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I happen to fully agree with Joe, but more importantly I do think the fact that one could say "scholars disagree" over the issue raises a fundamental point about what the "patristic position" is. Different views can lay claim to it and certainly have evidence. That is one of the major issues I have with the cut-and-dry arguments thrown out by the R.C. apologists. It is complex, and not at all simple as often presented to be.

I myself find this topic immensely uninteresting.

Dear Fr. PrJ,

I'm tired of talking about sex all the time, too, especially because much of the talk is doomed to be unproductive. The problem is that the Catholic position on this is incomprehensible unless one starts with the proper anthropology. The real question to start with is not "how can I have sex?" but "what is man?"

The questions on sex, which the world proposes as first, are really last.

Bless Father,

I was wondering if you could suggest some studies that would challenge the point of view I presented. I haven't been able to find anything in the literature, at least in terms of monograph length studies. But, I would seriously be interested in finding some studies, based on a close reading of the primary texts, that show that the general patristic position was not essentially that which I described. Thanks.

Joe

Great posts by all involved in this discussion.

The doctrine has developed, people. Just as the doctrine on warfare has developed.

A ROCOR priest on another Forum (I don't know if I'm allowed to put a link here) has written as much. The Fathers were unanimous in their stance on procreation and pacifism. Only later were concessions made for warrior saints (blessing of nuclear bombers) and intercourse for unitive means.

And I see no reason why the doctrines won't continue to develop. It is not inconceivable that the Church of Rome will develop its position on contraception again to allow for things like barrier methods. It just may take a 100 years or more.

Joe

So doctrine does develop?

I am going to jump in here without having read all of the posts carefully but I will read them when time permits. I make a few obervations. Ephesians states:


Christ relationship to the Church is on of Bridegroom and Bride. It is a fruitful relationship. It begets new life. For those who are married, the consideration of contraception is of utmost importance because this mystery reflects a much greater one.

In the beginning, before the fall, Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply.

Under natural law alone, one could maintain that polygamy is a good because the end of the sexual act is procreation and the more procreation the better. Under the Gospel, however, the sacramental sign is primary and cannot be violated because of what it signifies. Polygamy is out.

On the other hand, the sign is also damaged by contraception because it is, thereby, not fruitful. Certainly one can practice NFP and still have a contraceptive mentality. But that is beside the point. Humanae vitae states:


Humane vitae also states:


If memory serves me correctly (I don't have a Latin text at my finertips) serious reasons is better translated as "just cause," ie, it is a matter of justice in spacing children.

Finally, I would add another quote from HV:


The Church sets forth the ideal to which we must always strive --that marital love must respect both the unitive and procreative aspects of the act. Anything short of this is in someway dishonest and sinful.

Honestly, I don't know. One can mean so many things by "doctrinal development." At a certain superficial level it does develop in that language about doctrinal issues gets clarified. Now, some will argue that doctrinal development is the deepening of understanding and the realization of truths that weren't known before but are intimately connected with the known doctrines (Newman). I don't know what to make of this. Personally, I agree with Todd that none of the Church today teaches what the fathers teach. I don't see the change as development, rather I see it as the embarking on a new path. My own view is that, for the most part, the early Church was wrongheaded about sex, precisely for the reasons I've already indicated. But, contraception was never a dogmatic issue to be decided by a council. One has to ask if there really is a doctrine concerning contraception, rather than a set of inherited practices and assumptions. My personal view is that the notion of doctrinal development, as was first formulated in the 19th century, is too often used to justify changes in teachings which are undeniable contradictions of what previous popes and councils taught. I do think that the Church of Rome has contradicted herself and has taught error on numerous occasions. That is why I broke communion with Rome. But I also think that many of these social and political issues are simply issues not addressed by divine revelation and therefore, should not be matters of doctrine anyway. Pagan philosophy has its place in helping us clarify the language used in expressing doctine. This is the authentic way in which the fathers used such terms as "homoousias" in the Councils. But where it goes awry is when it is assumed that natural philosophy alone can determine matters of important moral significance where divine revelation is completely silent and that one can abstract from divine revelation in moral reasoning. This is the problem I have with natural law theory and scholasticism. The assumption is that without divine revelation, human beings can know essentially all that is contained in the moral law so that revelation doesn't really add anything new to moral theology, but rather it deals with obscure questions such as the nature of the Trinity. Aquinas thinks that all can know that God is one from the light of reason alone. I do not see this at all. If we prescind from biblical revelation for the moment, it doesn't seem clear to me at all why one couldn't see manichean dualism as being just as plausible as Judeo-Christian monotheism. But Humanae Vitae is argued in just the same way. There is very little, if anything in the document that appeals to Scripture. The argument, from the beginning, sets up the discussion by suggesting that the "magisterium" is the authentic interpreter of the natural law which in principle can be known by everyone without the aid of revelation. This real separation between natural law and theology/ special revelation leads to other kinds of strange positions. For example, the whole concept of limbo ( a theological opinion and not a doctrine, of course) is based on the notion that there is a distinction between natural beatitude and supernatural beatitude. But, what is the basis for this distinction? And to put things in terms of Christian anthropology, if man is made to become like God and to live in eternal communion with God, then how could any person ever be in a state of happiness while being deprived of that communion?

