’m going to answer the op question asking for my option. sorry for just jumping in I don’t have time to read 45 pages. openess to life with every marrage act is for my marraige a renewal of the marriage covenant (my vows) and the result of our openess is unreserved giving for better or for worse. It love without reservations. for example if my husband and I choose to have sex on a day that is questionable if we will get pregnant we make a choice trust in God when we have sex on a day that seems infertile we are still trusting in God we have unprotected sex! nfp is hard but the road to heaven isn’t easy and we trust in God. we have 4 kids under 5 years old. my husband and I feel that we love eachother so much that if our love results in a baby then thats Gods will. Please read Birth Control and Christian Discipleship by John Kippley its 48 pgs and only $5!

Great post! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Brav3N3wWorld]

You are using a condom or pill to fix something correct? What is wrong that your trying to fix? Your fertility? Using these things assumes that normal fertility is a problem we have to fix since it doesn’t conform to what we want to do. Now try to think of any thing in else in life that is considered a normal, healthy condition that we treat like this but don’t consider disordered.

Secondly, you have to understand what unitive and procreative mean.
unitive - two people giving themselves completely and selflessly to each other.
procreative - ordered towards life.

If you believe pleasure within sex to be the purpose or one of many purposes you will not get this teaching. Pleasure is never the ends of an act. This is why our culture is so sick because they make pleasure an ends and when it doesn’t work out they run the other way. I think very few people actually make life all about pleasure which we can all see leads to destruction, but rather some just hang on to a degree of pleasure. This attitude can never be deemed completely selfless, which implies that it can never be completely loving. We must put aside the desires of the flesh when we make decisions, but still be able to amply appreciate the great good God has given us in our bodies when we use them properly. When you understand what unitive really means when fully embraced you can see that condoms, pill, etc… have no place in the sexual act.

Goodness gracious, please spare me here. The other responses up to this point have been somewhat helpful. But here you are simply making accusations against me. Please read my story further up in this thread… My husband and I are not using pills or condoms, instead we are completely celibate in order to avoid more children. We tried NFP, and it put a lot of strain on our marriage. Two children, financial loss, near homelessness…we have grave reasons to avoid. But I do not trust NFP. We have been celibate for 10 months now…add in that all the abstinence from my husband working as a truck driver…add to that all the abstinence BEFORE we got married (We were both virgins. And we are both in our mid-20s, meaning the drive and desire is there. ) I don’t think I need a lecture on controlling my desires. Thank you!

I’m looking for answers to my specific concerns about Church teaching because I want to at least UNDERSTAND why I’m doing so much sacrificing.

 

[sw85]

As an observation, is there any other area in Catholic teaching where the physical is absolutized? I can’t think of any. I think this is why most people have so many questions about sexual morality–Catholic spirituality seems inherently less concerned with physicality in every other area.

(A) The physical is not “absolutized.” As in everything else, the will and the end matters here, as well.

(B) It is an explicitly physical faculty with an explicitly physical end. What more do you expect than that the Church’s teachings should involve how it should be used?

Indeed, none that I’m aware of, one of the many problems with the extremes of the Rule of Humanae Vitae. Nor any other area where circumstances and context have NO effect on the morality of the action being contemplated. Stealing, lying, even killing another person can be morally licit depending on the circumstances, but never can the Rule be violated, no matter what!!

This doesn’t even have the advantage of being right (see below), but I can see why you’d think this is a problem if you think the Church just makes up its teachings rather than simply propagating that which reason has revealed to be true and good.

As has been established, the use of oral (nonabortifacient) contraception and even (much less frequently) condoms are endorsed for legitimate medical reasons provided the contraceptive effect is not willed as an end in itself. A couple can even continue having sex while using them.

 

[Nate13]

Goodness gracious, please spare me here. The other responses up to this point have been somewhat helpful. But here you are simply making accusations against me. Please read my story further up in this thread… My husband and I are not using pills or condoms, instead we are completely celibate in order to avoid more children. We tried NFP, and it put a lot of strain on our marriage. Two children, financial loss, near homelessness…we have grave reasons to avoid. But I do not trust NFP. We have been celibate for 10 months now…add in that all the abstinence from my husband working as a truck driver…add to that all the abstinence BEFORE we got married (We were both virgins. And we are both in our mid-20s, meaning the drive and desire is there. ) I don’t think I need a lecture on controlling my desires. Thank you!

