sexuality

[ahs]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth.

So has murder (Cain and Abel). Masturbation is “bad” because it is disordered…it is contrary to its purpose. 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."138 (CC 2352)

Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself. .

There are many things that Jesus never talked about that made it into print. Scripture tells us this. If you actually read every word Jesus spoke that is recorded in the Bible…it may take you an hour. Do you honestly think that all He said in His time of ministry was an hour’s worth of dialog? Do you honestly think that just because Jesus, Himself, did not mention something that it cannot be Truth? He gave Peter the “Keys”…and established His Church on earth to guide us and give us His Truth. Not to mention, you can use simple logic and common sense to see what teh purpose of the sexual organs is…couple that with what is in Scripture, and it’s pretty clear. And the OT and NT are Truths…regardless of whether Jesus was quoted on a particular topic or not.

I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how or why sex has become so demonized. I’m by no means endorsing sleeping around or anything like that. But something like masturbation isn’t going to create life (sperm itself can’t create life, and women don’t release eggs), it doesn’t harm others around you, and it doesn’t stop people from procreating when they do go to do so.

Sex has not been demonized by the Church. It has been abused by those seeking only pleasure…serving themselves instead of obeying the Law of God. It isn’t me you will hurt if you choose to masturbate (not directly anyway, though there are certainly ill-effects of sin that affect everyone in one way or another) but it is yor soul. In choosing to ignore God’s command, you choose to serve yourself before God…you reject God.

 

[Patavium]

Sex has not been demonized by the Church. It has been abused by those seeking only pleasure…serving themselves instead of obeying the Law of God. It isn’t me you will hurt if you choose to masturbate (not directly anyway, though there are certainly ill-effects of sin that affect everyone in one way or another) but it is yor soul. In choosing to ignore God’s command, you choose to serve yourself before God…you reject God.

In addition, masturbation opens the door to other sinful acts like it did to me such as: pornography, fornication, lust… You will see yourself desiring the spouse, partner or fiancee of friends or acquaintances, or even people you have not formally met. You will see yourself enjoying the lust of others that have fallen in pornography… Slowly, you will continue to lose “control”. Be very careful, friend. God provided his commandments to help us!. Not to punish us!.

 

[preferanonymous]

Attempts at distinguishing between “old” and “new” Natural Law is to forget that the so called “new” Natural Law is still very much predicated on both the teleological and ontological conceptualisations of human nature and what it is to be “human”. The “new” natural law arguments are perhaps a little more refined in light of the “new” knowledge we possess since the days of Aquinas. People tend to gravitate towards Aquinas’s conceptualisations because (a) he is awfully famous (b) because he tackles certain aspects of human beingness in colourful and explicit ways, albeit in high middle ages language (c) and because he has made judgements which are still basically sound, even without recourse to modern, or “new” knowledge.

The so called “new” Natural Law philosophers simply built on what Aquinas made explicit. One must remember, also, that most of these “new” Natural Law thinkers wrote at a time when Utilitarianism was at a peak of acceptance in political and moral wchools of thought. They went directly against the common trend. Finnis, for example, is almost utilitarian in his approach to making the human agent responsible for judging actions as right or wrong by using a sort of Natural Law calculus that weighs up harm done to other necessary human goods by an action chosen and ‘intent’ is a major component in making the moral descision. I find his reasoning a little onerous and it would be difficult to teach ordinary people to behave in the manner he proscribes in the milieu of ordinary living.

The most compelling so called “new” Natural Law thinker is Elizabeth Anscombe, whose deeper analysis of contraception is brilliant and enlightening. She proved Paul XI to be correct in his deliberations and he based his Humanae Vitae on “old” Natural Law.

Natural Law, both “old” and “new” is normative, prescriptive and proscriptive, Ontological and Teleological and it is, above all else, Deontological. Nothing much has changed, except for a deeper analysis of the underlying reasons for the deontology of ethical behaviour.

