Using Things According to Their Purpose

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MysticMissMisty

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Salvete, omnes!

As I understand it, it is Catholic doctrine that we are to use things in this world only in accordance withtheir primary purposes, as either defined by God or, if we originated something, as defined by us.

First of all, am I correct in this assertion? Is this not the argument used to speak out against various types of sexual immorality such as homosexuality and self-pleasuring?

Or, am I perhaps misunderstanding something about this aspect of Catholic teaching? Might it be better to say that we are to use something according to its primary purpose and that purpose alone only if not doing so detracts from the benefit granted to us by doing so. In other words, the practice of homosexuality is not only contrary to the purposes for which God designed traditional marriage but it also diminishes the benefits we gain by practicing traditional marriage. Am I at all contradicting any (especially infallible) Church teaching on this subject with this claim?

If not, here are some scenarios wherein I think the above distinction subtlety of distinction is needed:
  1. The primary purpose of food is to sustain the body. However, a secondary purpose (this is why I made the distinction earlier) is to give us pleasure in the taste/texture/etc. of the food. (If this were not the cause, we would derive no pleasure from the act of eating itself. It would likely, rather, be a completely neutral experience.) Now, the pleasure of food can, in fact, be taken separately from its purpose of sustenance. (That is why I call it a “secondary purpose”, though perhaps there is a better term for it?) If, however, food is only to be consumed based on its primary purpose, i.e., to sustain us, in many cases, the notions of snacking or even of dessert might be considered to veer into sin, because, very often, we are need “hungry” per se when we do these things. Indeed, it would seem that some early theologians asserted this very thing by arguably including these actions under the definition of “gluttony”. However, as I understand Church teaching today, the notion of “gluttony” no longer includes snakcing or having dessert within it. So, tacitly if not actively, the Church seems to be acknowledging the non-sinfulness of snacking/dessert without the necessity for hunger. She therefore seems to be accepting the second definition I proposed above (or, at least, something like it) as valid and correct. At the very least, she seems to be saying that using something for something other than its primary purposes is not necessarily sinful in and of itself.
It has always been my personal view that using objects A or B for secondary “purposes”/reasons is not, in and of itself, an offense to God, as long as it doesn’t detract from the benefits gained by utilizing it for it’s “primary purpose”.

Let us, briefly, cite another example of this – historic preservation. Monuments, sculpture, etc. are often preserved only for the purpose of appreciation of their beauty and/or for the cultures that created them. I’m sure that many here would agree that such preservation is honorable, so long as it doesn’t interfere too much with the conducting of modern life. However, one could argue that such preservation does not look to the ultimate and original purposes of the monuments/sculptures/etc. being preserved. It is rather making use of these objects for other purposes, i.e., for their beauty or cultural significance. Under the first definition about which I was asking, it would seem that historical preservation for the purposes I stated would be considered sinful. However, if we go with the second definition which I proposed or one like it that doesn’t rely solely on the primary purpose for which an object comes to be, then such work is not sinful.

Any thoughts on this issue? Again, am I contradicting any infallibly-established dogma in the arguments I present above? If not, what are your thoughts on my analysis? Can you provide any other examples either in support of or against the arguments I make? Can you perhaps define some of the terms I use better than I have been able to do to make points clearer? Most importantly, do you think the arguments I make here (or that those like them on which mine are based) are morally valid and/or even outright correct? If you agree with the basics of what I’m saying here, would you make a similar but somewhat different argument, even if you agree with the basics on which I’m basing mine? If so, what would that argument be? Or, rather, are we to use things solely for the primary purpose for which they are created or, as I suggest above, are we allowed some leeway in our use? (Especially in your response to this very last question, I would appreciate you responding to the situations I cited in this posting, but it would also be great if you could use some of your own examples. I guess what I’m saying is, you can be abstract, but, with particular reference to this last question, I think examples would be better/strong and I would request that you please make use of either mine or your own!)

Maximas vobis gratias!
 
Some might argue that we please God by using things only to their primary purpose. Then, I ask, how/why? After all, God determines the purpose of things for a reason and not simply arbitrarily, am I not correct? I assert that, in the cases when we are, in fact, required to use things only according to their primary purpose, that reason is that it detracts from the full benefit He wishes to us for that object. In the cases of snacking/dessert and histori preservation, it could be argued that there is no real lost benefit by not using food and monuments/sculpture/etc. solely according to their primary purposes.

It could be argued, but, come to think of it, in these cases, how could it be argued? How are we objectively to know whether not using something according to its primary purpose and using it for some secondary one is right or not? How do we know when benefit will be lost and when it will not? Is there some way reasonable to know this, or must we rely solely on divine revelation to show us this? What if we have a question on regarding this issue on the use of object A or B but there is no direct answer in Scripture/Tradition whether its use in this way does ro does not reduce its benefit to us? In these cases, is it at all valid to state that, if Scripture/Tradition doesn’t condemn it, we are pretty safe in using an object for some secondary purpose without incurring God’s Wrath?

BTW, I hope I’m making myself clear in all this. I probably don’t have all the precise technical/philosophical terminology I need for such a discussion. If any of you need any clarification fro me, please do let me know!
 
