For some, “nature” becomes reduced to raw material for human activity and for its power: thus nature needs to be profoundly transformed, and indeed overcome by freedom, inasmuch as it represents a limitation and denial of freedom. (Veritatis Splendor, 46)
Blackadder has posted about how real wages have increased for a lot of Americans over the past 30 years, contrary to popular opinion. While that’s an interesting assertion, it makes me wonder – why should more money mean a better “standard of living” or a better life? It’s a common question – whether life with laptops, cellphones, and cars makes life any better than life without. Like Pope Benedict said in Spe Salvi, our current age has a peculiar “faith in progress”, and perhaps more importantly, faith in technology. This utilitarian faith judges goodness by efficiency. Cars are better than horses because cars go faster and go further. But does that make them better?
To answer that question, I want to look at why the Church teaches that contreption is immoral. It’s fascinating, really. The Church teaches us that our bodies, and all of nature, are ordered by God. The conjugal act, as a bodily act, is ordered to be inseparably unitive and procreative. Any act that sterilizes the conjugal act (regardless of intention) is an attempt to interfere with our God-given human nature. Contraception attacks the integrity of the conjugal act. And that’s bad. But the immorality of contraception isn’t my main point. The main point is that nature has a God-given meaning, an intrinsic order and integrity that man must not break – regardless of intention.
Just as our bodies cannot be reformulated according to autonomous human reason (but rather regulated according to natural law), so too must we obey the order of our material world. We can not willfully re-synthesize nature according to an autonomous human reason. Rather, we are commanded to “subdue” nature according to natural law. In other words . . . perhaps nature isn’t “meant” to be broken down into basic molecules and then reconstructed into objects and materials of our own design (even, again, with good intentions). Perhaps nature is meant to be harnessed rather than dominated.
I’m not arguing for a return to the stone age, but I am arguing that we try to discern the purpose of the material world, so as to utilize it according to its nature. If the body isn’t “raw material” for human freedom, then perhaps the “material world” isn’t “raw material” for human freedom either. Perhaps nature has an integrity that man cannot claim to manipulate, just as man cannot manipulate the integrity of the conjugal act.
Or is the world simply ours to deconstruct and reconstruct according to our best intentions?
If the body isn’t “raw material” for human freedom, then perhaps the “material world” isn’t “raw material” for human freedom either. Perhaps nature has an integrity that man cannot claim to manipulate, just as man cannot manipulate the integrity of the conjugal act.
I think this is a good and true connection you are making here.
I’d be curious to see how this breaks down in terms of specifics. For instance, how do we know which specific uses of natural resources are “harnessing” vs. “dominating”, and can we answer that question before we’ve seen the long-term effects of these uses? We’ve already seen the harrowing effects of contraception, but a) these could be (and were) predicted early on and b) are only secondary reasons to avoid its use – it would be sinful even if bad side-effects did not occur. There are lots of stupid things people can do, and not all are sinful. But when an act is not intrinsically sinful, there are only two ways to evaluate it: by intention and by results.
To make a long, convoluted thought short(er), if we can’t determine which acts are intrinsically problematic on the basis of intention, does that force us to evaluate them by consequences alone? Trial-and-error may work for pragmatic decision making, but one never *has* to commit a sin in order know it is one.
Nate,
Through your witness of His Kingship over nature, Christ has given me hope today.
Thank you.
Nate,
Thanks for your thoughtful post. It brings to mind a few thoughts.
First, it seems to me the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act are manipulated all the time, either through time or space. NFP uses time whereas contraception uses space. One uses a technique, the other uses an instrument. At bottom, both NFP and contraception seem to constitute an interference of some kind with the natural order? Both acts are intentional and both are directed to the same end. Would you agree with this?
Second, when silicon (Atomic Number 14) is used to create various glasses, ceramics, cements, and integrated circuits, would it be correct to say that this constitutes a human act that subdues nature according to natural law or is it a domination of nature achieved by breaking down nature to its elemental parts and restructuring it according to human design? Clearly, it is the latter. But is this an unethical act? Does it violate the natural order? If so, how?
What constitutes nature’s integrity? At what point does man’s dominance of nature violate that integrity and thereby cease to be ethical?
Nate,
My questions above were not intended to be considered as a semester exam! No! They are just thoughts that occurred to me from reading your post and I’m passing them along.
Your post was very stimulative. Thanx.
Interesting Nate.
