NFP and contraception

[Good_Daughter]

No. There was something called “marital debt”. You were supposed to give yourself to your spouse if he can’t control his drive- but this was seen as “helping in the weakness”, not “enjoying unitive marriage bond”

Are you saying couples were not necessarily obliged to ‘intend conception’ when paying the ‘marital debt’?

You and I think that. However, Church in the past was more strict.

I think the Fathers, being human, knew what triggered lustful thoughts. *Song of Songs *is certainly capable of triggering such thoughts, and it’s fine to read it with caution, even today. Advising caution however, is not equal to condemnation. I still haven’t seen this narrative (or the sexual passion it contains) explicitly condemned.

This can be a good start:
faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/22-SongOfSongs/Text/Articles/Davidson-SongofSongs-AUSS.htm

Thank you very much for the link. I’m going to follow your discussion with MarcoPolo on this one.

But infertility in the circle is not infertility. It is like saying food is rotten if it is not being eaten.

You mean in the ‘cycle’, right? I was just trying to point out that all infertility has the same practial effect on any given act of intercourse. I think we agree there are different causes of infertility which, in turn, affect its duration. Remember though, even ‘infertile’ couples conceive occasionally.

 

[Abu]

razredge,#238
[Humani Generis] – is the teaching laid out in the document infallible?

To what are you referring?

clergy adopted pagan philosophy in order to ban contraception

Totally false, as always.

stoics as Justin, Lactantius, Jerome or Augustine

Totally false as always.

“St Augustine was the great Father of the Church who exposed the errors of Manichaeism. It was Augustine, too, who wrote most extensively against the practic4e of contraception, which those who were influenced by Manichaeism had come to defend on ideological grounds.” (The Catholic Catechism, Fr John A Hardon, S.J., Doubleday, 1975, p 369).

The dissenters don’t know that with St Augustine’s great return to Christ and His Church he had given up Manichaeism.

His opposition to the Stoics is clear:
“The system of Pelagius can today be better understood than heretofore. Pelagius doubtless denied original sin, and the immortality and integrity of Adam; in a word, the whole supernatural order. But the parent idea of his system, which was of stoic origin, was nothing else than the complete “emancipation” of human liberty with regard to God, and its limitless power for good and for evil. It depended on man to attain by himself, without the grace of God, a stoic impeccability and even insensibility, or the absolute control of his passions. It was scarcely suspected, even up to our time, what frightful rigorism resulted from this exaggeration of the powers of liberty. Since perfection was possible, it was of obligation. There was no longer any distinction between precepts and counsels. Whatever was good was a duty. There was no longer any distinction between mortal and venial sin. Every useless word merited hell, and even excluded from the Church the children of God. All this has been established by hitherto unedited documents which Caspari has published (Briefe, Abhandlungen, und Predigten, Christiania, 1890).

**“(3) The system of St. Augustine in opposition to this rests on three fundamental principles:

•God is absolute Master, by His grace, of all the determinations of the will;
•man remains free, even under the action of grace;
•the reconciliation of these two truths rests on the manner of the Divine government.”**newadvent.org/cathen/02091a.htm

Chrono13, #236
clergy adopted pagan philosophy in order to ban contraception

Totally false again as we have seen, and never can this be substantiated.

 

[razredge]

To what are you referring?
.

To whether the Pope’s teaching as expressed in the encyclical Humani Generis is also infallibile like the teachings in Humanae Vitae and Casti Connubbi

 

[razredge]

Remember: St. Thomas defended the use of physical compulsion against heretics. He was wrong. Many popes agreed with him. They were wrong too. Now we know better. End of story.

Don’t try to spin it an conciliate what is obviously a change of position. Of a position that had never been (and could never be) infallibly declared.

Thanks for the evidence Joel - yes I agree with you that proponents of this kind of infallibility often show extreme intellectual dishonesty by only selectively present evidence that bolsters their position and ignores everything else.

Or even worse, they fall back on saying that any teaching that has ‘changed’ was not infallible to begin with, which of course makes it impossible to counter any claim they make.

 

[Abu]

razredge
whether the Pope’s teaching as expressed in the encyclical Humani Generis is also infallibile

What teaching precisely? See post#216.

