Scripture Against Masturbation?

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KinseyMcGuire

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Hi! I’m probably going to ask alot of annoying questions, but I’m a prodigcal Catholic who is hoping to start Confirmations this spring. (Me and driving in snow mix about like oil and water, lol) So the first of annoying questions…

Where in the Bible does it speak against masturbation? I haven’t come across that part so far, especially in the Gospel. Is it in the Bible or is a teaching of the Church that it’s immoral? And if it’s not in the Bible, why did the Church come to the conclusion that it’s immoral?
 
Firstly you may wish to consult Genesis 38:3-10, the story of Onan, which is the most specific Biblical passage on the subject.

Then consider the Gospel passages where Jesus states that whoever even looks at another with lust in their heart has already committed adultery with them - lust is most always either a tangential or integral ingredient in masturbation, even if some like to pretend it isn’t.

Then there’s St Paul - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Do not err: neither fornicators, … nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind … shall possess the kingdom of God.” (Douay-Rheims Bible)

In other words it’s a blanket prohibition all that was understood to be sexual sin at the time, so masturbation would have been included in this group if not expressly stated.

Some translations, particulary the King James and American Standard versions, actually include the words ‘abusers of themselves’ which makes it clearer.

I’m sure others can find more scriptural support for the prohibition.
 
2Corinthian:12
21 I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned before and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and licentiousness which they have practiced.

Certainly masturbation could fall under either impurity or licentiousness.
 
The sin of Onan is to deny the injunction to raise up children in his brother’s name. It is condemning a woman to continue childless and to be held up to ridicule in public. It was a great shame for a woman to be barren and when a man enters into the sex act with her and then pulls out at the last moment, it is showing utmost contempt to the woman. It is extremely vicious behavior in the context of Judaic law. That is the sin of Onan: to mistreat one’s spouse. In today’s world, the sin of Onan is spousal abuse, not masturbation.

Matthew
 
drafdog said:
The sin of Onan is to deny the injunction to raise up children in his brother’s name. It is condemning a woman to continue childless and to be held up to ridicule in public. It was a great shame for a woman to be barren and when a man enters into the sex act with her and then pulls out at the last moment, it is showing utmost contempt to the woman. It is extremely vicious behavior in the context of Judaic law. That is the sin of Onan: to mistreat one’s spouse. In today’s world, the sin of Onan is spousal abuse, not masturbation.

Matthew
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Not all scholars agree with you consider this article…catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=2940
 
How many threads on this subject must be posted?

Can’t there be one sticky with teachings from the Catechism posted for all to read?

Don’t do it. It’s really not that hard to understand. Read the Catechism to understand why.
 
drafdog said:
The sin of Onan is to deny the injunction to raise up children in his brother’s name. It is condemning a woman to continue childless and to be held up to ridicule in public. It was a great shame for a woman to be barren and when a man enters into the sex act with her and then pulls out at the last moment, it is showing utmost contempt to the woman. It is extremely vicious behavior in the context of Judaic law. That is the sin of Onan: to mistreat one’s spouse. In today’s world, the sin of Onan is spousal abuse, not masturbation.

Matthew
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Nope, wrong. Other Jews before Onan had declined to marry their dead brother’s wife and give her children and God did not kill any of them. Onan’s sin was spilling his seed on the ground. You’re reading into this passage something you already believe and interpreting it to back that up.

In Christ,
Rand
 
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

Lev 15:16-18
“And if a man has an emission of semen, he shall bath his whole body in water and be unclean until the evening. And every garment and every skin which the semen comes shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening. If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bath themselves in water and be unclean until the evening.”
 
mschrank said:
How many threads on this subject must be posted?

** Can’t there be one sticky with teachings from the Catechism posted for all to read?**

Don’t do it. It’s really not that hard to understand. Read the Catechism to understand why.
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Oh I wish there was.
 
KinseyMcGuire said:
Hi! I’m probably going to ask alot of annoying questions, but I’m a prodigcal Catholic who is hoping to start Confirmations this spring. (Me and driving in snow mix about like oil and water, lol) So the first of annoying questions…

Where in the Bible does it speak against masturbation? I haven’t come across that part so far, especially in the Gospel. Is it in the Bible or is a teaching of the Church that it’s immoral? And if it’s not in the Bible, why did the Church come to the conclusion that it’s immoral?
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Try Mark 9 - “if your hand offend you…”​

Genesis 38 is not about this practice, but about a refusal to marry a brother’s widow & have children by her so as to provide descendants for the dead man’s family.

Hope that helps
 
According to Deut. 25:7-10, the punishment for refusing to continue the family lineage is not death but an admonishment from the city elders and public humiliation from the sister-in-law:
7 If, however, a man does not care to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go up to the elders at the gate and declare, ‘My brother-in-law does not intend to perform his duty toward me and refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel.’
8 Thereupon the elders of his city shall summon him and admonish him. If he persists in saying, ‘I am not willing to marry her,’
9 his sister-in-law, in the presence of the elders, shall go up to him and strip his sandal from his foot and spit in his face, saying publicly, 'This is how one should be treated who will not build up his brother’s family!'
10 And his lineage shall be spoken of in Israel as ‘the family of the man stripped of his sandal.’
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For refusing to continue his brother’s line, Onan should’ve received an admonishment and public humiliation. Rather, he was killed because he “wasted his seed.” Masturbation also “wastes seed.”
 
