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2. In the Bible, babies are always a blessing, never a curse.
3. The case of Onan.
4. The New Testament condemns contraception, which it calls pharmakeia.
5. The Church Fathers condemned contraception.
6. Contemporary Observations and the so-called Sexual Revolution.
Not to be disrespectful, but blah blah blah
This biblical argument, taken to its natural conclusion, is that abstinence (the most effective form of contraception) is contrary to God's law because, after all, God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. Therefore we must rut incessantly and women should always be pregnant or nursing.
Long past time for a theology consistent with what God has helped us become. Prosperous, successful, and able to see the limits of creation as we can see it.
6 Reasons Why Contraception is Sinful and Contrary to God's Will
If this utter ignorance is not stopped, we will very quickly reach the point the planet cannot support the number of people. The lack of food and clean water will cause untold suffering and starvation.
This is why the ignorance of religion is the greatest threat to mankind's future that exists.
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” - Martin Luther King
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Originally Posted by Jaymax
You can't be serious?
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Originally Posted by chuckmann
Not to be disrespectful, but blah blah blah
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Originally Posted by june 7th
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Originally Posted by Asheville Native
6 Reasons Why Contraception is Sinful and Contrary to God's Will
If this utter ignorance is not stopped, we will very quickly reach the point the planet cannot support the number of people. The lack of food and clean water will cause untold suffering and starvation.
I am relieved to see such rational dismay at such ideas.
I am relieved to see such rational dismay at such ideas.
I note that you quote me out of context. So tell me.... is abstinence (the most effective form of contraception) contrary to God's law? After all, God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply (except for adders, of course)
Why is quoting the bible on one point ok but ignoring the bible of a very fundamental point not?
1. Contraception is contrary to natural law. The male and female procreative organs naturally come together to procreate a child. The word procreate includes the term "create" since a new life is made. In the case of humans, a new immortal soul is created by God when the father and mother come together and conceive a new person. As Peter Kreeft said, the most holy place on earth is the altar where the Eucharist is consecrated - the second most holy place is the woman's body since it form there that new immortal souls spring forth. The procreative organs naturally function for procreation. That is why God made them as they are. To frustrate the act (interruptus or barrier) is gravely sinful. To poison the body with hormones so as to inhibit the woman's natural cycle of fertility (birth control pill) is gravely sinful. To cut out or purposefully scar procreative organs (sterilization) is gravel sinful. These acts seek to destroy what is natural.
2. In the Bible, babies are always a blessing, never a curse.
"Lo, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate." (Ps 126:3-5).
The Catholic Church has always agreed with the words of this Psalm: “children are a heritage from the Lord. Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them!” To this effect, Saint Paul teaches:
"Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty." (1 Tim 2:15).
Granted, this is an obscure passage, but it highlights the esteemed role that women have in bringing new souls into the world. The Christian wife is exhorted to possess “faith and love and holiness, with modesty” but her personal sacrifice of bearing children is esteemed as the greatest response to the grace of God in her life. Just as God the Father is always open to more and more children whom he loves, so also the Catholic parent remains open to this precious gift of life.
The emphasis on the gift of life and the rules and norms for protecting it are essential to Catholic moral teaching. The sexual abuses condemned by the Apostle Paul can be summed up as an abuse of one of the greatest gifts given to humanity—the ability to cooperate with God’s creative power. God could have continued to create human beings just like he created Adam; instead He chose to bring about new persons through the institution of marriage and the family.
3. The case of Onan. Catholics (and pre-1930 Protestants) condemn both masturbation and contraception by appealing to the case of Onan who "spilled his seed on the ground":
"He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother’s name. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing." (Genesis 38:9–10, D-R)
Here, God directly kills Onan for performing coitus interruptus. Onan's crime included gaining the pleasure of sexual relations with Tamar but the refusal to see the act through as a natural act intended for procreation. Hence, intentional spilling of seed, either in the form of masturbation or contraception is gravely sinful - so much so that God killed a man for it.
Some may object: "Yes, but God killed him for not fulfilling Levirate duties - not for contraception." This objection is poor since Judah also failed in executing the Levirate obligations - but he was not killed by God. So then, it was the contraceptive act in particular that proved both sinful and mortal for Onan.