 

[Chrono13]

Ok. You said earlier:So if I understand you correctly, even though the council does not mention Songs, sex, or marriage, they still were addressing it by way of criticizing “heretical writings” of Theodore (such as his dividing Christ from God, can. 12)----therefore they must have been talking about anything he wrote, including his interpretation of Songs?

Before I embrace your claim, I would need a much more specific citation. The link you provided seems to make the same leap, assuming the council must have had Theodore’s “Songs” interpretation in mind.

I have found more sources who support the original one. For example:
biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_song1_tanner.html

It is possible that Council sees Theodore’s interpretation as one of “innumerable blasphemies” mentioned in anathema 12. If you don’t count that as a worthy argument, I accept and retreat my statement that Council forbid such view of Song of Songs. As long as we both agree that clergy always showed criticism to idea that “Song” speaks of marital embrace with erotic dimension.

 

[Chrono13]

Are you saying couples were not necessarily obliged to ‘intend conception’ when paying the ‘marital debt’?

Of course not. This is why marital debt was seen as a venial sin, a weakness and a burden- not gift of self-giving and marriage enjoyment.

I think the Fathers, being human, knew what triggered lustful thoughts. *Song of Songs *is certainly capable of triggering such thoughts, and it’s fine to read it with caution, even today. Advising caution however, is not equal to condemnation. I still haven’t seen this narrative (or the sexual passion it contains) explicitly condemned.

You were given a source which stresses how allegorical interpretation was kept, and literal seen as foolish. I think I made my case there.

Remember though, even ‘infertile’ couples conceive occasionally.

Nope. They conceive if they are fertile

 

[Chrono13]

“St Augustine was the great Father of the Church who exposed the errors of Manichaeism. It was Augustine, too, who wrote most extensively against the practic4e of contraception, which those who were influenced by Manichaeism had come to defend on ideological grounds.” (The Catholic Catechism, Fr John A Hardon, S.J., Doubleday, 1975, p 369).

The dissenters don’t know that with St Augustine’s great return to Christ and His Church he had given up Manichaeism.

I agree with Hardon. But Augustine has seen NFP as contraception- and that is what John Hardons of the world don’t like to talk about.

His opposition to the Stoics is clear:
“The system of Pelagius can today be better understood than heretofore. Pelagius doubtless denied original sin, and the immortality and integrity of Adam; in a word, the whole supernatural order. But the parent idea of his system, which was of stoic origin, was nothing else than the complete “emancipation” of human liberty with regard to God, and its limitless power for good and for evil. It depended on man to attain by himself, without the grace of God, a stoic impeccability and even insensibility, or the absolute control of his passions. It was scarcely suspected, even up to our time, what frightful rigorism resulted from this exaggeration of the powers of liberty. Since perfection was possible, it was of obligation. There was no longer any distinction between precepts and counsels. Whatever was good was a duty. There was no longer any distinction between mortal and venial sin. Every useless word merited hell, and even excluded from the Church the children of God. All this has been established by hitherto unedited documents which Caspari has published (Briefe, Abhandlungen, und Predigten, Christiania, 1890).
“(3) The system of St. Augustine in opposition to this rests on three fundamental principles:

•God is absolute Master, by His grace, of all the determinations of the will;
•man remains free, even under the action of grace;
•the reconciliation of these two truths rests on the manner of the Divine government.”newadvent.org/cathen/02091a.htm

Last time it was individualism. Now it is omnipotence and salvation… what are you trying to prove? That Augustine had his rows with stoics? Of course he had. They were polytheists!

Augustine disagrees with stoicism on theological rigorism, and agrees with it on sexual one. Idea that sex is only for procration is his upgrade to stoic life without passions- and he is not hiding it.

Totally false again as we have seen, and never can this be substantiated.

Let us leave the objective reader to decide what he sees, and what he understands as substantiated. Bless you, but telling something is false will not make it false.

 

[razredge]

What teaching precisely? See post#216.

Let’s say whether Adam and Eve were literal, historical persons? Or whether the entire human race descended from just one couple?

 

[Michael_Francis]

Stay on topic people…

 

[Abu]

razredge
Your meanderings are off the thread, and you have so far shown an inability to understand historical facts and Catholic teaching. You may start a new thread.

 

[razredge]

razredge
Your meanderings are off the thread, and you have so far shown an inability to understand historical facts and Catholic teaching. You may start a new thread.

