Onan's Story in Genesis and Catholic View

[zz912]

But back to Jesus. I was always confused by his statement that if someone looks on a woman with lust in his heart he already has committed adultery. I somehow think that lust is a fairly normal and possible even healthy thing, especially for a young adult male perhaps, and it is natural to be tempted but noble to resist temptation. I presume scholars have fussed over that and come up with many different escape valves. Scholars do that quite well.

Then, adultery. Hm! Somehow I thought that can be committed by a married person only. Fornication is committed by a single person. Maybe I'm wrong on that.

I’m betting you’re wrong. If you reach a point where you think Jesus was wrong about something, it is certain He is not, and you are. This would be the perfect time to listen to His Church that He left to be able to tell you what was right and what was wrong! He built the Church for a reason!

  Departing the thread a bit but very relevant today, especially in Iowa. I do hate to think that Gingrich and his former mistress could ever occupy the White House. That really would shock and upset me. And what a wild example for our young people. "Our president was divorced twice, had various affairs, then married a third time. But, alas, what a good Catholic!" Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical, but....  O, forget it. 

God bless everybody, even Newt!

Sadly Newt’s moral failings would still be an improvement from the moral failings of our current President.

 

[garysibio]

Dear Friends,

Why did God kill Onan (Genesis 38:3-10)? Was it because he was not complying with the Levirate marriage rules or, because of his actions, he was preventing conception? How does birth control relate to all of this? Thanks in advance.

Since Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law gave us Levirate marriage. Also, the Bible gives us the punishment for failing to follow this law and it wasn’t capital punishment. You got smacked with a shoe:

Deut 25:5-10 'If brothers live together and one of them dies childless, the dead man’s wife may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her husband’s brother must come to her and, exercising his duty as brother, make her his wife, and the first son she bears must assume the dead brother’s name; by this means his name will not be obliterated from Israel. But if the man declines to take his brother’s wife, she must go to the elders at the gate and say, “I have no brother-in-law willing to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he declines to exercise his duty as brother in my favour.” The elders of the town must summon the man and talk to him. If, on appearing before them, he says, “I refuse to take her,” then the woman to whom he owes duty as brother must go up to him in the presence of the elders, take the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and pronounce the following words, “This is what is done to the man who refuses to restore his brother’s house,” and his family must henceforth be known in Israel as House of the Unshod. (NJB)

 

[Gorgias]

Oh, so much to touch upon!

Let’s start with Roy…

You mention “adultery” and “lust”. With respect to the former, you seem confused why the word “adultery” (and not “fornication”) was used. The context is pretty clear: Jesus is talking about the prohibition against adultery found in the Mosaic Law. In this context, Jews are told not to have relations with others’ wives. Jesus takes this a step further: it’s not just that you shouldn’t make a move on a married woman – if you even entertain lustful thoughts about a married woman, you’ve essentially committed adultery in your heart! (In addition, the word used here, “γυναῖκα”, can be used both as “woman” and “wife”. For example, in Matthew 1:20, Joseph is advised to take Mary as his γυναῖκα. So, it’s not a non sequitur that this word is used here; it’s distinctively different than the word for “girl” or “virgin” or “maiden”.)

Now, on to “lust”. Perhaps you have a particular definition in mind, when you defend lust as a good thing? Here, certainly, Jesus is condemning it. In his teachings, Pope John Paul II helped us to a better understanding of what’s at stake here. “Lust” speaks to a simple desire oriented toward physical gratification, and not toward the good that is found in marriage. Would you want your daughter’s boyfriend to look at her lustfully, or your co-worker to look at your wife with lust? Of course not – because it’s an inappropriate way of relating to them.

 

[Gorgias]

Since Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law gave us Levirate marriage. Also, the Bible gives us the punishment for failing to follow this law and it wasn’t capital punishment. You got smacked with a shoe

Gary,

Your response confuses me. First, you seem to recognize the chronology in the story: Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law. Next, you fall victim to anachronism: Onan couldn’t have committed an offense against (Levirate) marriage, since the Mosaic Law prescribed a shoe smack-down.

If the Mosaic Law wasn’t in effect at the time Onan lived, why should we expect his punishment to follow the Law?

 

[Gorgias]

He had no remorse for wanting to burn her (before he knew it was incest)

He was applying the legal standard of the day. Do you expect a judge to show remorse when s/he applies the laws of the U.S.?

or for hiring her as a prostitute.

Did he hire a prostitute? He may have intended to, but did he? Let’s try a thought experiment. You decide you dislike me, so you take my car and dump it into the river. Grand theft auto, right? But, then you find out that it wasn’t my car – it was your wife’s. Oops! Can you steal your own car? Of course not! So, in the end, we see that Judah intended to utilize a prostitute, but didn’t; and he thought Tamar was pregnant by means of illicit sex, but she wasn’t; and that her child(ren) were not of his family, but they were!

