NFP Makes No Sense To Me

[Rico_S]

Your explanation of the invitation is exactly what people use to explain NFP as moral. I’m surprised you can’t see the logic of the argument.

I am surprised you don’t see my choosing when I have the dinner party as an action.

 

[Rico_S]

I am surprised you don’t see my choosing when I have the dinner party as an action.

Put it this way.

I am open to have as many children as God wants.

I intend to practice NFP to only engage in marital relations during non fertile times.

Am I taking an action that is contrary to my intent? Or am I simply not taking any action?

 

[Em_in_FL]

Your explanation of the invitation is exactly what people use to explain NFP as moral. I’m surprised you can’t see the logic of the argument.

NO, you HAVEN"T “taken an action”. Using NFP is NOT an actual “action”. Each and every act of sex needs to be open, but one isn’t required to do it every single day. There are reasons to not have sex-- sickness, exhaustion, kids being around, etc. To avoid sex because one doesn’t desire the ACTUAL OUTCOME of it (children) makes complete moral sense.

Put it this way.

I am open to have as many children as God wants.

I intend to practice NFP to only engage in marital relations during non fertile times.

Am I taking an action that is contrary to my intent? Or am I simply not taking any action?

Alright you two… moot point.
“Avoiding” can be interpreted as an action or inaction…
The point you’re both making (see?.. hug… agree! )… is that the act of marital sex cannot be altered from how it was designed/intended to be used.

It can be avoided, but not abused.

 

[KellyPalmer]

I am surprised you don’t see my choosing when I have the dinner party as an action.

Choosing when to have the party is an action. But every other day you aren’t making the action of choosing not to have a party. There’s nothing wrong with choosing when to have the party or choosing when to have sex.

 

[JackieMom]

I disagree with the party analogy because there are other factors that come into play that don’t apply to NFP. By purposefully planning parties when your sister is unavailable, but still inviting her, the problem is that you areprobably hurting her feelings and possibly making your ther guests uncomfortable attending an event that was strategically planned to exclude another member of the family. That is why the dinner planning event is problematic. You are enjoying the dinner party, AND excluding your sister.

NFP is more like, “We’d rather not have my sister over, so we will not have a dinner party at all this weekend.” You don’t have to have your sister over, but you also don’t get to enjoy having the event.

 

[Rico_S]

Alright you two… moot point.

Not to be argumentative, but it speaks to my point… I am trying to point out where the confusion comes in and why people do not “get” it. Here, I was showing how the “you are taking no action” explanation only muddies the water. It doesn’t make it clearer.

“Avoiding” can be interpreted as an action or inaction…

So you agree with me!! The whole “not taking an action thing” is not likely to make it clearer… If Em is on my side, I think I win!!

The point you’re both making (see?.. hug… agree! )… is that the act of marital sex cannot be altered from how it was designed/intended to be used.

There is clarity in the rule.

 

[Rico_S]

NFP is more like, “We’d rather not have my sister over, so we will not have a dinner party at all this weekend.” You don’t have to have your sister over, but you also don’t get to enjoy having the event.

To me NFP is exactly like that…I get to enjoy the event while not inviting my sister. Seems crystal clear to me. I honestly don’t see how one can see it differently:shrug: I guess we will just have to disagree, which is ok.

I do understand each is will see things through the filter of his/her own bias…from either side of the fence.

 

[JackieMom]

To me NFP is exactly like that…I get to enjoy the event while not inviting my sister. Seems crystal clear to me. I honestly don’t see how one can see it differently:shrug: I guess we will just have to disagree, which is ok.

I do understand each is will see things through the filter of his/her own bias…from either side of the fence.

No. You don’t get to enjoy sex during the time you are trying to avoid, unlike if you were using condoms. The fact that you get to have sex during infertile periods is irrelevant. You would do that anyway and there is nothing wrong with having sex at low fertility times.

