To be open to procreation

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Sophia

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It is such a simple concept. To be open to procreation is the decision to accept the pregnancy, if God decides to bless the woman with it. Of course God’s will cannot be thwarted by anything we do (or don’t do). God cannot be hindered by anything.

If the couple is infertile, for example due to a missing uterus or missing ovaries, God can - if he wants to - create a fertilized ovum somewhere where it could be brought to term. Maybe grow a new uterus, or whatever. Using natural or artificial barriers are useless against God’s will. If God so desires, not even the sexual act is necessary. If the father-to-be happens to be on the other side of the world, that cannot be a hindrance for God.

God does not need the human “help” by performing the act in some way. Just because the couple does no practice the semen being released in the vagina, it does not mean that they are against conception. All they need to be is “open” in an volitional sense to accept the pregnancy if and when it happens.
 
Yeah, still there aren’t many cases of regrown uteri out there…
 
Sophia said:
God does not need the human “help” by performing the act in some way.
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Hmm… I think you’ve crossed a line here - the “free will line”.

If God did those sorts of things, we would never know what to expect. The laws of nature would be meaningless. That would basically violate our free will to a significant extent.
 
1Lord1Faith said:
Hmm… I think you’ve crossed a line here - the “free will line”.
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On the very contrary. Our will is irrelevant. The couple says: “we do not wish to procreate at this moment. There is no command that we MUST wish to procreate every time we have sex”. But we say: Thy will be done! If a pregnancy happens, we shall not try disrupt it. But we are not going to go out of our way to ‘help out’. If you wish to bless (or curse!) us with a pregnancy, we are willing to go along."

This is sufficiently “open”.
 
Sophia said:
If God so desires, not even the sexual act is necessary. If the father-to-be happens to be on the other side of the world, that cannot be a hindrance for God.

God does not need the human “help” by performing the act in some way.
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I was talking about this ^. Not NFP, or anything like that.
 
This is a very clever argument. If God is omnipotent then we reject this in imagining that He would not provide for conception without our help. So all acts, and non-acts are ‘open to procreation’. Hence the whole Humanae Vitae thing was a storm in a tea cup. Let’s see a specific refutation of what the OP is actually putting forward.
 
Being “open to procreation” is not the only thing that is required of us in Catholic sexual ethics, though.
 
The Church doesn’t teach that we must be “open” to procreation no matter what. She teaches that sexual acts must be ORDERED toward procreation. There’s a difference.

From what the OP is saying, God can impose pregnancy on people whether they want it or take action to bring it about. If that were true, there’d be a whole lot more virgin births on the books. And Mary gave her consent first.
 
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Sophia said:
It is such a simple concept. To be open to procreation is the decision to accept the pregnancy, if God decides to bless the woman with it. Of course God’s will cannot be thwarted by anything we do (or don’t do). God cannot be hindered by anything.
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Agreed.

Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary.
 
Sophia said:
If the couple is infertile, for example due to a missing uterus or missing ovaries, God can - if he wants to - create a fertilized ovum somewhere where it could be brought to term. Maybe grow a new uterus, or whatever. Using natural or artificial barriers are useless against God’s will. If God so desires, not even the sexual act is necessary. If the father-to-be happens to be on the other side of the world, that cannot be a hindrance for God.

God does not need the human “help” by performing the act in some way.
Click to expand...
I think you are confusing what God can do with what God does do. Just because He could fertilize a woman’s egg with sperm from a man halfway around the world, or spontaneously regrow a woman’s uterus to allow a pregnancy, does not mean He does this. He does not normally violate natural law.

Miracles do happen, like with Sarah and Elizabeth, when he allowed them to conceive in old age. He also opened the barren wombs of Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Samson’s mother, and the Shunammite woman. But all these pregnancies were achieved through the normal marital act with their husbands.

The Virgin Birth stands alone as a truly unique, wonderous miracle outside of natural law.

I suspect you have an agenda of some sort with this thread, perhaps poking fun at the Catholic notion of the marital acts being open to life. We cooperate with God by following His plan for us. True freedom comes from submitting to His will.
 
ShowersofRoses said:
I suspect you have an agenda of some sort with this thread, perhaps poking fun at the Catholic notion of the marital acts being open to life. We cooperate with God by following His plan for us. True freedom comes from submitting to His will.
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So true! How right thou art!
 
ShowersofRoses said:
I suspect you have an agenda of some sort with this thread, perhaps poking fun at the Catholic notion of the marital acts being open to life. We cooperate with God by following His plan for us. True freedom comes from submitting to His will.
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My “agenda”, if you wish to call it that, is simple. I am appalled at the horribly low quality of apologetics, and want to help to get it better. I am not confusing God’s ability and God’s (alleged) actions. I point out the discrepancy between the two.
 
Poking fun at Catholicism, which seems to be what you are doing is different from a good old discussion of theology. You will not get any apologetic because it is hard to take you seriously. You will most probably be getting defensive response.
 
I don’t see where she is poking fun at Catholicism? She’s right that a lot of misunderstandings ensue about conception and God’s will. So she’s asking pointed questions.
 
I don’t see where she is “asking pointed questions” beyond asking if we agree in one post. The OP wasn’t asking questions, just making some very strange observations.
 
QContinuum said:
I don’t see where she is poking fun at Catholicism? She’s right that a lot of misunderstandings ensue about conception and God’s will. So she’s asking pointed questions.
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Taking the overall tone of her post, I would consider it as poking fun and insulting to our belief. Not that I am angry with her, but that kind of post will not get serious reply from serious posters who would like to explain their belief. The post is more likely to inflame or incite.

So if she complained why she did not get better replies, perhaps she should consider being more courteous.

She is talking about growing new uterus and getting pregnant without sexual act as being open to procreation. While this may be true and can happen, who knows, but if you talk to Catholics like that regarding their pro-life and anti artificial birth control practices, I don’t think it will go down well with them. Your ordinary Catholic marriage couples definitely would not be thinking about growing new uterus or miraculous birth.

In any case I hope someone would kindly engage her on this topic.
 
Reuben_J said:
Taking the overall tone of her post, I would consider it as poking fun and insulting to our belief.
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You mean MY belief, too? There is no problem with Catholicism, but I have serious problem with the very low quality of apologetics. I certainly do not believe that God gave us the marvelous gift of sex, and turned around and demand that we use abstinence if we do not wish to procreate at a certain time.

After all the unitive function is more important than the procreative one. Not every couple intends or is able to procreate, but it is certainly important that they can live their life in harmony with each other. Just calculate, the average couple has approximately 2.3 children. And they have hundreds and thousands acts of sex. Which is more important?

Also the most important part of any action (not just sex) is the mental attitude. To be ready to accept a child is what “being open” means. If God wanted to make procreation to be the primary aspect of sex, he could have organized is just like the “lower” animals, tying it to the estrus. But humans and the higher apes have no such connection.

My problem with the apologetics is that it is internally inconsistent. It looks like as something invented by some old geezers, who are envious when they contemplate the fun reserved for the young people. Not I am aware that this is not the official stance, but it is what I believe. Of course I was facetious in the tone of the OP, on purpose.
 
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