Help with Contraception

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philipmarus

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I need help on the Church’s teaching on contraception. Can anyone recommend a good book on defending the church’s teaching on Contraception? I have discussions with Protestant family members attacking the church teaching on this. Arguments brought to attack the Church’s teaching include:
  1. The Church’s position that contraception violates natural law is flawed because “people fly airplanes today” which violate natural law.
  2. The “Contraceptive mentality” resulting in divorce, adultery, free love, etc even if it could be connected to contraception does not apply once one was married. Marriage becomes a “safe box” for contraception.
  3. The teaching Church fathers of the entire Christian tradition, including “Protestant like Luther, Calvin, Wesley” is likewise to be rejected because basic biology was not understood until “modern times” as to how fertilization occurs.
One thing I’ve noticed with Protestants I’ve heard this from is the attack on Church’s teaching against Contraception will often extend into a generalized attack on the consecrated celibracy and Catholic views on abstinence, fastings etc. One Protestant I know claims that with Vatican II, the Church finally realized the errors of its ascetism by calling monks and nuns (Example of Mother Anelical is given) out of the monasteries into “the real world.”

How can one respond to this.
 
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philipmarus:
  1. The Church’s position that contraception violates natural law is flawed because “people fly airplanes today” which violate natural law.
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Contraception violates Gods’ Law, not “natural law”. BTW, since I’m a pilot and fly airplanes, just what natural law am I violating? Lift is created by a force of nature, it’s a simple matter of physics. LOL
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philipmarus:
  1. The “Contraceptive mentality” resulting in divorce, adultery, free love, etc even if it could be connected to contraception does not apply once one was married. Marriage becomes a “safe box” for contraception.
Click to expand...
False, it encourages sexual activity prior to marriage. Sex forms an EXTREMELY strong desire. I’ve seen otherwise “normal” men do absolutely stupid things, not for love but for sex. One problem is, as a society, we’ve substituted sex for love. The popular term to “make love” has absolutely nothing to do with love. Once a couple begins having sex prior to marriage, they can be deceived into feeling they are in “love” when in fact they are in lust. After the newness of the lust wears off there sometimes isn’t the love there that they originally thought. If you look at the people who are divorced versus the people who remain married a disproportionate number of divorced couples had sex prior to marriage.
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philipmarus:
  1. The teaching Church fathers of the entire Christian tradition, including “Protestant like Luther, Calvin, Wesley” is likewise to be rejected because basic biology was not understood until “modern times” as to how fertilization occurs.
Click to expand...
I’m not quite sure how knowing anything about fertilization has to do with the Law of God. Are they saying we can create “Gods Law” or change it because we understand something now we didn’t earlier?
 
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philipmarus:
The Church’s position that contraception violates natural law is flawed because “people fly airplanes today” which violate natural law.
Click to expand...
Natural law is our rational participation in the eternal law. “Nature” in this context refers to human nature, which is rational. Acting against reason thus violates natural law.

Flying airplanes as such is not acting against reason; it doesn’t involve a contradiction and it doesn’t violate human dignity.

To use contraception, on the other hand, is to act against reason because reason tells us that the conjugal act possesses a procreative and unitive orientation. Contraception makes the conjugal act both anti-procreative and anti-unitive, and thus it contradicts reason and is therefore against natural law.
 
Philip,

If Protestants really wanted to be natural they would never Contracept. If a person opens their eyes they physically see. they wouldn’t put tape over their eyes. Why to they think it is alright to frustrate their bodies by contraception.

I WONDER IF THEY WOULD FLY IN A BROKEN AIT PLAIN?

John
 
Do they know that prior to the Anglican council at Lambeth in the 1930s, all denominations forbade the use of artificial birth control? Kimberly Hahn did her Master’s work at Gordon-Conwell on birth control, and she & Scott stopped contracepting. That was before they converted.

Peace,
Linda
 
Read the encyclical Humanae Vitae. It’s really not that long or hard. I promise.

Just in case you are too lazy, I’ll take a hack at it.

Married sex can only be healthy when it is BOTH unitive and procreative. That is, both unifying and open to the mystery of God’s gift of children.

Just like lying, contracepted sex is a snowballing sin, it gets worse with repetition. Every act of contraceptive sex is sinful because it damages the basis of the married sexual union. Over time, intercourse becomes a selfish act instead of an act of giving. When steps are taken to prevent God from creating a child out of the act, it is transformed into a purely selfish thing, not a giving thing.

Paul VI goes on to predict what will happen to marriage and families if this ‘divorce’ of the unitive and procreative natures of sex is allowed to mature. And they all came true. Read it yourself, you won’t believe the prophetic vision he had.
 
manuelman-I enjoy reading your posts on these topics. I like seeing a real man’s view! I’ll add my 2 cents in with yours here.

On point 1: Nature show us through birds that flying is perfectly natural. Nature also shows us through the birds (and bees) that reproductive organs and acts are for reproduction.

On point 2: On the contrary, contraception within a marriage aids and abets adultary and can lead to divorce. Shortly after our culture accepted contraception, it accepted divorce.Who is more likely to cheat? Is it a woman on birth control pills (who knows she won’t likely concieve the other man’s child) or the woman who charts her cycle (who knows the momentary desires will be gone in a few days)? Do cheating husbands seek out women who refuse to use contraception?

On point 3: Luther and Calvin may not have understood biology back then, but God did! As someone pointed out, not even Protestants accepted artificial birth control until the 1930’s. There still are a few protestant out there who reject all forms of birth control (see www.quiverfull.com ) The Bible may not say “don’t take birth control pills”, but it clearly regards children as blessings. God created biology to create those little blessings!
 
I have a cassette type by Janet Smith called Contraception, Why not?

Depending on who you are talking to - what type of person they are, this may help them. It goes over all the ways that contraception has influenced out society.

Also, maybe you can acknowlege that living life in today’s society without contracepting is difficult and that you understand why they would feel the need to do so, but it is relatively new for the majority to be contracepting. How many of our Grandparents were using contraception? Just because the technology comes along, it doesn’t mean we must decide to use it. If the technology comes along to create a baby with exactly the features we would pick such as blonde hair, with blue eyes, and a male for example, would they use this technology or do they think they should leave this up to God and not pick and choose the embryos. By using the Pill, they are choosing to prevent an embryo from implanting in some cases, thus it is like forcing a miscarriage (abortion).

Use of condoms obviously with holds something from the relationship that God didn’t design a man to “with hold”. It is meant to be shared.

Surgery is going to have a negative affect on the body, so how can that be viewed as part of God’s will.

Because of all the side effects of the various forms of contraception, I think that is even more evidence that it is not part of God’s will. God’s is pro-life, not anti-life or contra-life. That is my two cents anyhow.
 
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philipmarus:
The Church’s position that contraception violates natural law is flawed because “people fly airplanes today” which violate natural law.
Click to expand...
:rotfl:

That woke me up, thanks.

:clapping:

Genesis 38:8-10
Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.

If they need something out of the Bible, heres ol’ Onan getting struck down for contracepting. Heck you could even do what they do and omit everything before “he spilled…”
 
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