 

[mrs_ahs]

I think that abstaining every time you’re fertile is more disasterous to a couple’s intimacy than just using contraception.

How do you even have an opinion on that when you’ve never been married??? You are very, very wrong on that point. Besides, out of the hundreds of NFP couples I have ever met, I can’t think of one who has claimed that they abstain or plan to abstain every single fertile day ever, throughout their entire marriage. But you don’t get to have sex during the fertile time, thwart that act, and then call yourself a Catholic. It doesn’t work that way. Conversely, no married couple is required to abstain during fertile times. You can have sex every day if you both want to. But then you must accept the possibility of children. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Getting married doesn’t somehow mean that all sexual behaviors suddenly become an option. We still have to obey God’s laws, we don’t get to just do whatever makes us feel good, even if it’s immoral or disrespects the dignity of our spouse. We have to act like mature adults.

I think you are overthinking this thing, big time. NFP use does not occur in a vacuum. NFP couples are real people. I just don’t think that this plays out the way that you think it does for most NFP couples. Everything is not black and white. There are a lot of gray areas. Why don’t you just wait and see where God leads you, and if you even get married, before you obsess about this. You may marry one of those women whose babies are naturally spaced 3 or 4 years apart just by breastfeeding. Or you may face the cross of infertility. Or you may not get married at all. Or if you do, you and your wife may find that babies are so much more awesome than you thought, and you are blessed with good health and finances, and you want to welcome tons of them. Why don’t you wait until you actually get married someday and are faced with the necessity of using NFP before you decide that it sucks so bad and it’s so horrible for a marriage??

Out of curiosity, how old are you? You sound very young to be such an expert.

 

[agapewolf]

Alright you two… moot point.
“Avoiding” can be interpreted as an action or inaction…
The point you’re both making (see?.. hug… agree! )… is that the act of marital sex cannot be altered from how it was designed/intended to be used.

It can be avoided, but not abused.

No. Avoiding is NFP. PREVENTING is contraception

Two different things.

 

[thewanderer]

Goodness, I think you are making some assumptions about what I am saying in this post.

I think that here is where a line can be drawn between your concern and mine. You believe that altering the of marital act is deteriorating to it’s intimacy and I believe that abstaining from the marital act is deteriorating to it’s intimacy, which is the intent and purpose of the marital act.

I haven’t anywhere spoken of altering the marital act as deteriorating the intimacy between the couple. What I have done is to try to explain how the Church can make a distinction between NFP and contraception and consistently allow one but not the other.

I also have to ask this… every abstains from sex. Sometimes the couple is tired, sometimes their just busy etc. I am curious, but the way you are phrasing this it almost makes it sound as though you think it is actually wrong and immoral to abstain. Is that what you are trying to say here?

Of course it must also be open to life and is whether you obstain or use contraception.

Actually… the Church’s teaching is that contraception turns an act of sex into an act that is closed to life. I get that you don’t understand why the Church teaches that, but I think if you can take a step back to see what the Church actually says you will be able to at least see that the Church’s position is consistent and logical, even if you still do not agree with it.

We’re both looking at it as the act of spacing out the birth of your children, not the total disregard thereof. However, where you and I differ is that I see abstaining as being just as “altering” of the marital act as I do contraception: the only difference is that abstaining deteriorates the intimacy of the marital act.

I think you are using the word altering differently than I am. I mean simply that you physically alter it so that it will not be able to be procreative. Please don’t get hung up on the word alter, if it ends up making it difficult to understand what I am saying then forget about it, but try to see the point behind it which I was trying to make. abstaining is clearly different than physically altering the act to make it closed to life. It is the action of making a sexual act closed to life which the Church objects to.

Also, again, you are making it sound as though abstaining is immoral, but even if a couple is having sex every day, or twice a day, they are still abstaining in between each act of sex. All abstaining means is not having sex. And, while it is clear that there are times when it would be immoral to abstain (refusing the debt unjustly) it is also clear that abstaining is not something which is inherently sinful or immoral. Would you agree with that?

