Marital Sex and Catholic Teaching

[PalletBoy]

Felra, you miss the point!

Where does scripture say, imply, or infer that artificial birth control is wrong, but non-artificial birth control is acceptable?

 

[fix]

PalletBoy:

From Mercygate above:

So, we have established that NFP** is** birth control, which brings us back again to my point about it being an attitude of the heart.

The only reason anyone would practice NFP is exactly to regulate human birth, that is, Birth Control.

And Fix:

Where? Reference please? If Christ (as I stated above) actually did teach against ABC, then there would be no discussion.

Birth control is not the issue. Using means that are contraceptive is the issue. NFP regulates birth, but is not contraceptive. Christ’s teachings are found in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. There can be a case made from the bible, but it does not matter because the Church speaks as Christ. We must obey all His teachings from His Church.

The bible does not mention IVF, yet it is immoral. The bible does not mention surrogate mothers, yet it is immoral.

 

[felra]

PalletBoy:

So, we have established that NFP** is** birth control, which brings us back again to my point about it being an attitude of the heart.

The only reason anyone would practice NFP is exactly to regulate human birth, that is, Birth Control.

“it being an attitude of the heart.” -->and of the **head. **

“The only reason anyone would practice NFP is exactly to regulate human birth, that is, Birth Control.” → exactly! Cooperating with God’s given design in a morally licet (i.e., no guilt of conscience) manner.

God wants mature, intelligent, rational oriented disciples with a childlike trust in Him. Not spoon feed puppets who take no responsibility for their God given co-creative powers. Makes your spine straighten up when you finally realize the utter entrustment that God has given married couples in the exercise of their gift of sexuality to bring another eternal being into existance.

 

[PalletBoy]

Fix,
Please read my first post. I’m not Catholic and have not converted at this point. I’m studying it very thoroughly but this post resulted as I’m coming up against the hurdles of acceptance.

With that in mind, one cannot use circular logic to defend a claim.

“Why is it that way? Because the Church says so” is not valid if I cannot accept the Church as having the same Authority as Christ.

Ergo,

it does not matter because the Church speaks as Christ. We must obey all His teachings from His Church.

fails.

If you’re going to claim Christ said it, then please show me where.

Note: I believe IFV and a surrogate mother are immoral as you do.

 

[fix]

Let us be more explicit to help make a point. Contraception is against life. NFP is open to life. Contraception shuts Christ out of the act. Contraception renders the marital embrace intentionally sterile. It reduces it to mutual masturbation.

Regulating the number of children is licit for good reasons. How we do it, why we do it, are moral, or immoral, acts that have consequences.

 

[PalletBoy]

fix:

Let us be more explicit to help make a point. Contraception is against life. NFP is open to life. Contraception shuts Christ out of the act.

That’s failed logic. NFP is not as “open” to life as you’d like to portray: The whole design of NFP is to NOT get pregnant until a time that you want to get pregnant.

 

[fix]

PalletBoy:

Fix,
Please read my first post. I’m not Catholic and have not converted at this point. I’m studying it very thoroughly but this post resulted as I’m coming up against the hurdles of acceptance.

With that in mind, one cannot use circular logic to defend a claim.

“Why is it that way? Because the Church says so” is not valid if I cannot accept the Church as having the same Authority as Christ.

Ergo, fails.

If you’re going to claim Christ said it, then please show me where.

Note: I believe IFV and a surrogate mother are immoral as you do.

I did not realize you were not Catholic, sorry. The issue of ABC is not the central issue you have. The issue you face is one of authority. Catholics accept that they are not moral relativists, meaning that we are not each a god or moral arbiter. We accept there is one Truth. That Truth can be known and loved. That Truth never changes and has given us the fullness of truth as it relates to faith and morals.

The bible is only worth accepting because the Church says so. If we each were to use the bible to justify every moral act, well, we would have what we have today, relativism. There must be a living authority, instituted by Christ, to teach and settle disputes. Without that, we each will have a differing understanding of truth. That would mean we never could be sure what is moral and what is immoral.