If the new natural law is predicated on teleology it is teleology that, I think its proponents would say, is different in kind from the biological approach one might find in the old natural law as embodied in something like the perverted faculty argument. Finnis, for example, explicitly denies that his argument derives an ‘ought from an is’. As I understand it, he says of those he say he does derive an ought from an is that they do not understand him. For Anscombe, I think one can say that the notion of moral obligation only makes sense in a divine command theory of ethics and thus cannot be established solely on grounds of biological teleology or an ought from an is framework. I think this constitutes a real difference between the two approaches and to say that they are both predicated upon teleological and ontological conceptualizations might be said to be very misleading given this difference. Deriving ‘telos’ from biology is far different from doing so based on an ontological and metaphysical apparatus comprehensible outside of taking scientifically demonstrable tendencies as causal facts.

Calling Finnis a utilitarian, I think, is also misleading in so far as it presumes him to be a consequentialist. As far as your pedagogical concern goes, I think it is always of more value to teach those arguments which are rationally compelling rather than those which aren’t even if they seek to establish the same conclusion. It is the truth which makes us free.

 

[mwncheesehead]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth. Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself.

I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how or why sex has become so demonized. I’m by no means endorsing sleeping around or anything like that. But something like masturbation isn’t going to create life (sperm itself can’t create life, and women don’t release eggs), it doesn’t harm others around you, and it doesn’t stop people from procreating when they do go to do so.

The mortal sin of masturbation was never “deemed bad” per say. It always was opposed natural law from the beginning. Yes, masturbation has sadly been around since the fall, but it’s always been a grave evil, regardless of its use in every culture…so what. It’s goodness or badness isn’t based on it’s popularity. Christ said and did many things during his eartthly ministry that weren’t recorded. Your argument almost sounds like sola scriptura, which is simply incorrect.

 

[fred_conty]

Why does the Church view most all sexual acts as sinful? I hear the comments about sex can only be between a married couple and only be with the intention of procreation. My question is why did other sexual acts (masturbation, oral, etc) become such sinful things? Again, I’ve heard the comments about they are for personal pleasure. But so many things in life are just about personal pleasure, and many of those are not the intended use for that thing (example, grains are for food, but we use them to make alcohol). There is also the “Every sperm is sacred” argument (to steal a line from Monty Python), but female masturbation has nothing to do with wasting sperm or an egg, so why is that wrong?

I’m not looking to shoot down the Church’s teaching on this, just trying to understand why these things became such sinful things when they have been a “natural” part of humanity for it’s existence.

Looking at the physiology of male and female, the conclusion can be drawn that
they belong together. This is what God in the book of Genesis said and Jesus
more or less said the same thing when he said let no man separate what God
has joined. This is the divine intention and function divinely specified. Now we
may not like it, but there you have it. “Pick up your cross and…”, we may not
like that, but there you have it. When we were presented with the commandments
and the beautitudes, we may not like that, but there you have it. Self denial
and control over ourselves is what is required, we may not like that, but there
you have it.

In a practical way if we look at the solitary sin of impurity closely and examin it
for what it really is, then what do we see but homosexuality, an action of a
same sex person on the person of the same sex.

Great site for explaining purity.
davidmacd.com/catholic/masturbation.htm

 

[Jaaanosik]

If following a Church’s teaching makes a person incapable to fulfill the foremost God’s law then what should that person do? Which one to follow?

 

[Castello]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth. Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself.
.

Jesus never said rape was a sin, he never said that incest was a sin, he never said that beastiality is a sin… there is a very long list of things that Jesus never said. He was not writing a book, He gave us the Church to teach us.

 

[fred_conty]

If following a Church’s teaching makes a person incapable to fulfill the foremost God’s law then what should that person do? Which one to follow?

If I understand your delima, the church’s teaching on this subject of sexual purity
in this case is too difficult, then what is one to do? The answer is to do the
the right and good thing.

Sexual temptations are a part of normal living. Jesus has spared some people from
them, one of them being St. Faustina, where he told her she would no longer be
bothered with them. She relates that from that moment she wasn’t. However, the
normal course of events is that we are, from time to time, going to be subjected
to those temptations. The next question is how to deal with them.