Contraception does not, and we both agree that intimacy is what the marital act is for.

Well, its not just for intimacy. It has two ends and purposes, both of which are important.

Couples are more sexually active whenever they’re fertile than when they are not; so you’d literally be telling them that they’re not allowed to be intimate when they’re naturally most inclined to be, unless of course they want a child for every time they have sex.

I’m a woman, I am aware of the fact that a woman’s inclination for sex changes according to her cycle. And, well, no one is telling anybody that they have to abstain. It is not up to me to decide when a couple should or should not abstain. But, yes, practically speaking using NFP to avoid will mean abstaining while the woman is most interested. Is that always easy? No of course not. But is it immoral? Not if there is a good reason to abstain. What if the woman was sick during her most fertile time. What if she just happened to have been sick for the duration of her past 3 fertile times, would it be immoral for her to abstain in such a situation? No, because she has good reason to abstain. Look, I agree with you that couples should not abstain without good reason because sex is a very good thing and an extremely important element of marriage, but abstaining because one has a good reason to abstain is not immoral in any way shape or form.

You’re pretty much contracepting at the expense of marital intimacy.

I have to say that I do not understand what you are saying here.

(cont…)

 

[thewanderer]

(…cont)

All contraception does is make what you’re trying to achieve with NFP ten-times easier.

Again, here, you have made a distinction between NFP and contraception based solely on the ends. I agree that if you only look at the ends of NFP to avoid and contraception it will appear as though there is no logical reason to allow the one but not the other. That is because the reason the Church gives against contraception has nothing to do with avoiding conception. Avoiding conception is perfectly moral if one has a good reason. The problem is that the Church sees the means of contraception as being inherently immoral, whereas the means of NFP (ie abstinance) is only immoral if one does not have a good reason to abstain. So when the Church looks at these two means of achieving the same end it sees one means (contraception) which is inherently immoral and it sees another which is only immoral if one doe not have a good reason to abstain. This is why Catholics are told that they can’t practice NFP without a good reason. Sex is good and extremely important for the health of a marriage, so one should not abstain from it for long periods of time without a very good reason.

Honestly, damaging the intimacy between two married people is a much greater concern to me than “altering the marital act.”

I understand that, which is why you might never end up agreeing with the Church here, but can you at least see that the Church’s position is logical and consistant?

I mean, even if the seed doesn’t enter it’s still the marital act. For example, if you let another person perform oral sex on you until you cast your seed, your spouse will still be offended because you took “the marital act” outside of the marriage. You can say “well it didn’t go in, so it doesn’t count.” Yet you know that it does.

I really have no idea why you brought this up.

 

[thewanderer]

Sigh. Honestly I’m afraid of sounding too stubborn or argumentitive. The truth is that I really hate this. I know that I am arguing against the Church and against the faith. I’m not trying to argue, I’m just trying to establish why it’s hard for me to conform intellectually to the Church’s position in regards to this issue.

Thats totally fine, don’t worry, you really didn’t come across as just trying to argue against Church teaching. I think it is great that you are trying so hard to understand.

I’m hoping that one day I’ll just “get it” like mrs ahs by actually experiencing it. I thought that I “got it” whenever I had sexual relations with my ex using contraceptives, because we were heart-sinkingly scared of actually concieving of a child. I thought to myself “this isn’t what God wants for my relationship, or for me.” It was truly terrifying and I understood why the conception of a human being shouldn’t be percieved in such a way. However, if the actual changing of the sexual act is the problem and not the fear of actually concieving, then I don’t see how it makes one iota of a difference. I can imagine being more secure in a marital relationship and not caring if our “percautions” didn’t work out. Just like I wouldn’t care if we messed up the timing using NFP to avoid pregnancy. I thought that openess to life was the real issue; but contraception in marriage is really just a matter of spacing the births of your children, whereas not having sex all together is hazardous to your intimacy -as in it doesn’t occur. You can say it’s not, but several people have testified otherwise both here and on the link I provided in the OP. I just wish that this wasn’t as much a part of the faith as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Primacy of the Pope or the Blessedness of Our Lady, but it is. As in, it is pronounced infallibly by the Church as a part of the Catholic faith. Being Catholic will forever be about Christ, the Sacraments, the Scriptures, the Church, and being absolutely positive that your seed ends up in the vagina of the woman that you’re married to. Yup. No more seperable than Christ in the Eucharist…

