Scripturally, she simply does not know scripture. I’m trying to be charitable here but I cannot comprehend how anyone could read Genesis 38 and conclude that Onan lied to the Holy Spririt. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned at all. Onan refused to raise up an heir to his dead brother.
To understand the sin of Onan, one must go to the Mosaic law, which commanded that when a husband died without a male heir, his brother should marry his Widow and raise up a son. The son would be counted not as the son of the brother who married the widow, but would be counted as the son of the dead man and would inherit the dead man’s estate. Having an heir, perpetuating your name and perpetuation of your blood line was a big deal to the ancients. Punishment for not raising up an heir to your dead brother with your brother’s widow was public humilation…
When brothers live together and one of them dies without a son, the widow of the deceased shall not marry anyone outside the family; but her husband’s brother shall go to her and perform the duty of a brother-in-law by marrying her. The first-born son she bears shall continue the line of the deceased brother, that his name may not be blotted out from Israel. 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.’ Thereupon the elders of his city shall summon him and admonish him. If he persists in saying, ‘I am not willing to marry her,’ 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!’ And his lineage shall be spoken of in Israel as ‘the family of the man stripped of his sandal.’ (Dueteronomy 25:5-10)Onan did exactly this in Genesis 38
Then Judah said to Onan, “Unite with your brother’s widow, in fulfillment of your duty as brother-in-law, and thus preserve your brother’s line.” Onan, however, knew that the descendants would not be counted as his; so whenever he had relations with his brother’s widow, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid contributing offspring for his brother. What he did greatly offended the LORD, and the LORD took his life too. (Genesis 38:8-10)God clearly took Onan’s life for wasting his seed and this is the scriptural basis for the Church’s teaching that contraception is a grave sin. Theologically, we have to look at the nature of God and then we can come to some understanding of why God demanded Onan’s life.
God is pure spirit. He has no weight, no size, no color, no shape. God has no material parts. God is a pure spirit as are the angels. Created things however, have material parts and physical attributes such as size, weight and color but created things, with the exception of man, have no spirit. Man alone has a mortal, physical body and an immortal spirit which is made in God’s image. So what happens when the created body and the immortal soul seperate? Death happens. So for a man to be alive, his mortal body has to be united to his immortal spiritual soul. If a person’s body is seperated from his spirit, he is dead. No spirit, no life. It’s just that simple. And the same is true of an infant in the womb. No spirit, no life. If an infant’s spirit seperates from its body in the womb, its dead. Stillborn or miscarriage.
Carry that forward to the moment of conception. Its really simple… no spirit, no life. The sperm can penetrate the egg but if the spirit is not present, no life results - no child - no conception. It is the man who brings the sperm, the woman who brings the egg and the question becomes that of the spirit; from where does it come? Christians say it comes from God. So when man and woman unite in spousal union, man brings the sperm, woman brings the egg and God brings the spirit. Sex is therefor a holy act in which man, woman and God are co-creators of human life! Awsome!!!
What Onan did was shut God out of the process. He used another human being for his pleasure but denied God one of the greatest things he does - unite with man and woman to create new life. The Catechism calls man and God “Co-creators” of life. God simply demanded from Onan that which Onan took from God - a life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth… in Onan’s case, it was a life for a life.
This is one of the theological basis’ for the Church’s teaching on contraception. Under the new covenant, “Wasting your seed” still demands your life, your spiritual life AKA mortal sin.
No Protestant Church taught that contraception was anything but sinful prior to 1930. One cannot find any Protestant writing prior to 1930 stating that contraception was acceptable.
-Tim-
In other words, it is not for us as humans to decide the when of the fulfillment in quantity of God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply.” This command is given to us not once or twice, but four times by the Scriptures in precisely this form (cf. Gen. 1:28, 9:1, 9:7, 35:11). And we are often shown that its being brought about is a reward and sign of being in friendship with God (cf. Lev. 26:9; Jer. 23:3). We can never take action to cause opposition to the command to “be fruitful and multiply” whenever marital intercourse is in view.