4. The New Testament condemns contraception, which it calls pharmakeia. As I detail in my book The Catholic Perspective on Paul, Saint Paul condemns contraception by the name of "pharmakeia," the word from which we derive our term "pharmacy."
"Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery {pharmakeia}, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal 5:19-21)
Surely, Paul does not mean to condemn those who prescribe herbs for those suffering from gout. Looking back to Saint Paul’s list, we see that the sin of pharamakeia follows sexual sins and the sin of idolatry. These ancient witchdoctors or pharmacists were especially popular in idolatrous cultures, since pagan fertility rites often involved sexual orgies. Obviously, the women involved in these depraved rituals would not wish to bear children to strangers, and so they sought to become sterile or sought to relieve themselves of the responsibility of a child through abortion. The ancient Greek pharmacists could provide drugs to meet these goals.
The book of Revelation also condemns those who practice pharmakeia along with those who practice idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality (Rev 9:20-21). The grouping of pharmakeia with the three sins of idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality further confirms that pharmakeia is sin relating to killing and sexual impurity. The second-century physician Soranos of Ephesus, in his book Gynecology, uses the Greek term pharmakeia to refer to potions used for both contraception and abortion. In a similar manner, the third-century theologian Hippolytus condemned certain Christian women who employed “drugs {pharmakois} for producing sterility.”
5. The Church Fathers condemned contraception. This could be a post on its own. I'll just provide three quotes from the Church Fathers on this subject. The first is from the eminent Saint John Chrysostom (in AD 391):
[i]"n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father’s old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 28:5 (A.D. 391).
The second is from Saint Jerome (in AD 393) and draws on the sin of Onan:
"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" - Jerome, Against Jovinian 1:19 (A.D. 393).
And then third from Saint Augustine (in AD 419):
"I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility…Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife." -Augustine, Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17 (A.D. 419).
In this last quote, we see that Saint Augustine's concern that contraceptive acts turn a wife into a harlot since she is merely satisfying the lusts of her husband and not for the sake of matrimony - a word which means in Latin duty or gift of motherhood from matris (of a mother) and munus (gift, duty, office). This objectification of women brings us to our last reason...
6. Contemporary Observations and the so-called Sexual Revolution.
The advent of contraception also accompanied the rise abortion, feminism, pornography, out of wedlock birth, and homosexuality. They all come and go together. If sexual pleasure is formally divorced from conceiving children, then why would pornography by sinful? Why would masturbation be sinful? And if a couple just wanted the pleasure and never intended to conceive a child with their act, then don't they have the "right" to terminate a pregnancy if a conception should happen "by accident"? And if sexual pleasure is for the sake of pleasure, then why would homosexuality be sinful? If God wanted people to experience these pleasures, then pleasure should be the measurement. But this is all ridiculous. The natural, God-appointed purpose of this act is to procreate children and this is why pornography, masturbation, homosexuality, and abortion are wrong. It is also the reason why contraception is gravely sinful.
Contraception is often an uncomfortable topic to discuss with family and friends - especially when they are amused or alarmed by large families that welcome new children. Let this post do some of the work for you. Please share this with your friends via Facebook and other means. People, especially women, don't really want to subject themselves to contraceptive practices. Let's prayerfully and humbly help others to be whole, healthy, and holy in this regard.
“Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb.” (Psalm 126:3, D-R)
Well, you've been getting a beating here but you should realize that what you mostly say is true but only in a perfect world of faith. Underlying the lack of faith is fear. Unfortunately man is plagued by fear. Fear of not enough resources, fear of being burdened with too many children to raise properly and fear of this or that. Abortion is wrong but contraceptives are in a different class and do prevent for the most part the greater sin of abortion and unwanted children.
I try to understand because I hear these issues around me and need to relate in someway to these issues because I have grown daughters who are married. But the bottom line is, I say, judge not/condemn not and let everyone operate in the measure of faith or no faith that they have. Once the issue is discussed then there is no room for coercion/nagging.
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6 Reasons Why Contraception is Sinful and Contrary to God's Will