By the way, you also make the claim that they seemed to not care about the child. If we’re talking about “law”, then you need to recognize that the child of an illicit affair had no standing – he was not part of the clan, and had no legal rights. At best, he and his mother would be outcasts; here, we see that he wanted justice (such as it was, back then) against a woman in his family who became pregnant from an outsider.

 

[garysibio]

Gary,

Your response confuses me. First, you seem to recognize the chronology in the story: Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law. Next, you fall victim to anachronism: Onan couldn’t have committed an offense against (Levirate) marriage, since the Mosaic Law prescribed a shoe smack-down.

If the Mosaic Law wasn’t in effect at the time Onan lived, why should we expect his punishment to follow the Law?

My point was that there are two reasons why Onan was not being punished for violating Levirate marriage:

1. Levirate marriage didn’t exist yet.
2. The punishment he received was not the punishment specified for violating Levirate marriage once it was instituted.

I hope that makes it clearer.

 

[Gorgias]

My point was that there are two reasons why Onan was not being punished for violating Levirate marriage:

1. Levirate marriage didn’t exist yet.
2. The punishment he received was not the punishment specified for violating Levirate marriage once it was instituted.

I hope that makes it clearer.

The first one almost makes sense, but the second reason doesn’t.

Perhaps Levirate marriage wasn’t codified, as it was under the Mosaic law, but it clearly existed in principle, since we see that the man whose brother dies without children is expected to provide his sister-in-law with a son. You could argue that Onan wasn’t being punished under the (Mosaic) law for failing his obligation to his deceased brother, but it’s pretty clear that he’s failing in that particular obligation!

Your second reason is still confusing, though – it seems to ask us to believe that the Mosaic law simply picked up existing criminal punishments and codified them. That’s the only way we might hope to expect linkage between pre-covenant and post-covenant punishment, isn’t it?

 

[TimothyH]

Gary,

Your response confuses me. First, you seem to recognize the chronology in the story: Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law. Next, you fall victim to anachronism: Onan couldn’t have committed an offense against (Levirate) marriage, since the Mosaic Law prescribed a shoe smack-down.

If the Mosaic Law wasn’t in effect at the time Onan lived, why should we expect his punishment to follow the Law?

God killed Onan. It was God who demanded Onan’s life.

The law was given by the very same God. It was that same exact God who gave the Law to Moses.

Now why would God apply two different standards? Those who claim that Onan was killed for not fulfilling his duty to his brother’s widow forget that it was the same God who demanded Onan’s his life. Later on, God said that the punishment for this exact offense was to be spit on, slapped with a sandal and humiliated. Why the difference? Why did God apply two different standards, one to Onan and one to the Israelites from the time of Moses onward?

The answer is that he didn’t. Onan’s life was not demanded for his refusal to fulfill his duty to his brother’s widow. God’s revelation to us through the Mosaic law is that this was not a mortal sin because it was not a capital crime. What Onan did however, was a capital crime. What Onan did was a mortal sin.

Now we can argue whether that capital crime/mortal sin of Onan was lying to the Holy Spirit as some claim or whether it was spilling his seed, but we cannot argue that the crime was refusing to raise an heir to his brother with his brother’s widow because a God of justice would not kill someone for that particular sin on one day and then change the punishment later on. God does not change and as Catholics, we know that what constitutes sin does not change either.

-Tim-

 

[TimothyH]

Gary,

Your response confuses me. First, you seem to recognize the chronology in the story: Onan lived long before the Mosaic Law. Next, you fall victim to anachronism: Onan couldn’t have committed an offense against (Levirate) marriage, since the Mosaic Law prescribed a shoe smack-down.

If the Mosaic Law wasn’t in effect at the time Onan lived, why should we expect his punishment to follow the Law?

God killed Onan. It was God who demanded Onan’s life.

The law of Moses was given by the very same God. It was that same exact God who gave the Law to Moses.

Now why would God apply two different standards? Those who claim that Onan was killed by God for not fulfilling his duty to his brother’s widow forget that the God who demanded Onan’s his life was the very same God who later on specified the punishment for not raising an heir to one’s brother’s widow. Some argue that Onan was killed by God for not raising an heir to his brother’s wife, but later God said that the punishment for this exact offense was to be spit on, slapped with a sandal and humiliated. Why the difference? Why did God apply two different standards, one to Onan and one to the Israelites from the time of Moses onward?

The answer is that he didn’t.

God doesn’t change and neither does sin, mortal or venial, ever. Remember that God is outside of time. Onan’s sin, the giving of the Law to Moses, and our discussion of it here on CAF are all present, all “Now” to God. These events and everything else which has ever happened and will ever happen, things which we experience in time, are all at the same moment to God. So what was a moral sin one day can’t be a venial sin the next and then not a sin the day after.