I wrote my thesis on Balthasar and Rahner view’s on salvation for non-Christians. They take very different approaches. Balthasar characterizes himself as following Goethe and Rahner as following Kant and Feuerbach. Goethe believed we ought to view the world as a whole. Learn about a plant by watching in grow in stead of dissecting, while Kant and others attempted to incorporation that rationalism of the scientific world into theology. Just modern science dissects animals, this rationalism produced a dissection of theology and the faith that rendered it dead.
It seems that what you are saying about stewardship, of subduing nature to natural law would follow Goetheian approach.
Now sure how relevant that is what you were saying, but I thought I’d offer it anyway.
Gerald L. Campbell wrote:
First, it seems to me the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act are manipulated all the time, either through time or space. NFP uses time whereas contraception uses space. One uses a technique, the other uses an instrument. At bottom, both NFP and contraception seem to constitute an interference of some kind with the natural order? Both acts are intentional and both are directed to the same end. Would you agree with this?
I would disagree that “both NFP and contraception seem to constitute an interference of some kind with the natural order”. I think you may be saying this due to a misunderstanding of the meaning of “procreative”. Brett Salkeld recently discussed what procreativity means in the context of being open to life in a recent post. NFP constitutes a working with the natural order while contraception entails thwarting nature, as it were. NFP does not manipulate the dual purpose of the conjugal act through time or technique; rather, the integrity of the conjugal act is kept in tact each time it is engaged and simply not touched when abstention occurs. Reverence is paid to the conjugal act either way, while contraception turns it into a different kind of act.
That being said, I also wonder whether the example of the manipulation of silicon constitutes a violation of nature. I do know that, at least when looking at new birth technologies, anything that aids the natural function of the body or conjugal act to lead to the conception of a new human (i.e. NFP, certain fertility medications, nutrition, etc.) is licit while anything that replaces the natural function of the body or the conjugal act (i.e. IVF, artificial insemination, etc.) is illicit. I think, perhaps, this is along the same lines of the point Nate is making. He says that “we are commanded to ‘subdue’ nature according to natural law.” We should work with nature, not against it, in our duty to have dominion over the earth.
However, while I think this is a good rule of thumb, I don’t know that it can be taken as strongly as our duty to maintain the integrity of the human body. Wouldn’t that mean that we couldn’t manipulate crops or animals to serve the food needs of humans, for instance? I think true stewardship involves a reverence for the integrity of nature without forgetting that nature is here for the good of humans. (An example of those who forget this: people who say we should avoid having children to reduce our “carbon footprint” on the earth.)
Great thoughts and questions. I don’t have any answers. :)
Here’s what I have the most difficulty with – when we take nature and transform it to the point where we no longer recognize God in it, but man in it.
I think Gerald asks the right question though: “What constitutes nature’s integrity? At what point does man’s dominance of nature violate that integrity and thereby cease to be ethical?”
And I think JB offers a clue: “Learn about a plant by watching it grow instead of dissecting”, and so too AB: “nature is here for the good of humans.”
I would add – what is the end of nature? I’m reminded of Isaiah’s vision of the lamb and the wolf being friends, of the child playing with the snake, of the lion turning vegetarian. A subdued world is one where nature isn’t working against itself, against us, and against God. Perhaps domestication is the right word for that kind of approach.
Nate,
Perhaps it would be helpful to view nature’s integrity from the perspective of personal integrity. If American’s have morphed into consumers — and are no longer truly citizens, as some claim — doesn’t that spell bad things for nature?
It seems that nature’s fate rests with three interrogatories: 1) what kind of people do we want to be; 2) what kind of nation do we want to create; and 3) what kind of image do we want to project to the world.
The center of gravity for the question “what constitutes nature’s integrity” seems to be centered in the vision man has for himself. “Who am I?” and “What am I for?
I recall long ago reading the writings of John Muir. What struck me about him was that he argued for nature’s integrity (the national parks, etc.) on the grounds that pristine nature was necessary to regenerate the human soul. The fate of nature was contingent upon the integrity of the human person, the nation, and the world community.
It is here, I believe, that the modern environmental movement has been derailed.
AB,
I was just trying to push the analysis of NFP a little further. The morality of an act is determined not merely by the means used but also by the intention of the agent. If the intent that drives NFP is to avoid having children, then isn’t it immoral by the very fact that it frustrates the primary purpose of marriage, namely, procreation?
