Why every single marital act is supposed to be ordered to procreation

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Jaaanosik said:
Please, explain how something becomes a Natural Moral Law?
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scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a1.htm#1955

I. THE NATURAL MORAL LAW

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:
Code: 
The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.5
1955 The “divine and natural” law6 shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:
Code: 
Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.7 The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.8
1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
Code: 
For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9
1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:
Code: 
Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11
1959 The natural law, the Creator’s very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.

1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."12 The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.
 
Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI
  1. In what does the natural moral law consist?
1954-1960
1978-1979

The natural law which is inscribed by the Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense which enables one to discern by reason the good and the bad. It is universal and immutable and determines the basis of the duties and fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the human community and civil law.
  1. Is such a law perceived by everyone?
1960

Because of sin the natural law is not always perceived nor is it recognized by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy.

vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html
 
Bookcat said:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a1.htm#1955

I. THE NATURAL MORAL LAW

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
Code: 
**For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature**, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9
…

The natural law which is inscribed by the Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense which enables one to discern by reason the good and the bad. It is universal and immutable and determines the basis of the duties and fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the human community and civil law.
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The Natural Moral Law consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God.
How? Where do we find the wisdom and the goodness of God? In the nature.
We recognize with our reason (what God inscribed in our heart) that something is wise and good based on studying God’s design in the nature, how it conforms with nature.

“For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature,…”
 
Jaaanosik said:
The Natural Moral Law consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God.
How? Where do we find the wisdom and the goodness of God? In the nature.
We recognize with our reason (what God inscribed in our heart) that something is wise and good based on studying God’s design in the nature, how it conforms with nature.

“For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature,…”
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Natual law does not = laws of nature.

Please listen to the programs linked above.
 
Bookcat said:
Natual law does not = laws of nature.

Please listen to the programs linked above.
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Please, think!
The conformity to nature is a foundation of the Natural Law. That’s how we find out what is wise and good by God’s design.

If that was not the case then any man can says anything and claim that’s what God inscribed on my heart and this is the Natural Law. Right?
 
Jaaanosik said:
Please, think!
The conformity to nature is a foundation of the Natural Law. That’s how we find out what is wise and good by God’s design.

If that was not the case then any man can says anything and claim that’s what God inscribed on my heart and this is the Natural Law. Right?
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Please listen. 🙂
 
Jaaanosik said:
It seems the fact remains that this is because the Church says so and not that it was observed and deduced from the laws of nature.
There is nothing wrong when a sperm does not meet an ovum.
The Church says use your brain, reason and it’s your call when you try and go for it.
Why is the Church saying how you go about something that is not wrong?

Let me use an extreme example. Why is the Church not saying that everybody has to sing at a mass? Is it a sin when you do not sing at the mass?
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I guess I don’t understand how the church saying you shouldn’t use contraceptions doesn’t follow from the natural law… (I’m not trying to get into the whole argument about the difference between the ‘laws of nature’ and the ‘natural moral laws’. I’m not sure I understand the difference being put forward)

The point is that the church looks at the nature of sex and the sex drive, and sees that it is aimed both at procreation and unity. It is naturally designed so that there are times when sex will not lead to pregnancy. (its not like the church believes a woman ought always to be pregnant;) ) The question is whether or not it is alright to purposefully remove the procrative aspect from sex. To purposefully remove the procreative aspect from sex disrupts and tampers with the natural end of sex. To have sex when infertile does not purposefully remove the procreative aspect. Rather, it naturally gives a couple the opportunity to deepen their relationship without it resulting in a pregnancy every time, which would put strains on their marriage pretty quickly.

Can you please clarify why you think that if it is against the laws of nature to use contraception it is against the laws of nature to have sex while infertile?
 
Conjugal Chastity in the Doctrine of the Church

Christian tradition has always upheld the goodness and honesty of the marital union and of the family against numerous heresies which arose from the very beginnings of the Church. Willed by God with creation itself, brought back to its primal origin and elevated to the dignity of a sacrament by Christ, marriage consists of an intimate communion of the spouses of love and life, intrinsically ordered to the good of the children that God wishes to entrust to them. Both for the good of the spouses and of the children, as well as for the good of society itself, the natural bond no longer depends on human decision.7

The virtue of conjugal chastity “involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift”,8 and through it sexuality “becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman”.9 This virtue, in so far as it refers to the intimate relations of the spouses, requires that "the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love"10 be maintained. Therefore, among the fundamental moral principles of conjugal life, it is necessary to keep in mind “the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning”.11

The persons called to live in the married state realize their vocation to love19 in the full gift of self, which adequately expresses the language of the body.20 From the mutual gift of the spouses comes, as its fruit, the gift of life to the children, who are a sign and crowning of their spousal love.21

Contraception, directly opposed to the transmission of life, betrays and falsifies the self-sacrificing love proper to marriage, "altering its value of total self-giving"22 and contradicting God’s design of love, in which it has been granted to married couples to participate.