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

To me NFP is exactly like that…I get to enjoy the event while not inviting my sister. Seems crystal clear to me. I honestly don’t see how one can see it differently:shrug: I guess we will just have to disagree, which is ok.

I do understand each is will see things through the filter of his/her own bias…from either side of the fence.

With contraception though you have the dinner party.
You make it known to your sister that there will be a dinner party then when she gets there,
you lock the door. Or get a bouncer to not let her in. Or a hit-man to shoot her.

So not really the same as changing your plans.

 

[agapewolf]

With contraception though you have the dinner party.
You make it known to your sister that there will be a dinner party then when she gets there,
you lock the door. Or get a bouncer to not let her in. Or a hit-man to shoot her.

So not really the same as changing your plans.

I’d say, it is sending her a “dis-invitation”. “I’m having a party and you are NOT invited”

 

[manualman]

I confess to skipping 5 pages of responses due to fatigue on the issue, but the OP seems sincere, so I thought I’d share my experience.

NFP WILL breed resentment and bitterness if you view it as the catholic alternative to contraception. It’s not that at all. What it ACTUALLY is is the valid alternative to complete abstinance! It’s much easier to embrace that way…

Catholic teaching on contraception makes no sense to many people today because people don’t realize that they’ve been raised with a materialist attitude to the universe in general. The underlying principle that leads to ALL the controversial stances that catholicism takes on human sexuality is that marriage, sex and babies are NOT separate topics, but ONE intwined and divinely ordained subject. The sexual relationship between man and wife operates at depths of the human soul that we don’t remotely begin to fathom (especially today). Without realizing it, most of us have swallowed our culture’s attitude that sex is all about the pleasure. That’s backwards. The pleasure is merely the surface symptom of what is REALLY happening in the bond between man and wife. Sure the pill or condom does little to block the pleasure aspect, but intentionally sterilizing the embrace is NOT just a physical effect. The purposeful intent to sterilize the act bleeds over into the relationship as well. It’s not just that the pill blocks the baby, but the attitude that drives it damages the unitive nature of the contact at the same time.

It’s no coincidence that cultures that socially embrace contraception universally become cultures that no longer have enough children to replace themselves within two generations. We have very little comprehension of how beatifully and wonderfully God made us and have tinkered with His design at our own mortal peril.

P.S. Whether we are talking about fornication, divorce/remarriage, ‘gay marriage,’ contraception, in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood, the basis in moral theology is the same. All these things seek to displace the way that God made marriage, sex and babies a single, tangled up messy subject that we barely begin to understand yet and still we’ve had the arrogance to believe we can slice them apart into difference combinations at will without suffering ill consequences. We can’t and the evidence grows more obvious for those with eyes to see every day.

 

[KellyPalmer]

I confess to skipping 5 pages of responses due to fatigue on the issue, but the OP seems sincere, so I thought I’d share my experience.