Rand, look again at the scripture. Onan took her into his bed. He married her. And then maliciously practiced coitus interuptus to keep her barren. His sin is the malicious insult to the woman and the memory of his deceased brother. I don’t care how many commentaries you can quote that say that his sin is masturbation when the clear reading of the text gives the lie to that.

Matthew
 
KinseyMcGuire said:
Hi! I’m probably going to ask alot of annoying questions, but I’m a prodigcal Catholic who is hoping to start Confirmations this spring. (Me and driving in snow mix about like oil and water, lol) So the first of annoying questions…

Where in the Bible does it speak against masturbation? I haven’t come across that part so far, especially in the Gospel. Is it in the Bible or is a teaching of the Church that it’s immoral? And if it’s not in the Bible, why did the Church come to the conclusion that it’s immoral?
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***Hi, KinseyMcGuire!

…you’ve been given two particular posts which speak on the immorality of masturbation… Jesus warns that to even think in a lustful manner is to commit adultery/fornication and He recommends that it would be better to have your hand cut-off rather than to live and die in sin. (St. Matthew 5:27-30)

Note that Jesus uses the term right eye and right hand–would this mean that it would be OK to keep only the left eye open or to use only the left hand when committing a sinful act?

Additionally, take into account that the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God, were given to the people of God and that much of what is written had been tought orally for thousands of years… when Jesus speaks to His audience He is taking into account their religious background (i.e.: He is not effectively speaking to a secular audience) so much that is not spoken openly is hidden in the language (if your eye causes you to sin; if your hand causes you to sin).

Finally, note that though Jesus did not speak against the use of drugs (alcohol and tobacco included) we are commanded not to get drunk (Galatians 5:21, Ephesians 5:18…) and it is revealed that we are the living Temple of God and that those who destroy the Temple of God will be destroyed by God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)–so are we to interpret that since Jesus did not speak against marijuana, crack cocaine or any other mind-altering chemicals that Christians are to freely enjoy them?

Clearly, it is not the term found (or not) in Scriptures but the action undertaken by Christ’s disciples that causes us to be removed from the Grace of God. We have to obey the Word which commands us to not just be listeners (in certain cases legalists) but doers of the Word (St. James 1:22)

Maran atha!

Angel***
 
It’s as simple as this:

God created sex for 1 man and 1 woman (who are married). Anything else is a sin because it violates God’s plan.

In this case, masturbation eliminates the 1 woman out of the equation. 👍 👍 👍
 
How can we be fruitful and multiply if we don’t put the seed where it will grow?

Gen. 38:11-26 - Judah, like Onan, also rejected God’s command to keep up the family lineage, but he was not killed.

Deut. 25:7-10 - the penalty for refusing to keep up a family lineage is not death, like Onan received. Onan was killed for wasting seed.

The Early Church Fathers(notice what year)
“Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted” **Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 (A.D. 191). **

“To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature.” **Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children 2:10:95:3 (A.D. 191). **

"You [Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they take care lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take wives according to the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the marriage is contracted to procreate children; and then, fearing because of your law [against childbearing]…they copulate in a shameful union only to satisfy lust for their wives. They are unwilling to have children, on whose account alone marriages are made. How is it, then, that you are not those prohibiting marriage, as the apostle predicted of you so long ago [1 Tim. 4:1–4], when you try to take from marriage what marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are pimps.” **Augustine, Against Faustus 15:7 (A.D. 400). **

Scripture Catholic
scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html
 
ARTICLE 6
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

Offenses against chastity

2351
Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

2352
By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."139

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt2art6.htm
 
I think there are more than a few ways to think of it. I have heard this from someone in the past on the radio.

Onan wanted the pleasures of sex without any consequences. The consequences of sex which God intended is to have children.

So if you have sex to pleasure yourself ignoring God’s design for sexual intercourse you have masturbation.

This made alot of sense to me.
 
Deuteronomy 23:10 “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp.”

Leviticus 15:16
‘Now if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening.’

New American Standard Bible
 
Blinky said:
For refusing to continue his brother’s line, Onan should’ve received an admonishment and public humiliation. Rather, he was killed because he “wasted his seed.” Masturbation also “wastes seed.”
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BUT, the reason that this was considered to be wasteful was because the contemporary knowledge of human biology taught that the male seed contained the entire child and the woman was purely an incubator, contributing nothing to the actual child. Thus “wasting the seed” was actually destroying real human life.

The residue of this error in biology from thousands of years ago is to continue to condemn something harmless, normal, and probably beneficial.
 
Penitus said:
It’s as simple as this:

God created sex for 1 man and 1 woman (who are married). Anything else is a sin because it violates God’s plan.

In this case, masturbation eliminates the 1 woman out of the equation. 👍 👍 👍
Click to expand...
***Hi, Penitus!

…ah… but you forget that old adage: “what is good for the goose…” In today’s society we find almost every form of visual/audio entertainment depicting both male and female in immoral acts… so much so that what is decadent and anti-Christian has become the new social religion. :crying:

Maran atha!

Angel***
 
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