Prayer = God’s strength(grace).

Conclusion, without prayer, and sometimes lots of it, spells failure, impossibility.
A normal person that dodges prayer will not have the strength and endurance to
resist. No prayer, no purity. Noone can afford the luxury of not praying every
day. The real temptation is to SKIP prayers because of time, the late hour, busy,
lazy, tired, and plain “I just don’t feel like it”. Give in to those thoughts, and it is
the end of story. Prayer is ABSOLUTELY essential each and every day.

Rosary = great prayer.

If prayed well as possible, the rosary will work wonders. You have Mary’s own word
for it. There is a whole list of promises attached to the Rosary. And effective way
to pray is the way Mary suggests. There are other prayers that are quite good, but
off hand I don’t know of any as strong as this one.

Miraculous Medal = sign of Mary’s protection

This too was given to us by Mary as a sign of her protection and help. It is so simple
to get, and be blessed, and then wear. “Great graces” were promised for those who trust
her for them and pray to her. Whenever tempted, hold the medal, and ask Mary for one
of those “great graces” and she will never refuse you if you believe she will keep her
very own words. She also requested that it be given to everyone to wear.

So in conclusion, do all these things faithfully, and the miracle of purity and integrity becomes yours.

“When one does not love prayer, it is morally impossible for him to resist his passions.”
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
on prayer
ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/mustpray.htm

 

[Jaaanosik]

If I understand your delima, the church’s teaching on this subject of sexual purity
in this case is too difficult, then what is one to do? The answer is to do the
the right and good thing.

Sexual temptations are a part of normal living. Jesus has spared some people from
them, one of them being St. Faustina, where he told her she would no longer be
bothered with them. She relates that from that moment she wasn’t. However, the
normal course of events is that we are, from time to time, going to be subjected
to those temptations. The next question is how to deal with them.

Prayer = God’s strength(grace).

Conclusion, without prayer, and sometimes lots of it, spells failure, impossibility.
A normal person that dodges prayer will not have the strength and endurance to
resist. No prayer, no purity. Noone can afford the luxury of not praying every
day. The real temptation is to SKIP prayers because of time, the late hour, busy,
lazy, tired, and plain “I just don’t feel like it”. Give in to those thoughts, and it is
the end of story. Prayer is ABSOLUTELY essential each and every day.

Rosary = great prayer.

If prayed well as possible, the rosary will work wonders. You have Mary’s own word
for it. There is a whole list of promises attached to the Rosary. And effective way
to pray is the way Mary suggests. There are other prayers that are quite good, but
off hand I don’t know of any as strong as this one.

Miraculous Medal = sign of Mary’s protection

This too was given to us by Mary as a sign of her protection and help. It is so simple
to get, and be blessed, and then wear. “Great graces” were promised for those who trust
her for them and pray to her. Whenever tempted, hold the medal, and ask Mary for one
of those “great graces” and she will never refuse you if you believe she will keep her
very own words. She also requested that it be given to everyone to wear.

So in conclusion, do all these things faithfully, and the miracle of purity and integrity becomes yours.

“When one does not love prayer, it is morally impossible for him to resist his passions.”
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
on prayer
ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/mustpray.htm

Till you pray you are mentally destroyed. Your family suffers because of this. Your marriage breaks.
Is it worth it to follow Church’s teaching instead of following the foremost God’s law?

 

[Patavium]

Till you pray you are mentally destroyed. Your family suffers because of this. Your marriage breaks.
Is it worth it to follow Church’s teaching instead of following the foremost God’s law?

Could you explain what you mean?

Or did you forget that Jesus Christ said

[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 16:15-20[/BIBLEDRB]

 

[Safia]

Some reading suggestions: this (though specific to same-sex marriage, May outlines the functions of marriage as the Church, via Scripture, etc., understands it), and THEOLOGY OF THE BODY by JPII, which outlines the Scriptural, historical, and natural understanding of sexuality.