NFP WILL breed resentment and bitterness if you view it as the catholic alternative to contraception. It’s not that at all. What it ACTUALLY is is the valid alternative to complete abstinance! It’s much easier to embrace that way…

Catholic teaching on contraception makes no sense to many people today because people don’t realize that they’ve been raised with a materialist attitude to the universe in general. The underlying principle that leads to ALL the controversial stances that catholicism takes on human sexuality is that marriage, sex and babies are NOT separate topics, but ONE intwined and divinely ordained subject. The sexual relationship between man and wife operates at depths of the human soul that we don’t remotely begin to fathom (especially today). Without realizing it, most of us have swallowed our culture’s attitude that sex is all about the pleasure. That’s backwards. The pleasure is merely the surface symptom of what is REALLY happening in the bond between man and wife. Sure the pill or condom does little to block the pleasure aspect, but intentionally sterilizing the embrace is NOT just a physical effect. The purposeful intent to sterilize the act bleeds over into the relationship as well. It’s not just that the pill blocks the baby, but the attitude that drives it damages the unitive nature of the contact at the same time.

It’s no coincidence that cultures that socially embrace contraception universally become cultures that no longer have enough children to replace themselves within two generations. We have very little comprehension of how beatifully and wonderfully God made us and have tinkered with His design at our own mortal peril.

:clapping:

 

[CatholicofAgora]

The word “procreation” is a noun… it’s the act or process of procreating, which does assume fertility.

So yes, a woman could be completely infertile and still have procreative sex. A woman could be cyclically infertile and have procreative sex.

It doesn’t matter if she’s infertile or fertile, temporarily or permanently… the action of sex can still be done in a “procreative” manner… where the sex is “ordered toward procreation” (again, never actually saying “procreation” has to take place).

To put it bluntly… “procreative sex” means that the husband must finish inside the wife… again, fertility doesn’t matter.

UHMMMM… No offense, but HOW??? I don’t see how having sex specifically when a woman is infertile is “pro-creative” i.e. “ordered towards procreation.” That’s like intentionally striking out in baseball and saying you were trying to hit a home run! You could say, “Well I was on the plate. I swung the bat, and I was “open” to hit the ball. But… I just felt like waiting until AFTER the catcher caught it to swing the bat.”

As someone who will need to use NFP to avoid for the next 15-20 years after this baby is born and has not always been happy about it…

Sometimes it’s better to stop wrestling with Church teaching, and start following it out of sheer obedience and humility. Our Church (and therefore, God), says we can’t use contraception. That’s really the end of it, whether we like it or agree, isn’t it?

I figure if somehow the Church is wrong, and when I die I find that God really does not care if people use contraception, He will still be abundantly pleased with the hardship I endured and the sacrifice I made in the name of obeying Him.

Lol, well that’s pretty much the game plan. However, it doesn’t hurt to beg the issue for two main reasons: a.) Your position works for those of us who are “inside the circle” who give credence to authority. For example, it matters to me what the Church Fathers believed and taught, because I want to preserve what we believe. However, those “outside the circle” are left wanting, and it’s our duty as believers to make their concerns our own and help carry their burdens. And b.) This is the deposit of faith, which should never be taken lightly. We can’t just “blindly follow” like Mormons, we have to take initiative and understand our faith, otherwise it doesn’t remain “our faith.” It doesn’t belong to us, it’s just something we go along with because we were taught to do so.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

How do you even have an opinion on that when you’ve never been married??? You are very, very wrong on that point. Besides, out of the hundreds of NFP couples I have ever met, I can’t think of one who has claimed that they abstain or plan to abstain every single fertile day ever, throughout their entire marriage. But you don’t get to have sex during the fertile time, thwart that act, and then call yourself a Catholic. It doesn’t work that way. Conversely, no married couple is required to abstain during fertile times. You can have sex every day if you both want to. But then you must accept the possibility of children. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Getting married doesn’t somehow mean that all sexual behaviors suddenly become an option. We still have to obey God’s laws, we don’t get to just do whatever makes us feel good, even if it’s immoral or disrespects the dignity of our spouse. We have to act like mature adults.