I also find that an appeal to the metaphor “openness to life” brings up other issues that complicate the discussion. “Openness to life” refers to a disposition that reaches it full potential in a consistent ethic of life. What if a person practices NFP but defends the use of torture? Or what if they fail their obligations to social justice? Or what if they continue to support the death penalty? What does this say about the integrity of that person’s disposition? Do they truly have an “openness to life?” Does this call into question their use of NFP? Or can everything be compartmentalized in such a way that such questions are meaningless?
As regards silicon, I had in mind the methodology of the natural and social sciences. Matter in motion. That’s the mantra. Discrete particles in motion. Doesn’t scientific methodology in and of itself deny the formal aspects of man and nature by definition? Don’t such methodologies control our thinking about man, nature, and God? Doesn’t part of the problem go beyond moral failings such as greed, or power, or prestige? Doesn’t it include the very way in which we think about reality?
Gerald
you and Nate raise very important points.
However why do you say:
‘It is here, I believe, that the modern environmental movement has been derailed.’ ?
Of course we have a huge diversity of opinions within the environmental movement – it certainly is no big secret that if we have for example 20-30 Billion humans hopping around freely in 100 years this will have consequences for the environment quite different than if it would be for example the current 6 Billion. But than again it seem every time one comes up with a doomsday scenario human creativity seems capable of coming up with adjustments and hints of a solution that temporarily save the day.
The issues confronting us are so diverse and complex that I doubt any movement can come up with a coherent strategy to address them all.
In my view our secular society and the political structure we have is our best bet frankly- allow free exchange of human creativity and ideas.
And yes technology is very much part of the solution.
Two thoughts:
First, the Church’s teaching about the immorality of contraception has been clear and consistent. You can find statement after statement on the subject almost without end. By contrast, one would look in vain for similar statements about the intrinsic immorality of smelting (or whatever). Given how much of modern life is built and based upon rearranging molecules, you would think that if there were something in the deposit of faith to the effect that this was intrinsically immoral, we’d of heard about it by now.
It’s not clear to me where the break point is in this idea. Presumably it is okay to live in houses even though this involves rearranging nature. So is it just when the foundation involves pouring concrete that it becomes a problem, or what?
Gerald L. Campbell,
I see what you’re trying to say, but no matter the intent, a conjugal act is always different in character from a contracepted act. Can there be a selfish intention involved in either? Yes. Does the lack of desire to produce a child in any given conjugal act constitute something immoral? No. While the use of NFP shouldn’t be taken lightly, I’ve seen too many people allege that it can be used in only the most dire of circumstances. That’s not what Humanae Vitae says (or any other magisterial document that reflects the development of doctrine toward the dual purpose of the conjugal act).
Perhaps this is a bit much, but here’s my line of reasoning:
- True love involves the disinterested gift of self to the other. This mutual self-gift is the unitive meaning, and the openness outward to an other (to life, the third, the child) is the procreative meaning. “Procreative” does not mean that a child will/should result from conjugal union, or even that a couple should intend for a child to result. It simply means uniting in such a way that there is an opening outward beyond the couple.
- Each and every conjugal act has its own inherent dignity and must retain both the unitive and procreative meanings in order to be a marital act; otherwise, it becomes a different kind of act.
- Contraception is not wrong because it is artificial; it is wrong because it interferes with and undermines the language of the body, the inseparable meanings of the marital act.
- Contraceptive sex is not truly unitive (not a total gift of self – withholding part of self, i.e. fertility, from the other) and is not truly procreative (the action of contracepting is the opposite – a “closed-ness” to life, to the other). That is why it is a different kind of act, not the marital kind that retains the unitive and procreative meanings.
I agree with you on the point about “openness to life” – it should not stop with the conjugal act. This is the same issue that (I think) has been addressed on this blog and elsewhere about being truly “pro-life”; it cannot simply mean being against abortion if we are to have a consistent ethic of life, if we are to be truly Christian. I wouldn’t say that everything can be “compartmentalized” but that when someone realizes the truth and has an openness to life in any area of life, that is a step in the right direction.
Nate,
I think “domestication” strikes a good balance – subduing the earth without abusing it or becoming enslaved to it (kind of like when Jesus says the Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath). We should use creation to our benefit without unnecessarily violating its integrity.