 

[John21652]

If the new natural law is predicated on teleology it is teleology that, I think its proponents would say, is different in kind from the biological approach one might find in the old natural law as embodied in something like the perverted faculty argument.

The so called “new” Natural Law of Finnis has moved the teleological approach from one based on the objectivity of moral principles to one based more on the subjective preferences of human moral agents. Finnis argues at length for the intentions of the moral actors. It is this focus on ‘intention’ that formulates his moral arguments. If you have read Finnis, you will be aware of his requirement that a moral agent draw up a “life plan” which can achieve his basic goods for life. Finnis basic goods for life are unordered and equal and supposedly self evident. The rational human agent will therefore seek to maximise his own life goods and seek happiness and satisfaction. This opens the door for the well known principle of ‘utility’ to be used by moral agents.

Finnis, for example, explicitly denies that his argument derives an ‘ought from an is’. As I understand it, he says of those he say he does derive an ought from an is that they do not understand him.

Which answer does not answer his critics!

For Anscombe, I think one can say that the notion of moral obligation only makes sense in a divine command theory of ethics and thus cannot be established solely on grounds of biological teleology or an ought from an is framework. I think this constitutes a real difference between the two approaches and to say that they are both predicated upon teleological and ontological conceptualizations might be said to be very misleading given this difference. Deriving ‘telos’ from biology is far different from doing so based on an ontological and metaphysical apparatus comprehensible outside of taking scientifically demonstrable tendencies as causal facts.

Finnis has tried to move away from Aquinas’s view that the beatification of man is the final ‘end’ of human existence. Anscombe has not done this. I dispute, however, that Anscombe’s view relies on a divine command theory of ethics. The so called “old” Natural Lawyers, of the ilk of Aquinas, very much believed that a devine command theory of ethics was self evident. However, since then other “old” Natural lawyers have shown that this is not necessarily the case. The Jesuit Saurez comes to mind, as does Grotius, the Protestant Philosopher. Anscombe is more in line with those two and Finnis has seperated himself even further from the Thomist view by making the deloberations for what constitutes the basic goods of life more in line with a utilitarian idea of forming moral judgements.

I also think you are making an error when you keep referring to telos as being derived from biology. Telos is derived from an understanding of human nature, which involves far more than understanding mere biology. It is this notion of human nature which I think Finnis has neglected.

Calling Finnis a utilitarian, I think, is also misleading in so far as it presumes him to be a consequentialist.

I did not call Finnis a utilitarian. I wrote “* Finnis, for example, is almost utilitarian in his approach to making the human agent responsible for judging actions as right or wrong.*…” Notice that I said he is **almost **utilitarian in his approach to making the human agent responsible for judging actions as right or wrong. That is vastly different from saying he is a utilitarian. My point is that Finnis’s approach leaves it open for the human agent to make moral judgements based on selfish utility. That is because he uses vague notions of what constitutes basic human goods that are best realised with the adoption of a life plan and he even allows that life plans may alter and change as the moral agent progresses through life. In other words, he opens the floodgates of moral expediency.

It should be noted that John Finnis had as his mentor at Oxford H.L.A.Hart, who was the formost jurisprudential thinker of the mid 1900s and a firm proponent of utilitarianism and positive law. Goggle Hart’s 1960s debates with English Jurist Lord Devlin on utilitarianism and natural law morality. Finnis had first to be able to contend with Hart’s critiques and so his “new” Natural Law had to pass the master and see the light of day at a time when utilitarianism was the philosophical method de rigueur in universities around the world. Finnis deserves great credit for getting the focus away from what is now considered to be a seriously flawed system of ethics and refocusing the thinkers back onto the very system of moral and philosophical thought that built the western legal and moral traditions that utilitarianism was undermining.

As far as your pedagogical concern goes, I think it is always of more value to teach those arguments which are rationally compelling rather than those which aren’t even if they seek to establish the same conclusion. It is the truth which makes us free.