I think you are overthinking this thing, big time. NFP use does not occur in a vacuum. NFP couples are real people. I just don’t think that this plays out the way that you think it does for most NFP couples. Everything is not black and white. There are a lot of gray areas. Why don’t you just wait and see where God leads you, and if you even get married, before you obsess about this. You may marry one of those women whose babies are naturally spaced 3 or 4 years apart just by breastfeeding. Or you may face the cross of infertility. Or you may not get married at all. Or if you do, you and your wife may find that babies are so much more awesome than you thought, and you are blessed with good health and finances, and you want to welcome tons of them. Why don’t you wait until you actually get married someday and are faced with the necessity of using NFP before you decide that it sucks so bad and it’s so horrible for a marriage??

Out of curiosity, how old are you? You sound very young to be such an expert.

Lol, I really liked this post. I’m twenty. I came to this conclusion based on the complications NFP seems to be causing people who have reported both complications in this thread and the thread linked to in the OP in regards to their sex lives, and the concerns of St. Paul in the Bible. To me, it registers on a much deeper level than my not yet existent sex life. It has to do with both the universality and the deposit of my faith. It’s important for me to be reconciled to these issues, especially if I want to teach others to practice it as well. And what’s the point of having your cake if you’re not going to eat it? That just seems like a waste of good cake…

No. Avoiding is NFP. PREVENTING is contraception

Two different things.

a·void
verb (used with object)
#2. to prevent from happening: to avoid falling.

dictionary.reference.com/browse/avoid?s=t

Pretty much sums up why I don’t get the whole thing in a nut shell

thewanderer;10603984:

I also have to ask this… every abstains from sex. Sometimes the couple is tired, sometimes their just busy etc. I am curious, but the way you are phrasing this it almost makes it sound as though you think it is actually wrong and immoral to abstain. Is that what you are trying to say here?

No, it would infact be virtuous to abstain. Like St. Paul, I think at the consnet of both partners that they should abstain for a season of prayerfulness, NOT for the intent of avoiding pregnancy. This is what this passage was written for, the strengthening of self-control, NOT to regulate births in your marriage. However, St. Paul only says this out of point-of-argument, NOT out of apostolic command, meaning that we are asking more of people than even the apostles did. You can say that we’re not “forcing” people to abstain, but in reality, as in actually looking to our conscience when we say this, this is exaclty what we’re doing. Just like whenever the Obama administration wasn’t “forcing” Catholic establishments to provide contraception to their employees. They were only to “provide the medicare and coverage FOR contraceptives” to their employees. It’s like saying “No, you don’t have to abstain. But if you don’t, I hope you’re open to having ten to twenty kids.” It just doesn’t feel very honest to say that we’re not forcing couples to abstain when we pretty much are.

Actually… the Church’s teaching is that contraception turns an act of sex into an act that is closed to life. I get that you don’t understand why the Church teaches that, but I think if you can take a step back to see what the Church actually says you will be able to at least see that the Church’s position is consistent and logical, even if you still do not agree with it.

I guess I can see what they’re saying, but then again you can use NFP for the same reason which is permitted by the Church for the sake of “spacing” your births. I can say it’s logical, but I can’t say that it’s consistent. It all goes back to the definitions of “avoid” and “prevent.” You’re just splitting hairs at that point, as I demonstrated earlier via dictionary.com.

 

[agapewolf]

You are walking and come across a church
3 options

1. You pass by the church (abstaining)
2. You go in to pray (sexual act)
3. You go in and desecrate the church with graffiti (contraception)

Try this: walking up to a sewer manhole in the street.

Avoiding it is walking around it. Preventing falling is covering it up and walking over it. 2 different things.

Contraception is actually desecrating the act itself. The ACT is important here. When it happens is not the issue. Altering the act itself is.

Marriage is the image of Christ’s love for his church. Christ gave his whole body, completely, to His bride. There were no barriers. The ability to procreate is the thing that God has given us that is most God-like. The ability to decide when a new immortal soul will exist forever. Shutting that aspect down is an abuse to the human person.