(Thought of some other questions but my edit time ran out.)

Am in just abstracting from a concrete instance of a notion? In other words, am I applying the notion of “using only according to purpose” too broadly when it should only be applied in the case of sexual sin? If this is the case, why does such a notion only apply in the case of sexual sin?

Indeed, what is Church teaching on this subject of using things according to purpose? Is there any infallible dogma on the subject?

Also, it would seem that God Himself arguably used at least one thing for some other purpose than what He originally created it for. He clothed our First Parents with skins of animals whose primary purpose was arguably to “clothe” the animals. However, one could also argue that this was done after the Fall and/or that the purpose of clothing man was, indeed, part of God’s original purpose.

Thanks again.
 
Can you boil this down to one, easy to digest question please?

Do you know a priest that you could pose some of this to IRL?
 
pianistclare said:
Can you boil this down to one, easy to digest question please?

Do you know a priest that you could pose some of this to IRL?
Click to expand...
The questions are, in TL;DR form:

Many things that God created have multiple purposes, or primary and secondary purposes.
  1. Why should ignoring/frustrating/avoiding a primary purpose be sinful at all? Is it sinful to use the mouth for its secondary purpose of speaking (i.e. instead of eating?)
  2. Is it correct to say that ignoring/frustrating/avoiding primary purposes is only sinful if that ignoring/frustrating/avoiding somehow voids the benefits of the primary purpose?
  3. How can we differentiate between primary purposes that we are allowed to ignore/frustrate/avoid and primary purposes that we are not?
  4. If the concept of primary purpose has only ever been used in the context of justifying the Church’s position on sexuality, then what is it specifically about sexuality that requires this unique line of reasoning?
 
In my mind, questions 1 and 4 are the most compelling.

Starting with #4:
The reason why religions use this line of reasoning for sexuality is because they are trying to escape the “thou shalt not” nature of their sexuality laws. Most other religious prohibitions (e.g. against murder, lying, stealing) can be derived from a wide variety of rationales (e.g. Rawlsianism.) Most governments have laws against those things not because religion tells them to make those laws, but because most reasonable people come to the conclusion that society is better off with such laws regardless of their religious persuasion.

Sexuality laws are different. Extra-Catholic reasoning about sexuality is widely varied, with secular moralists disagreeing sharply with prohibitions against things like birth control or various sexual acts. Nevertheless, the church would very much like to enforce it’s sexual prohibitions on society at large

In this light, I think we see the “principal ordering/purpose” arguments for what they are: the Church’s best attempt at making it’s sexuality laws into something other than a divine “thou shalt not.” They need to do this because very few governments will legislate a divine “thou shalt not.” Very few governments would make a “mandatory church on Sundays” law because that is a divine “thou shalt not.”

The problem, of course, is that practically no thinkers outside the Catholic church have found the “principal purpose” rationale convincing at all. I strongly suspect this is because it merely disguises the “thou shalt not” nature. We can easily see this by asking question #1.

In order for any sort of “principal purposes” to be convincing, we need to accept that
  1. things have a purpose, design, or ordering in the first place and
  2. that circumventing those purposes, designs, or orderings is wrong.
However, the only way I can picture myself believing both of those is if I thought that “purpose, design, or ordering” was some sort of divine command. Unfortunately, divine commands was what we were trying to avoid.
 
A previous post, I think, got many of the questions I was posing correct, save, maybe, saying that I said that a “secondary” purpose for the mouth was speaking. My comments on the mouth involved the question of whether snacking could, by the same logic used in defense of traditional sexuality, be considered gluttony since it is often done with little to no hunger involved. If sustenance is designated as the primary purpose of food, just as procreation is (as I understand it) the primary purpose of sexual intercourse, and if we are only to adhere to the primary purpose of an object (food, sexuality, etc.) and not solely to some (apparent?) secondary one, then, along with what we call traditional sexual practices, we would also have to class snacking as sinful in that it does not adhere to the primary purpose of food, i.e., sustenance.

Or, am I missing something here?
 
I also thought I was pretty clear on these issues in my first post, especially being that I posted it here in a philosophically-minded forum wherein I would expect at least many minds to be trained in thinking in these kinds of ways.

Indeed, the fact that one poster simply referred me to a priest demonstrated to me that this is indeed a difficult issue. To that poster, just so they know, I am presently only exploring becoming Catholic. I am doing my own reading on here, on the EWTN website and on New Advent primarily on the major issues that concern me as well as theological/philosophical issues such as this one. Once I get to a point where I am far more assured on these matters, I shall consult my local priest about what steps to take from there. Until then, however, I wish not to take up his valuable time that he could better use elsewhere to teach me things I could learn from my own study. (I think I have sufficient academic background in classics/Latin/Greek, in linguistics and, to some degree, in exegesis, to work a lot of these issues out on my own.) BTW, I’m totally not trying to sound harsh here. Just trying to explain my particular situation and why I’m approaching it as I am.

I would also be interested in hearing perspectives on the above issues I’ve raised from other Catholics. So far, I’ve got to admit, I find the responses (or lack thereof) rather disappointing.
 
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