The problem with Finnis’s approach is that the moral arguments are not rationally compelling. In my opinion, they leave open the possibility that human moral agents will rationalise. The arguments of the likes of Anscombe are very intellectually compelling and that is because she has enlarged on the traditional natural law system of reasoning which takes account of human nature, of which biology is a part, to include contemporary ethical questions that are brilliant in their reasoning and easily understandable by ordinary people.

 

[preferanonymous]

I think you are wrong about Anscombe. In her article Modern Moral Philosophy she writes:

“Thus we find two problems already wrapped up in the remark about a transition from “is” to “ought”; now supposing that we had clarified the “relative bruteness” of facts on the one hand, and the notions involved in “needing,” and “flourishing” on the other there would still remain a third point. For, following Hume, someone might say: Perhaps you have made out your point about a transition from “is” to “owes” and from “is” to “needs”: but only at the cost of showing “owes” and “needs” sentences to express a kind of truths, a kind of facts. And it remains impossible to infer “morally ought” from “is” sentences.”

“This word “ought,” having become a word of mere mesmeric force, could not, in the character of having that force, be inferred from anything whatever.”

The point is that the notion of ‘morally ought’, for Anscombe, cannot be inferred from ‘is’ statements. This seems to me to say it is not a matter of teleology. Where does it come from then?

“I should judge that Hume and our present day ethicists had done a considerable service by showing that no content could be found in the notion “morally ought”; if it were not that the latter philosophers try to find an alternative (very fishy) content and to retain the psychological force of the term. It would be most reasonable to drop it. It has no reasonable sense outside a law conception of ethics; they are not going to maintain such a conception; and you can do ethics without it, as is shown by the example of Aristotle."

“Now let us remember that “morally wrong” is the term which is the heir of the notion “illicit,” or “what there is an obligation not to do”; which belongs in a divine law theory or ethics. Here it really does add something to the description “unjust” to say there is an obligation not to do it; for what obliges is the divine law as rules oblige in a game. So if the divine law obliges not to commit injustice by forbidding injustice, it really does add something to the description “unjust” to say there is an obligation not to do it. And it is because “morally wrong” is the heir of this concept, but an heir that is cut off from the family of concepts from which it sprang, that “morally wrong” both goes beyond the mere factual description “unjust” and seems to have no discernible content except a certain compelling force, which I should call purely psychological. And such is the force of the term that philosophers actually suppose that the divine law notion can be dismissed as making no essential difference even if it is held because they think that a “practical principle” running “I ought (i.e. am morally obliged) to obey divine laws” is required for the man who believes in divine laws. But actually this notion of obligation is a notion which only operates in the context of law.”

It seems to me then that if you want to talk about what morality is about, we must be talking in the context of divine law. Or, do you think we should do morality without this notion or ‘morally ought’?

“I also think you are making an error when you keep referring to telos as being derived from biology. Telos is derived from an understanding of human nature, which involves far more than understanding mere biology. It is this notion of human nature which I think Finnis has neglected.”

What is it then? How do you figure out what the telos is? I would not say I opposed to a notion of purpose, I think I would just prefer to see the basis for understanding constitutes it…

 

[Newbie2]

In addition to reason and natural law, previously mentioned, God has revealed disordered uses of our sexual faculties as sinful via Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Bingo.

via the Magisterium.

 

[John21652]

I think you are wrong about Anscombe. In her article Modern Moral Philosophy she writes:
…

The point is that the notion of ‘morally ought’, for Anscombe, cannot be inferred from ‘is’ statements. This seems to me to say it is not a matter of teleology. Where does it come from then?

I’m not wrong about Anscombe.

In fact, I think you have either misread her, or simply taken what she wrote out of context.

