Why is it wrong not to want children?

[TedDC]

By removing that procreative aspect, they underlying tone is always insulting.
It says:
“I don’t want to see your beautiful genetics carried on for future generations to love and enjoy.”
“I don’t think you’re worthy of receiving my entirety.”
“I don’t love how you are made.”

That’s entirely your speculation - how can you judge peoples’ intentions based on what you think they’re thinking?

But I still want you to make me feel really good for a while.

Sounds selfish to me…

You forgot “…and I want to make you feel really good for a while”. Now, how is that selfish?

 

[Em_in_FL]

That’s entirely your speculation - how can you judge peoples’ intentions based on what you think they’re thinking?

You forgot “…and I want to make you feel really good for a while”. Now, how is that selfish?

I’m not judging intentions… it’s an underlying tone that’s fairly simple to see.

You take something that’s anthropologically natural, and then purposefully take steps to separate out a good. You take something GOOD away… depleting it.

Procreation is a good thing… otherwise you and I wouldn’t be here right now. Unless we’re thinking of “others” in the bigger sense of creation (as in the generations to come), it’s a selfish act (within the marriage) to purposefully thwart the design.

 

[EasterJoy]

You forgot “…and I want to make you feel really good for a while”. Now, how is that selfish?

It is the “no one else matters” aspect. It is possible for two people to be self-centered together. The Church is saying that God made no thing and no human relationship to be self-centered in its essence, even temporarily.

Every act, every intention, everything that a human or a couple can do with their one shared life falls short, if not done in reference to the love of God and neighbor:
One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that (he) answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34

This is why the Church teaches that NFP may legitimately be used to space pregnancies. Sometimes, denying oneself in order to perhaps delay having children that one wants very much is the least selfish thing. It is not the “have children” or “don’t have children” that is the goal. It is having every act of a marriage, including the acts of sexual intimacy, reflect a united love of and service to God and neighbor.

Neither is it enough for Christian parents to merely be open to giving birth to children. Humans are charged by the nature of being human to be saints. Likewise, by the nature of marriage, married people are charged to raise saints, or else to use the strength not devoted to that work to do the other work of saints that mere humanity calls them to.

It doesn’t mean life isn’t supposed to be pleasurable. God made food pleasurable. There are few virtues that aren’t much more pleasurable, in the long run, than are the vices. It means not allowing one’s own pleasure (or in the case of a couple, the couple’s mutual pleasure) to be the single goal of any act. That is a road away from sanctity, and so is a forbidden road.

 

[Rico_S]

I’m not judging intentions… it’s an underlying tone that’s fairly simple to see.

You take something that’s anthropologically natural, and then purposefully take steps to separate out a good. You take something GOOD away… depleting it.
.

Speaking non-theologically…

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious that removing a good aspect out of the act renders the act bad.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Speaking non-theologically…

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious that removing a good aspect out of the act renders the act bad.

You’re probably right…
I still need to hone my debate skills and reasonings on this…
I’m an engineer, not a theologian… or an anthropologist.

But I do believe that there are reasons for what the church teaches that fundamentally reach the truth without using the ol’ “Because the Church says so” type of argument… and that’s what I’m trying to get to.

 

[EasterJoy]

Speaking non-theologically…

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious that removing a good aspect out of the act renders the act bad.

Look at canon law, though:
Canon 1055.1 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Openness to procreation is not merely “a good aspect” of marriage. It is an essential aspect of marriage. There is a rather big difference between seeking to remove a good aspect and seeking to remove an essential one. This is because the Church does not divorce our well-being from the well-being of everyone else in the Church. That is an attitude that is totally foreign to the Church’s thinking. We are all in this together, first last and always. You have to see that to get how the Church looks at moral law.

It is kind of like wondering what is wrong with going to college without the intention of being educated. What does it hurt, to just go to college to enjoy yourself? Who does it hurt? How can my devotion to my own pleasure, at the expense of my education, do anything to education as an institution? I mean, isn’t my education for my benefit? What’s wrong with that?

I think if you’ve been in class with students who have no intention to be educated, you know the answer to that one.

 

[Vico]

You can gain an appreciation that it is not the feeling of the desire for children, that is required of each spouse, rather not being closed to children, when that is not sinful. Pope Pius XII said:

"Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.
~ Address to Midwives, Given by His Holiness Pope Pius XII, 29 October 1951

And also for those with serious health problems, may not even be able to risk NFP:
In such a case the obligation “of providing for the preservation of mankind” (621) ceases, because a woman is not obliged, by the matrimonial contract, to expose herself to dangers or injury which are not ordinarily part of maternity (Courier de Rome, June 1991, p.2).