Well, it was actually related to the whether the teachings of encyclicals are infallible. Which was the crux of your argument.

Let us leave the objective reader to decide what he sees, and what he understands as substantiated. Bless you, but telling something is false will not make it false

I agree with Chrono - it is you you disregard the historical facts or selectively sinterpret them to support your own worldview.

Any objective person viewing the evidence would come to the same conclusion as us that the Church Fathers did not share the modern teaching on the nature of sex and condemned all forms of contraception including NFP.

Furthermore the only argument (and ‘the Church says it’s true so it must be true’ is not an argument) put forward showing that NFP is not equivalent to artificial contraception is the ‘procreative and unitive’ one which I have refuted.

I am not merely disagreeing with the Church for the sake of it - I simply do not see any good reasons (other than the infallibility issue) for the Church’s stance on contraception (and it would seem that the majority of clergy and laypeople agree with me).

 

[Abu]

Even John T Noonan, Jr., in Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Harvard University Press, 1965, p 6, lays out the very early and recurrent propositions against contraception. He states that “Since the first clear mention of contraception by a Christian theologian, when a harsh third-century moralist accused a pope of encouraging it, the articulated argument has been the same…. In the world of St Jerome and St Augustine…in the Paris of St Albert and St Thomas… in the Bombay of Cardinal Gracias, the teachers of the Church have taught without hesitation or variation that certain acts preventing procreation are gravely sinful. No Catholic theologian has ever taught ‘Contraception is a good act.’ The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever.”

The fact that Noonan became confused also, merely emphasises the constancy and historical legacy of the Church’s doctrine against contraception from the beginning.
(See Russell Shaw, Contraception Infallibility and the Ordinary Magisterium, in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, Ignatius 1995, p 353).

The continued attempts here, off topic, to try to show that the Church and Popes have been wrong in teaching on usury or condemning errors merely evince that the doubters are confused by dissenters, whether theologians or otherwise.

Russell Shaw quotes Noonan in discussing scholastic theories of usury:
‘Nothing here meets the test of dogma except this assertion, that usury, the act of taking profit on a loan without a just title, is sinful…This dogmatic teaching remains unchanged. What is just title, what is technically to be treated as a loan, are matters of debate, positive law, and changing evaluation. The development on these points is great. But the pure and narrow dogma is the same today as in 1200.”

Of course “dogma” is not involved and we have seen the definition of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) which gave the meaning of usury: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.”

 

[razredge]

No Catholic theologian has ever taught ‘Contraception is a good act.’ The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever.”

The continued attempts here, off topic, to try to show that the Church and Popes have been wrong in teaching on usury or condemning errors merely evince that the doubters are confused by dissenters, whether theologians or otherwise.

I agree that the early Church did not think contraception was a good act.

But the Church also did not think slavery was bad (even from the writings of Paul) and there has been a clear change in teaching there:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery

Of course I can already predict your response to this - any past teaching by the Church which is contradicted or ‘reinterpreted’ by modern teaching was never taught as dogma to begin with.

But that is basically a variant of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and circular reasoning as you define an infallible dogma as a teaching which hasn’t changed over the centuries.

 

[Abu]

Razredge, #251
Of course I can already predict your response to this - any past teaching by the Church which is contradicted or ‘reinterpreted’ by modern teaching was never taught as dogma to begin with.

This poster again intrudes slavery which is not the topic, but further also confuses dogma and doctrine, the difference having been explained in post #218 – some people make their own trouble, and never learn – and predictably relies yet again on wikipedia, for in post #207 this poster was advised: “No, the infallible doctrine against contraception is not a dogma – learn the difference.” The Church does not “contradict” or “reinterpret” doctrine that misrepresentation belongs to dissenters.

But that is basically a variant of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and circular reasoning as you define an infallible dogma as a teaching which hasn’t changed over the centuries

I define nothing; this poster seems quite unable to follow the definitions given by Christ’s Church in post #218 which show the difference between dogma and doctrine.

The development of doctrine is explained by Msgr Cormac C Burke.
“Since development of doctrine means a deeper and more inspiring understanding of the teaching Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church, it is a constantly enriching process. Development of doctrine, therefore, means our development in understanding. Our comprehension grows; revealed truth remains as always. That it remain the same, far from making it a static message, is the condition of its being dynamic, with the capacity to transform. The ‘given’ character of Revelation would in no way justify regarding it as something inert or lifeless.