Her paper, Modern Moral Philosophy, Originally published in * Philosophy 33, *No. 124 (January 1958) is an essay on the role of moral imperatives in a society where the connection between law as devine command and the morality as being preached by utilitatrians and accepted by academia and the general population, has been broken. She goes to great lengths to explain how the derivations of “ought” from “is” statements is predicated upon the acceptance of a devine command theory of morality. As she put it - “…because they are survivals, or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally survives.” She was making her onservations in the context of moral debates which she thought had gone off the rails, causing the disconnection. The last part of her essay lambasts Henry Sidgwick, the utilitarian academic who frmaed much of the ethical debate within much of british academia for the first half of the 20th century. Anscombe blames him for a slight of hand that broke the nexus between the use of “ought” statements under a devine law theory of morality and a utilitarian approach which put emphasis on intention and consequences. As Anscombe wrote of that sleight of hand, *"…By it, the kind of consideration which would formerly have been regarded as a temptation, the kind of consideration urged upon men by wives and flattering friends, was given a status by moral philosophers in their theories."

*It is not hard to tell that she is thoroughly peeved off with the (then) state of moral philosophy. She says of this “new” Utilitarianism -

It is a necessary feature of consequentialism that it is a shallow philosophy…Further, the consequentialist, in order to be imagining borderline cases at all, has of course to assume some sort of law or standard according to which this is a borderline case, Where then does he get the standard from? In practice the answer invariably is: from the standards current in his society or his circle. And it has in fact been the mark of all these philosophers that they have been extremely conventional; they have nothing in them by which to revolt against the conventional standards of their sort of people; it is impossible that they should be profound. But the chance that a whole range of conventional standards will be decent is small.

Anscombe then states that it is possible to return to the proper use of the “ought” term in moral descision making ".…within in the context of English moral philosophy since Sidgwick", but only by* "…using the word “ought” in a non‑emphatic fashion, and not in a special “moral” sense; of discarding the term “wrong” in a “moral” sense, and using such notions as “unjust.” * Note how she places her essay smack bang into the context of “English moral philosophy since Sidgwick”.

As for Anscombes real felings about moral “oughts” from “is” statements, refer to the English philosopher Phillipa Foot, who credits Anscombe with allowing her to break the central assumption of 20th-century moral philosophy (soundly criticised by her) that facts and values are logically independent. According to this view, you can’t derive an “ought” conclusion from a series of “is” premises. At Anscombe’s urging Foot read Aquinas and so arrived at the conclusion that if you focus on traditional virtues and vices like temperance and avarice instead of abstract concepts like goodness and duty, you can see the concrete connections between the conditions of human life and the objective reasons for acting morally. Foot published her famous tome Natural Goodness which explained this in 2001. She died only last year, aged 90. A wonderful obituary can be found right here which explains what she did. Thank Elizabeth Anscombe.

 

[preferanonymous]

"Anscombe then states that it is possible to return to the proper use of the “ought” term in moral descision making “…within in the context of English moral philosophy since Sidgwick”, but only by “…using the word “ought” in a non‑emphatic fashion, and not in a special “moral” sense; of discarding the term “wrong” in a “moral” sense, and using such notions as “unjust.””

I think I would agree with this. The issue is that I do not think that this non-emphatic sense of ought captures what we mean by morality. What does, and I think Anscombe might agree, is the ‘morally ought’ sense and, to quote again from Anscombe, “this word “ought,” having become a word of mere mesmeric force, could not, in the character of having that force, be inferred from anything whatever.”

I thus think my point stands. Yes, I do think you can get a concept of ‘good’ from teleology but I am not sure that I think it gets us what we are really after, the morality that matters with respect to God. You would need, I think, a further move- like one of the form “God’s moral truth is the same as what we get in teleology”- to justify such a position.

This is, I think, what MMP is about, yet do you not think it expresses the ‘real’ feelings of Anscombe about morality? To say I am misreading her when I gave direct quotes seems out of place. It might be a misreading however, if you took Foot to be an exact embodiment of Anscombe’s views but I am not sure this was the case. Foot was, as I understand it, an atheist, and I do not think it is right to get Anscombe’s true thoughts about morality in referring to her- particularly when she clearly says in MMP that this ‘moral ought’ cannot be inferred. Foot might not have cared about such a sense, but that doesn’t mean Anscombe didn’t. Hence, it might make decent sense to say that for Foot an ‘ought from an is’ was no trouble but for Anscombe, such an approach was inadequate to fully capture morality.