 

[fix]

PalletBoy:

That’s failed logic. NFP is not as “open” to life as you’d like to portray: The whole design of NFP is to NOT get pregnant until a time that you want to get pregnant.

Yes, but it is not intentionally shutting out Christ. You abstain from the act, you do not act, but cut off part of the act by your will.

 

[felra]

PalletBoy:

That’s failed logic. NFP is not as “open” to life as you’d like to portray: The whole design of NFP is to NOT get pregnant until a time that you want to get pregnant.

Many couples in fact use Natural FP to achieve pregnancy. Hmmmm, let’s see, how many contracepting couples use ABC to achieve pregnancy?

 

[PalletBoy]

Fix,
I do not want this thread hijacked into an “authority” discussion.

The Bible states in multiple places that we are to “test everything”.

I refuse to blindly accept anything just because someone says so. To do so would be unbiblical; so I cannot just “accept it” because the Church says so.

I’m reading a lot of Keating’s work right now and I understand what you’re saying, however, I’m putting this concept through the paces and through the testing process.

Back to my original problem: NFP is Birth Control and therefore contraceptive in design. How is it morally justifiable, but ABC morally repugnant?

 

[fix]

PalletBoy:

Fix,
I do not want this thread hijacked into an “authority” discussion.

The Bible states in multiple places that we are to “test everything”.

I refuse to blindly accept anything just because someone says so. To do so would be unbiblical; so I cannot just “accept it” because the Church says so.

I’m reading a lot of Keating’s work right now and I understand what you’re saying, however, I’m putting this concept through the paces and through the testing process.

Back to my original problem: NFP is Birth Control and therefore contraceptive in design. How is it morally justifiable, but ABC morally repugnant?

It is not blind acceptance. It is logic, right reason and faith. They all go together.

NFP is not contraceptive. Contraceptive literally means against life. In what way is NFP stopping life? Condoms, pills, potions, etc all stop life. Every martial embrace with NFP is open to life.

 

[PalletBoy]

felra:

Many couples in fact use Natural FP to achieve pregnancy. Hmmmm, let’s see, how many contracepting couples use ABC to achieve pregnancy?

Please, please, please read this carefully Felra.

I refuse to bicker about what the entire rest of the human race does in their bedroom. I’m concerned with Me, My Wife, and My God in the bedroom.

NFP exists to control and prevent pregnancy.
Condoms exist to control and prevent pregnancy.

If a condom were to fail and we were to become pregnant sooner than we planned, I would rejoice! I want many kids! but it is not good stewardship at this point to have more children!

So why does the Church split hairs over two methods that do exactly the same thing? It seems that the Church is trying to control intent. What are your intentions? My intentions are to continue to enjoy our bed but maintain good stewardship as commanded by Christ.

If the problem is truely a problem of intentions then why does method matter?

 

[fix]

Intentions are everything when speaking of moral acts. That is the point. If one intends to contracept, one is sinning.

 

[yochumjy]

PalletBoy:

That’s failed logic. NFP is not as “open” to life as you’d like to portray: The whole design of NFP is to NOT get pregnant until a time that you want to get pregnant.

Just because the end result is the same, does not mean the method is the same. You are confusing the two. When a condom is used, you are putting a barrier is placed between you and your spouse. You no longer have to think about it. You don’t have to worry about what you are doing with God’s creation. When you abstain with NFP, you are working with God’s creation. It is in the natural order of things.

Also, when you give your marriage vows you promise a few things:
To give yourself fully to each other
To be faithful to each other
To be fruitful with each other
To give to each other freely

When a condom is added into the mix, you are not giving yourself fully. In the words of Christopher West: “I will give you all of me, EXCEPT fruitfullness” I know you will say only engaging during non fertile things is the same, but it is not. You are still giving your wife YOUR fruitfullness, but God has just turned hers off temporarily.