(Reference: No. 621 in Papal Teaching: Matrimony. Selected and arranged by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, trans. Michael J. Byrnes. Boston: St. Paul Books, 1963.)
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/morality/family/natural.htm

 

[Rico_S]

Look at canon law, though:
Canon 1055.1 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Openness to procreation is not merely “a good aspect” of marriage. It is an essential aspect of marriage. There is a rather big difference between seeking to remove a good aspect and seeking to remove an essential one. This is because the Church does not divorce our well-being from the well-being of everyone else in the Church. That is an attitude that is totally foreign to the Church’s thinking. We are all in this together, first last and always. You have to see that to get how the Church looks at moral law.

It is kind of like wondering what is wrong with going to college without the intention of being educated. What does it hurt, to just go to college to enjoy yourself? Who does it hurt? How can my devotion to my own pleasure, at the expense of my education, do anything to education as an institution? I mean, isn’t my education for my benefit? What’s wrong with that?

I think if you’ve been in class with students who have no intention to be educated, you know the answer to that one.

Easter Joy:

Just note that I prefaced my comments witht the caviat “from a non-theological view…” I was following along the line of thinking that EM set forth earlier in the thread trying to explain that the teachings of the church were not arbitrary, and that things like the twofold nature of sex and marriage is discernable independently of religion’s rules and proclamations.

 

[TedDC]

It is the “no one else matters” aspect. It is possible for two people to be self-centered together. The Church is saying that God made no thing and no human relationship to be self-centered in its essence, even temporarily.

Every act, every intention, everything that a human or a couple can do with their one shared life falls short, if not done in reference to the love of God and neighbor:
One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that (he) answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34

This is why the Church teaches that NFP may legitimately be used to space pregnancies. Sometimes, denying oneself in order to perhaps delay having children that one wants very much is the least selfish thing. It is not the “have children” or “don’t have children” that is the goal. It is having every act of a marriage, including the acts of sexual intimacy, reflect a united love of and service to God and neighbor.

Neither is it enough for Christian parents to merely be open to giving birth to children. Humans are charged by the nature of being human to be saints. Likewise, by the nature of marriage, married people are charged to raise saints, or else to use the strength not devoted to that work to do the other work of saints that mere humanity calls them to.

It doesn’t mean life isn’t supposed to be pleasurable. God made food pleasurable. There are few virtues that aren’t much more pleasurable, in the long run, than are the vices. It means not allowing one’s own pleasure (or in the case of a couple, the couple’s mutual pleasure) to be the single goal of any act. That is a road away from sanctity, and so is a forbidden road.

What about a couple who decide to adopt children rather than have their own? Certainly nothing selfish there - in fact, it’s probably a more difficult path.

 

[Calliso]

Yes it is.

It’s mutual masturbation.

Umm no I will repeat again simply because we used contraceptives doesn;t mean we were just using each other for our own pleasures. I am not saying that there are not situations like that. But there are also situations for instance where a woman might only agree to sex because she might get pregnant from it.

 

[Rence]

Umm no I will repeat again simply because we used contraceptives doesn;t mean we were just using each other for our own pleasures. I am not saying that there are not situations like that. But there are also situations for instance where a woman might only agree to sex because she might get pregnant from it.

I think, because you’re not Catholic, that you can see it from a different perspective. Catholics are called to accept the Church’s teachings on matters of faith and morals.

Humanae Vitae is an encyclical that goes over such things as contraception, spacing out and indefinitely preventing pregnancy via NFP, etc. It’s easy to read. You may find it interesting (even if you don’t agree with some parts of it). vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Though I have yet to read that it is forbidden to get married if you don’t want to have children but are open to life. Maybe I missed it…It would seem to me that the encyclical applies to married people, as well as those who are preparing to get married.

I mean, the Catholic Church doesn’t forbid infertile women or men from being married…

 

[Calliso]

The harm that is caused is that the sexual act is depleted to something that has no meaning. If it’s possible to remove the “procreative” aspect, then it likewise would be possible to remove the “unitive” aspect just as easily.

Would it be reasonable to have this thread if it were considered the other way around… such as “Why is it wrong to not want to be unified in sex?”… then we can go on talking about how it’s only useful for babymaking… why in the world would I want to connect with another human being in this sort of unitive way? See? Pretty ridiculous.