I’m looking for answers to my specific concerns about Church teaching because I want to at least UNDERSTAND why I’m doing so much sacrificing.

I’m sorry if you mistook them for accusations. I shouldn’t have used the tense I did in my response as it made for it to sounds as if directed at you. I meant to write in the hypothetical. Ouch yeah incredibly sorry. My tense choice definitely made that personal.

 

[Brav3N3wWorld]

I’d also add that she is right. Eating McDonald’s is morally neutral and I’m not disagreeing with that. Rather the intent of the act is what makes it wrong. If the intent is I want McDonald’s because it pleasurable thats wrong. If it because its cheap and we need food i don’t see how you can consider that gluttony especially considering where the Bible says we are to nourish and cherish our bodies. We can argue about how well McDonald’s nourish’s and cherish’s our body another time haha.

The candy bar and McDonald’s analogy are both flawed because a person still recieves some of the good from consuming food, feeling food, a little nutrition, etc. This is why I think a better analogy is wine tasting, in which the wine is spit out. Here nothing is being consumed, merely enjoyed. The spitting out can be compared to spilling seed. But wine tasting is not considered sinful by the Church. Or is it?

 

[Brav3N3wWorld]

I’m sorry if you mistook them for accusations. I shouldn’t have used the tense I did in my response as it made for it to sounds as if directed at you. I meant to write in the hypothetical. Ouch yeah incredibly sorry. My tense choice definitely made that personal.

Apology accepted.

 

[Brav3N3wWorld]

You are using a condom or pill to fix something correct? What is wrong that your trying to fix? Your fertility? Using these things assumes that normal fertility is a problem we have to fix since it doesn’t conform to what we want to do. Now try to think of any thing in else in life that is considered a normal, healthy condition that we treat like this but don’t consider disordered.

Male circumcision. The normal and healthy condition (prepuce organ) is treated as diseased and chopped off. Assumedly this is done to prevent diseases later on (whether this is true or not), but the baby boy’s foreskin is a normal, natural condition that we treat as diseased. This is not condemned by the Church. I think this is a good analogy, especially as it concerns the sex organs.

 

[Brav3N3wWorld]

But it does make sense (and with due respect, it’s difficult to see how you’re not endorsing relativism if you think that’s a convincing argument against natural law).

“Goodness” is measured by the degree to which a thing instantiates its essence. This is why, for instance, we can refer to clubfoot as a birth defect – it cannot be a defect unless there is a norm arising from nature from which it deviates.

Natural law simply applies this principle to human behavior and extracts from it a moral code. Thus since human behavior involves the use of various faculties, and since our faculties point toward various ends, goodness consists in using those faculties appropriately and sin consists in using those faculties in a manner contrary to their ends.

This was very helpful. Thank you. I’ll be thinking more on this.

 

[Nate13]

The candy bar and McDonald’s analogy are both flawed because a person still recieves some of the good from consuming food, feeling food, a little nutrition, etc. This is why I think a better analogy is wine tasting, in which the wine is spit out. Here nothing is being consumed, merely enjoyed. The spitting out can be compared to spilling seed. But wine tasting is not considered sinful by the Church. Or is it?

Hmm… my first question would be aren’t wine tasting and sex on completely different levels? I’m talking in terms of purpose in life they are on completely different levels. I can’t think of anything in life that has a greater purpose in life then sex. I believe that is a large part of why this is such a big deal. With greater wealth comes greater responsibility.

 

[sw85]

This was very helpful. Thank you. I’ll be thinking more on this.

Glad I could help. For a better introduction to natural law (and the Church’s philosophical underpinning in general), you might consider picking up Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition. The tone is highly polemical in some places, but there’s nothing out there that gives as good a broad and laymen’s overview of the Church’s teachings.