You actually have to think when you use NFP to stop pregnancy. You have to understand the beautiful way that God made males and females. You pay respect to that when you abstain or not, because you are working with what God has made, not with what humans have made. Condoms do not naturally occur in nature. Man has made them to his own demise. There is of course one use for them…if you poke a hole in the end and use it for collection purposes (assuming no extra gunk) it can be a proper way to check the health of the sperm…

John

 

[PalletBoy]

NFP is not contraceptive. Contraceptive literally means against life. In what way is NFP stopping life? Condoms, pills, potions, etc all stop life. Every martial embrace with NFP is open to life.

Can sperm on it’s own create life? no.
Can a woman who is at the moment infertile create life? no.

NFP can block conception just as effectivly as a condom! Therefore, logic dicates that NFP is a method of contraception!

 

[yochumjy]

fix:

It is not blind acceptance. It is logic, right reason and faith. They all go together.

NFP is not contraceptive. Contraceptive literally means against life. In what way is NFP stopping life? Condoms, pills, potions, etc all stop life. Every martial embrace with NFP is open to life.

Fix,

While I largely agree with you, NFP can be twisted into something that is wrong. But that being said, even using NFP wrong is better than ABC, at least while deciding when to do it or not, God can interject easier than just pulling something on mindlessly…

John

 

[yochumjy]

PalletBoy:

Can sperm on it’s own create life? no.
Can a woman who is at the moment infertile create life? no.

NFP can block conception just as effectivly as a condom! Therefore, logic dicates that NFP is a method of contraception!

NFP is not ARTIFICIAL. See my post above. You say you want to work WITH God in the bedroom, well, then, work WITH him, don’t ignore what he has created and use the easy way out.

John

 

[felra]

PalletBoy:

Felra, you miss the point!

Where does scripture say, imply, or infer that artificial birth control is wrong, but non-artificial birth control is acceptable?

“non-artificial birth control” …this should accurately read “God given cycles of fertility and non-fertility”. Interesting to note how ABC is always spoken in negative terms against God’s design for reproductive capacity.

Click on here for citation of contraceptive references in the bible: catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0663.html . (And please read this time before responding, or else, I may not keep providing you with these very helpful link resources).

 

[fix]

yochumjy:

Fix,

While I largely agree with you, NFP can be twisted into something that is wrong. But that being said, even using NFP wrong is better than ABC, at least while deciding when to do it or not, God can interject easier than just pulling something on mindlessly…

John

Yes, NFP users can have a contraceptive mentality, but that does not make the method contraceptive. I agree with you.

 

[mercygate]

PalletBoy:

Felra, you miss the point!

Where does scripture say, imply, or infer that artificial birth control is wrong, but non-artificial birth control is acceptable?

It is suggested in Scripture when Onan “spills his seed in Genesis” and is killed by God on the spot for it. However, the rationale against contraception is not *primarily *Scriptural, except in the sense that Scripture supports human life as the highest achievement of the Creator, nor does it need to be explicitly Scriptural. Was it C. S. Lewis who said “God writes the world as a man writes a letter”? The foundational premises against contraception are rooted not in the Bible, but in natural law. The first book of revelation is creation itself – millennia before a syllable of Scripture was committed to papyrus. When applying the term “natural law” to human sexuality, we do not mean our animal nature but our full human nature, including our rational, intellectual, and moral attributes and gifts. Our reproductive organs (note: they are called “reproductive” organs) are designed primarily for procreation, so under natural law, we look at sexuality with the view that procreation is a divinely created good that must not be demeaned in any way. Note: not just “artificial” contraception but “natural” means, such as coitus interruptus and mutual masturbation are unacceptable because they distort the “natural human act.”

Until the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930 that NO Christian body approved of contraception for any reason; *abstinence *was enjoined for those cases in which producing a child needed to be avoided (so NFP actually gives us *more *opportunities to share our conjugal privileges than were available to previous generations).

If you look up Christopher West on the Internet, you will find good reference material on this subject – West has done a great job in rendering JP-2’s Theology of the Body into manageable terms.