BOTH ASPECTS have such HUGE importance in our world! Having children ensures that generations of humanity go on! It allows us to be unified with our spouse in ways that far exceed how we connect with others in the world. Sex is an INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL gift… in BOTH aspects… and removing one of those just depletes it!

Yes, BUT just because you remove the procreative aspect doesn;t mean you automatically remove the unitive aspect. Likewise just because you have the procreative aspect doesn;t mean the unitive aspect is there as well. Like the comment I made before about some woman basically having sex with their husband for the sole purpose of getting pregnant. And yes having children insures humanity goes on. But at the same time humanity isn;t going to go extinct because a handful of married couples decide children are not for them.

 

[EasterJoy]

What about a couple who decide to adopt children rather than have their own? Certainly nothing selfish there - in fact, it’s probably a more difficult path.

This is like answering your wife, who notices that when you cook breakfast you only ever make your favorite thing, with the objection, “well, I got the cleaning yesterday on my way home from work, and that is very inconvenient for me. It takes a lot longer than if you made us breakfast.” Or someone who says you never recycle, “Well, but I compost. I get points for that.”

IOW, whether the children you have or are expecting are adopted or biological is besides the point. It is very good to adopt children, but that doesn’t make some particular act in the bedroom more or less virtuous. If a couple had adopted children, for instance, then their decision to use NFP to space or avoid future pregnancies would be the same as if the children were biological

We don’t get to say, “OK, listen God, how about I just go all out 90% of the time, may I have this other 10% of my time to do whatever suits me, instead?” The hidden assumption in that is “my time”. Your time, whether individually or as a couple, is not your own. How you use the time you have does orient you in a particular way.

 

[Calliso]

By removing that procreative aspect, they underlying tone is always insulting.
It says:
“I don’t want to see your beautiful genetics carried on for future generations to love and enjoy.”
“I don’t think you’re worthy of receiving my entirety.”
“I don’t love how you are made.”

But I still want you to make me feel really good for a while.

Sounds selfish to me…

You know I am not saying that some people donlt have those type of under lying feelings when it comes to not wanting children. But not all have those types of feelings. For instance I can speak for myself and I do think my husband genetics are fine and heck a small part of me wants children because I think we would make beautiful kids. I think my husband is plenty worthy of receiving me in his entirety but the thing is he doesn;t want kids either. And I think my husband is “made” just fine. None of this really has to do with why I donlt want kids.

 

[EasterJoy]

Yes, BUT just because you remove the procreative aspect doesn;t mean you automatically remove the unitive aspect. Likewise just because you have the procreative aspect doesn;t mean the unitive aspect is there as well. Like the comment I made before about some woman basically having sex with their husband for the sole purpose of getting pregnant. And yes having children insures humanity goes on. But at the same time humanity isn;t going to go extinct because a handful of married couples decide children are not for them.

Maybe in the secular sense, I would say that it changes the unitive aspect, rather than removes it. It makes it “you and me and no one else” instead of “you and me, and for the sake of all”. For a Catholic, though, “you and me, and for the sake of all” is the unitive aspect that is worthy of the term. Every Christian vocation is “_________, for the sake of all”. And yes, “you, for as long as it takes to get a baby going” also violates the unitive aspect. The most fundamental part of the idea is the forging of a single life, from which the marriage gives life, after all.

It isn’t that humanity is going to go extinct if there isn’t procreation in a particular marriage. The sterile may validly marry. It is that the couple’s actions have an orientation that doesn’t end at the bedroom door, even when the door is closed. They are open to the concept of their one life having a greater context. There are also not second-class marriages, so the sterile aren’t given carte blanche to say, “we’re living not as simply married, but as sterile and married, so we don’t have to have this orientation.”

Besides, there are places where the birth rate is falling below replacement. It is not something that a couple can say, “Oh, someone else will do it.” This is more than a handful we’re looking at, now that this sentiment has become widespread.

 

[EasterJoy]

Easter Joy:

Just note that I prefaced my comments witht the caviat “from a non-theological view…” I was following along the line of thinking that EM set forth earlier in the thread trying to explain that the teachings of the church were not arbitrary, and that things like the twofold nature of sex and marriage is discernable independently of religion’s rules and proclamations.

Natural law is discernible independent of religion, but independence from religion does put its own slant on what seems obvious, wouldn’t you say? It is not as if human philosophies that are cleansed of religious sensibility return us to some natural state of thought. Last century’s experiments with communism proved that. Someone can say that religion is artificial, but it does not logically follow that thought without religion is natural. Far from it. Yet this is an assumption that many modern discussions are saddled with.