I would also suggest that this kind of scholasticism is what lead to rationalist philosophy in the modern period and deism. One one says that it is not essential to treat of God's biblical revelation when dealing with basic facts of the natural world and moral law, then it is easy to formulate a "natural religion" based on reason alone. Once biblical revelation becomes uncertain and called into question, thinkers easily transition into deism. But the problem is that from the very beginning, man was created and God was personally revealed to him. The revelation of the personal God to man preceeds man's reasoning about the natural order. If we attempt to reason about things now indepedently of revelation, then we are doing so from a fallen perspective. Philosophy does not establish a system of truths that serves as the basement for revelation which sits on top of it. Philosophy, at best, is simply a critical tool for clarifying our thoughts and our language and for showing us the presuppositions we carry around with us in speech and thought. It is divine revelation that gives us the only real truth. That is also why attempts to attain the ultimate truths about things from reason alone will in the end lead to skepticism. Socrates, the wisest philosopher of all was, in the end, a skeptic. If he believed that we ought to seek the truth and the good, he did so because of an implicit faith. I think that all of this is revelant to the contraception issue and any moral or social issue.

Joe

"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.[20] "

It is precisely in this section that the document commits the fallacy of equivocation. As Karl rightly pointed out, "nature" in natural law theory, refers to the rational "telos" (or goal) of an action. So natural law theory does not use the word nature to mean natural processes, but rather to mean the essential rational goods to be pursued by reason. But, then look in this document at this statement, "...the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions..."

We have switched to using the word "natural" to refer to the simple, biological processes involved in procreation. Earlier, the encycle said that each and every single act must in its structure respect the fundamental "telos" of nature. Yet, NFP, is precisely an act that doesn't do this precisely because one is manipulating the natural cycle to avoid the "telos" in nature.

Also, the document says that any action performed in anticipation of, during, of after the act is morally illicit if it is intended to frustrate the natural telos. Well, isn't taking your temperature and calculating times and seasons a whole series of actions anticipating the individual sexual acts?

See, I think the whole argument falls on these two fallacies and that is why I am unconvinced. One must either hold that all birth control between married couples (except complete abstention) is morally wrong or one must hold that if NFP is morally licit, then other non-abortifacient methods are licit as well.

Joe

Joe,

I don't think so.

Posit first of all that NFP can be sinful. Of course.

But it's not the same thing as contraception, because it is an abstention, not an action. The couple refrains from sex, which is not a sin.

Or at least, that's what my wife tells me

Karl, I understand that but I still think that it is hair-splitting. You can't abstract an act from the intentional context in which it is situated. That one is engaging in the act, not spontaneously, but in a calculated manner already makes intentionality essential to the act. It isn't simply that I am choosing to abstain from an act on a particular day (since it is a likely day of fertility). Rather, I am calculating that the next time I perform the act, that I will only do so under specific conditions that render the act infertile. My calculation and timing are precisely acts in anticipation of the next time I will perform the sexual act and they cannot be separated from the sexual act.

And still, it doesn't address the issue of the equivocation on the concept of "natural" that is included in the encyclical.

Joe

Joe, thank you for your posts. You said that you and your wife "...have practiced NFP for years." Does this mean that you are still doing so, even within Orthodoxy? (It's the word "have" that confuses me here.)

As a blended family with 7 kids, NFP is no small issue for us. Having complied more or less consistently with this teaching for the last few years, I think my wife feels pretty much "ripped off," and I'm getting concerned. In effect, we must abstain when she most longs for unity, and unite when procreation is impossible. Doesn't this then miss both goals of sexual union?

It may be important to understand that the natural law is a participation in the Divine Law, not something outside of it. The tradition that natural law is separate from Divine Law is certainly not the tradition of natural law in the Church, although it may be in the Enlightment. That the Gentiles may know the natural law from conscience does not exclude the fact that is still God's law implanted in man from the beginning in the garden.


See,eg, Chrysostom, Concerning the Statutes Ch XII, 12


Having knowledge of how the human body works may make issues like this more complicated, but there is no thwarting of the natural end. The idea of NFP is that you don't participate in the act, at those times of fertility. That you engage in them during times of "known" infertility is no guarantee that it will work. Think of Abraham and Sarah.

And you must remember that the Church is consdering what is licit, not what is best. Everyone thought the Catholic Church was going to change its traditional teaching on contraception. The angle from which HV was written was a response to the pressure to change, not an exposition from the point of view of what is best. And Paul VI surprised all the experts who effectively set up there own papacy based upon their own rejection of HV.

From the single act, the manifest intention is that nothing has been done to thwart conception. If there is a continual practice to participate in NFP to avoid conception, then one must consider whether one has just cause to avoid conception. Intention must be considered on several different levels.