Onan’s life was not demanded for his refusal to fulfill his duty to his brother’s widow. God’s revelation to us through the Mosaic law is that this was not a mortal sin because it was not a capital crime under the Law. What Onan did however, was a capital crime. What Onan did was mortal.

Now we can argue whether that capital crime/mortal sin of Onan was lying to the Holy Spirit as some claim or whether it was spilling his seed, but we cannot argue that the crime was refusing to raise an heir to his brother with his brother’s widow because a God of justice would not kill someone for that particular sin on one day and then change the punishment later on. God does not change, and as Catholics we know that what constitutes sin does not change either.

-Tim-

 

[Gorgias]

God doesn’t change and neither does sin, mortal or venial, ever. Remember that God is outside of time.

Ouch. You might want to reconsider that statement, Tim.

Let’s play a game. One hundred years ago, was it a sin for a Catholic to eat meat on (any) Friday? Today, is it a sin to eat meat on any Friday?

Let’s play another game. What does Paul say about sin and law in Romans? Did those who sinned, prior to the law, break the law? Of course not: “I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive” (Rom 7:9). Hmm… OK, then – maybe the sin existed, even though the law wasn’t in effect, and that’s why Onan is held accountable? Nope – “for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law” (Rom 5:13)

The law of Moses was given by the very same God. It was that same exact God who gave the Law to Moses. Now why would God apply two different standards?

That Mosaic law, given by God, proscribed the eating of “unclean” animals, didn’t it? Yet, that same exact God gave Peter a vision saying that “all is clean”.

This leads to two questions: did God apply two different standards? why?

to the first question, the answer is clearly “yes”; to the second, the answer is “because these laws applied to people within the scope of time and within the context of history”. Mosaic law was appropriate in its own time, and the law given to Peter in the vision was appropriate in its own time – just like mandatory abstinence was appropriate when it was Church law, and the lifting of mandatory abstinence was appropriate in its own time and place. That’s the definition of a “discipline” – it doesn’t reflect on the immutability of God, but on the mutability of humanity in the context of history.

we cannot argue that the crime was refusing to raise an heir to his brother with his brother’s widow because a God of justice would not kill someone for that particular sin on one day and then change the punishment later on. God does not change, and as Catholics we know that what constitutes sin does not change either.

But we can argue that it’s a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday for our grandparents, yet not for us? C’mon, Tim, think about it… the case you’re making just doesn’t hold up…!

 

[bmullins]

Ouch. You might want to reconsider that statement, Tim.

Let’s play a game. One hundred years ago, was it a sin for a Catholic to eat meat on (any) Friday? Today, is it a sin to eat meat on any Friday?

Canon law is not the same as God’s moral law.

 

[TimothyH]

The bottom line for me as a Catholic is that my Holy Mother the Church has said repeatedly that contraception is a grave sin. If I believe that the Church is all she claims to be, and I do, then I obey first - I give the assent of faith to God’s revealed truth as taught through His mouthpiece on earth, the Church - and I understand the why later. For me personally, every time I have stepped out into what looked like a chasm though the obedience of faith, God has been there to catch me. And he has given me understanding. But faith comes first.

That’s a strict a axiom I have found in the spiritual life, that although the world tries to understand things first and only when it understands something will it believe, with spiritual matters and things of God, faith comes first. Once one believes and gives the assent of faith, then God will give light and understanding and you will be happy.

So for me it is very comforting to know that the Church is like a compass whose needle always points in the right direction. I’m not saying that the way the needle points is always the easy way, but that it is always the right way. Time after time after time, I have stepped out in bedience of faith first and then God has shown me how the Church was right all along. It is a great comfort to know that the compass needle always points in the right direction, to have something to trust which never, ever lets me down.

-Tim-

 

[Miriam1947]

Don’t bother with this fellow; he thinks what he wants to, even if it defies everything Christ taught - even if it defies common sense. He has no respect for authority, even though Christ Himself said “The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not).” (Matthew 23:2-3)

I think bmullins summed it up pretty well, though. It doesn’t logically follow that simply denying a woman her children would have gotten Onan killed, according to the Torah. Something else - perhaps what the writer observed - is what brought death upon him.

Very good. You have done your homework, and I can verify that these things are true.

The Reformers did place a great emphasis on the family and NOT using birth control. Even Calvin opposed birth control!

Roy, you really think the Romans couldn’t find some way to abort children? There are all kinds of foods, herbs, and other things that can prevent and kill pregnancies like modern contraceptives. I recall there being a particular plant that was a famous contraceptive - so much so that it went extinct by Roman times.

I just went to the link. I learn so much here.

 

[Gorgias]

Canon law is not the same as God’s moral law.

Agreed. Yet, that wasn’t the question. The assertion was that God wouldn’t make a law and then change it. Dump the example of Friday abstinence, if you wish. You still have the example of the Mosaic law’s dietary requirements, and the fact that God’s revelation to Peter changed them, which is what Tim claimed God doesn’t do.