I would argue that religion is not the source of the artificial in human thinking. A sense of the universe that puts ourselves at the center and that minimizes our place in it only when we want to escape responsibility is where the artificial aspect comes into our thinking, IMHO.

 

[Calliso]

I think, because you’re not Catholic, that you can see it from a different perspective. Catholics are called to accept the Church’s teachings on matters of faith and morals.

Humanae Vitae is an encyclical that goes over such things as contraception, spacing out and indefinitely preventing pregnancy via NFP, etc. It’s easy to read. You may find it interesting (even if you don’t agree with some parts of it). vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Though I have yet to read that it is forbidden to get married if you don’t want to have children but are open to life. Maybe I missed it…It would seem to me that the encyclical applies to married people, as well as those who are preparing to get married.

I mean, the Catholic Church doesn’t forbid infertile women or men from being married…

Thanks I will take a look at that. I never really got myself personally why infertile people are allowed to marry. For instance lets say a woman that has had her uterus removed she cannot get pregnant. But I have yet to see anyone say that woman should not get married. I mean if marriage is supposed to mainly be about kids…Eh its confusing to me is all.

 

[TedDC]

This is like answering your wife, who notices that when you cook breakfast you only ever make your favorite thing, with the objection, “well, I got the cleaning yesterday on my way home from work, and that is very inconvenient for me. It takes a lot longer than if you made us breakfast.” Or someone who says you never recycle, “Well, but I compost. I get points for that.”

IOW, whether the children you have or are expecting are adopted or biological is besides the point. It is very good to adopt children, but that doesn’t make some particular act in the bedroom more or less virtuous. If a couple had adopted children, for instance, then their decision to use NFP to space or avoid future pregnancies would be the same as if the children were biological

We don’t get to say, “OK, listen God, how about I just go all out 90% of the time, may I have this other 10% of my time to do whatever suits me, instead?” The hidden assumption in that is “my time”. Your time, whether individually or as a couple, is not your own. How you use the time you have does orient you in a particular way.

I don’t see how any of that logically relates to a harmless mutually pleasurable activity in a married couple. What evidence do you have that God actually cares about such things?

 

[Vico]

Calliso, I noticed your remark about marriage being about having kids. Marriage is not primarily about having kids, but about the spiritual good of the couple. The physical act is primarily about having kids and raising them in the Church, but quelling desire is secondary to prevent other sins, and a spouse cannot always expect that remedy either.

There are really a few principles at work here. The marriage covenant is:

1. Consented to, not under duress, with correct understanding of what it is.
2. Exclusive for the whole life of both spouses.
3. For the mutual spiritual benefit of the spouses.
4. Committed to raising any children in the Church.
5. Granting the natural act apt to the generation children, when not sinful and not abnormally risky.

“Natural” means no barriers, “act” implies potency, “apt to the generation children” implies no necessity of fertility and excludes acts like sodomy, and “not sinful” means no corruption of the act by rape or onanism, no contraceptive devices, and no contraceptive substances that are not a medical necessity. The reason for no contraceptive devices or substances is that it objectively changes the physiology (not the act) to prevent generation which is only the right of God.

Those that validly marry and never consummate it still have a valid marriage but it may be dissolved.

 

[Calliso]

Calliso, I noticed your remark about marriage being about having kids. Marriage is not primarily about having kids, but about the spiritual good of the couple. The physical act is primarily about having kids and raising them in the Church, but quelling desire is secondary to prevent other sins, and a spouse cannot always expect that remedy either.

There are really a few principles at work here. The marriage covenant is:

1. Consented to, not under duress, with correct understanding of what it is.
2. Exclusive for the whole life of both spouses.
3. For the mutual spiritual benefit of the spouses.
4. Committed to raising any children in the Church.
5. Granting the natural act apt to the generation children, when not sinful and not abnormally risky.

“Natural” means no barriers, “act” implies potency, “apt to the generation children” implies no necessity of fertility and excludes acts like sodomy, and “not sinful” means no corruption of the act by rape or onanism, no contraceptive devices, and no contraceptive substances that are not a medical necessity. The reason for no contraceptive devices or substances is that it objectively changes the physiology (not the act) to prevent generation which is only the right of God.

Those that validly marry and never consummate it still have a valid marriage but it may be dissolved.

Thanks for the explanation. I didn;t know that if you haven;t consummated your marriage you would still have a valid marriage. I had gotten the idea that you would be considered not married at all.