“There is no contradiction or opposition between development of doctrine and infallibility. Infallibility relates not to the fullness of understanding of revealed doctrine, but to the truth (the freedom from error) of the Church’s way of proposing it. Development means that the Church can always acquire a deeper understanding of Revelation, being protected by the charism of infallibility from misunderstanding or misrepresenting those truths entrusted to it.”
[From Cormac P Burke, prelate of Opus Dei, former Judge of the Roman Rota (the Church’s highest court), Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, CD, Our Sunday Visitor].

 

[Chrono13]

Even John T Noonan, Jr., in Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Harvard University Press, 1965, p 6, lays out the very early and recurrent propositions against contraception. He states that “Since the first clear mention of contraception by a Christian theologian, when a harsh third-century moralist accused a pope of encouraging it, the articulated argument has been the same…. In the world of St Jerome and St Augustine…in the Paris of St Albert and St Thomas… in the Bombay of Cardinal Gracias, the teachers of the Church have taught without hesitation or variation that certain acts preventing procreation are gravely sinful. No Catholic theologian has ever taught ‘Contraception is a good act.’ The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever.”

Now- WHY were acts of preventing procreation sinful to them? Because sex is supposed to be open to life? Or because sex is only for procreation? If second is the case, Jerome, Augustine and Gracias are enemies of NFP. And they were, as we know from Augustine.

One can’t give people only half of the truth. “Contraception was always forbidden”. Fine. But why? Because sex was told to be moral only if you wish to beget a child. How NFP comes into story? It was regarded as contraception, because *intent *of the act (not means to achieve that intent) was what made act moral or not.

The fact that Noonan became confused also, merely emphasises the constancy and historical legacy of the Church’s doctrine against contraception from the beginning.
(See Russell Shaw, Contraception Infallibility and the Ordinary Magisterium, in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, Ignatius 1995, p 353).

Now how can something constant make Catholic intellectual as Noonan confused?

Of course “dogma” is not involved and we have seen the definition of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) which gave the meaning of usury: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.”

Indeed, Fifth Lateran Council forbid interest by this definition. Money was seen as barren, non producing thing. It was forbidden to acquire gain with it without work, expense or risk- and usual interest was the case here.

But I do not wish to talk about usury here. I am merely correcting the facts. If one opens the usury topic, I’d like to share my views. But here, we talk about NFP and contraception. We already have some good topics closed because people flooded them with distant things.

 

[Chrono13]

The development of doctrine is explained by Msgr Cormac C Burke.
“Since development of doctrine means a deeper and more inspiring understanding of the teaching Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church, it is a constantly enriching process. Development of doctrine, therefore, means our development in understanding. Our comprehension grows; revealed truth remains as always.

Ok, now in case of contraception, do you think that Christ left something which had to be developed in theory that sex is only for begetting children? In order to develop Theology of the body, did we need 19 centuries of teaching that marital sexuality is either for begetting children, or “carrying the burden of lust”?

 

[Good_Daughter]

I think Chrono13 has shown quite clearly that the Church has changed (or reinterpreted) its stance on contraception and the purpose of sex. At the very least you have to admit that a unbiased observer reading the Church Fathers would agree with his arguments.

Most things read in translation over a thousand years after they’re written take more than ‘observation’ to comprehend. Scripture itself is a good example of that.

Because you cannot conceive while using NFP (indeed you have less chance of conceiving than some artificial forms of contraception)

Aside from the fact that some couples use NFP specifically to conceive, right?

 

[Good_Daughter]

Of course not. This is why marital debt was seen as a venial sin, a weakness and a burden- not gift of self-giving and marriage enjoyment.

Was the marital debt considered obligatory?

You were given a source which stresses how allegorical interpretation was kept, and literal seen as foolish. I think I made my case there.

I missed where the *Song of Songs *narrative was called ‘foolish’, but that’s still a long way from ‘condemned’.

Nope. They conceive if they are fertile

We agree. Infertility, like fertility is never guaranteed.

 

[Good_Daughter]

I found it here, there are citations for the statement but they come from books - they may be online elsewhere though:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control

Sorry razredge, I meant to thank you for this link.