The Teaching of the Church on Responsible Procreation
  1. The spouses are to be strengthened in their view of the inestimable value and preciousness of human life, and aided so that they may commit themselves to making their own family a sanctuary of life:28 “God himself is present in human fatherhood and motherhood quite differently than he is present in all other instances of begetting ‘on earth’”.29
  2. Parents are to consider their mission as an honor and a responsibility, since they become cooperators with the Lord in calling into existence a new human person, made in the image and likeness of God, redeemed and destined, in Christ, to a Life of eternal happiness.30 “It is precisely in their role as co-workers with God who transmits his image to the new creature that we see the greatness of couples who are ready ‘to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Saviour, who through them will enlarge and enrich his own family day by day’”.31
  3. From this the Christian’s joy and esteem for paternity and maternity are derived. This parenthood is called “responsible” in recent documents of the Church, to emphasize the awareness and generosity of the spouses with regard to their mission of transmitting life, which has in itself a value of eternity, and to call attention to their role as educators. Certainly it is a duty of married couples—who, for that matter, should seek appropriate counsel—to deliberate deeply and in a spirit of faith about the size of their family, and to decide the concrete mode of realizing it, with respect for the moral criteria of conjugal life.32
  4. The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.33
  5. A specific and more seroius moral evil is present in the use of means which have an abortive effect, impeding the implantation of the embryo which has just been fertilized or even causing its expulsion in an early stage of pregnancy.34
  6. However, profoundly different from any contraceptive practice is the behaviour of married couples, who, always remaining fundamentally open to the gift of life, live their intimacy only in the unfruitful periods, when they are led to this course by serious motives of responsible parenthood. This is true both from the anthropological and moral points of view, because it is rooted in a different conception of the person and of sexuality.35
(excerpts from the Vademecum for Confessors from the Pontifical CF)
 
thewanderer said:
I guess I don’t understand how the church saying you shouldn’t use contraceptions doesn’t follow from the natural law… (I’m not trying to get into the whole argument about the difference between the ‘laws of nature’ and the ‘natural moral laws’. I’m not sure I understand the difference being put forward)

The point is that the church looks at the nature of sex and the sex drive, and sees that it is aimed both at procreation and unity. It is naturally designed so that there are times when sex will not lead to pregnancy. (its not like the church believes a woman ought always to be pregnant;) ) The question is whether or not it is alright to purposefully remove the procrative aspect from sex. To purposefully remove the procreative aspect from sex disrupts and tampers with the natural end of sex. To have sex when infertile does not purposefully remove the procreative aspect. Rather, it naturally gives a couple the opportunity to deepen their relationship without it resulting in a pregnancy every time, which would put strains on their marriage pretty quickly.

Can you please clarify why you think that if it is against the laws of nature to use contraception it is against the laws of nature to have sex while infertile?
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Please, read the title again.
I am not saying the act during infertile period is against the laws of nature.
I am trying to find out the opposite, why every act is supposed to be ordered to procreation.
 
Jaaanosik said:
I am trying to find out the opposite, why every act is supposed to be ordered to procreation.
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Quote from the Document above:

“Therefore, among the fundamental moral principles of conjugal life, it is necessary to keep in mind “the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning””

“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.”
 
Bookcat said:
Quote from the Document above:

**“Therefore, among the fundamental moral principles of conjugal life, it is necessary to keep in mind “the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning””
**

“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.”
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How do we know that it’s willed by God to be inseparable?
 
Jaaanosik said:
How do we know that it’s willed by God to be inseparable?
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For one — the Magisterium of the Church which God has willed to give the authority to teach etc teaches that such is the nature of the marital act and contraception is a grave evil. Hence via the authority given by Christ Jesus the Logos and Son of God (and such of course extends too to the interpretation of the Natural Law by the way).

“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love…”

Again please go get the book I noted earlier --I imagine it will give you more than what you are looking for and then some.
 
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