Just an aside, more provoked by the title of the post than the content – is that there is a correlation between the car and the need for contraception. With the popularization of the automobile, there was also a dramatic increase in young women ‘in trouble’. The reason was that the car was a chief enabler of dating – young people getting clear of chaperones.
AB,
It appears your analysis closely resembles that sketched out in JPII’s book “Love and Responsibility” and his earlier work “The Human Act.” I am not arguing with what you say. In fact, I agree, from what I can tell.
My comments reflect a natural law tradition that was taught in Catholic universities prior to Vatican II. You will find in the textbooks of the time sentences like this: “the practice of artificial conception is an abuse of the REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY, because the act is performed in such a way as to render impossible the attainment of its natural purpose: the PROCREATION of children.” It is the end of the reproductive faculty that is thwarted. This is natural law.
As regards the “rhythm” method and abstinence (an old language), it is morally justifiable. But if the intent is to avoid having any children under any and all circumstance, then the rhythm method becomes immoral by virtue of the intention to avoid children. Here the questions of “selfishness” nullifies the moral integrity of the act. Once again, procreation of children is the issue.
One other point. It was acknowledged that the “rhythm” method tears at the family fabric. It is not at all the ideal of family relations. It is here that the principle of the lesser of two evils comes into play to justify the use of the “rhythm” method.
Here’s what I see going on. JPII’s analysis flows out of a notion of intrinsic relations. The natural law analysis is contingent upon a whether or not an act is properly ordered to an end — the procreation of child. Isn’t there a tension between these two perspectives? When all is said and done, do they really square with one another? I not sure they do.
If my suspicion is correct much work needs to be done to bring about a coherent teaching.
AB,
One more point regarding the use of contraceptives.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini is on record as saying:
“Everything possible must be done to oppose AIDS. Certainly, in some situations the use of condoms can constitute a LESSER EVIL [double effect]. Then there is the particular situation of spouses, one of whom is infected with AIDS. The infected one is obligated to protect the other partner, who should also be able to take protective measures.”
Then he proceeds to say: “But the question is instead whether it is Convenient that the religious authorities be the ones to promote such a means of defense …”
“So the principle of the lesser evil – which is applicable in ALL the cases provided for by ethical doctrine – is one thing, while the matter of WHO SHOULD EXPRESS such things publicly is another.”
The closer one gets to the complexity of a concrete situation the less clear these abstractions become. The universal mixes with the contingent to form the concrete.
Grega,
I agree with what you say. Your comments are always rich with insight.
As for my comment: “‘It is here, I believe, that the modern environmental movement has been derailed.”?
This is poor wording. I even thought so as I hit the publish button.
What I’m trying to say is that we have to look more at what constitutes an integral human existence. Right now, the focus seems to be on what actions can be set in motion that will alter the objective conditions that threaten the environment. We need to look as well at the subjective conditions — that is, the principles that define a spiritually healthy life. As I indicated, this is what John Muir was doing. He was concerned to temper the excesses of the soul.
We have created a consumer economy. What impact does that have on the environment? Can we become less of an acquisitive society? Can we become better human beings? Is lifestyle the only form that matters?
BA, good point about smelting and about houses. I think Gerald points out that what we do with nature enters into a kind of spiritual feedback loop with people. Basically, when I encounter God’s creation, I understand my place in creation, I see God’s wisdom. But when I’m living in a concrete building where the only green things I see are fake trees, I only see a reflection of mankind.
Our technology should glorify – magnify – God. But I tell you, living in a concrete world does about the opposite for me. I can’t even see stars at night.
The dogmatic status of the Church’s birth control position is not as settled as the Catholic internet sometimes implies. And this partly is due to the many converts who seem not informed past Lumen Gentium 25 and “religious submission of mind and will”. What is left out of Lumen Gentium 25 is what later and prior occurs in approved moral theology tomes for seminaries: that struggled prayerful dissent is indeed possible while rash dissent without moral struggle or prayer is not permitted. But this sector of moral theology tomes is never advertised by clergy to laity let alone by clergy who deal with converts. Diocesan clergy are kind of in the position of prosecutors of the flesh in their own mind and a prosecutor has no obligation to help the defense position which one however does find in major theologians on this issue.
This lack of LG 25′s non completed thought (Yves Congar noted that Councils are often incomplete being not inspired but only guided by God) is so much the case that many on the net must wonder why Fr. Bernard Haring and Fr. Karl Rahner,two major theologians of the 20th century at Vatican II (which Council also opposed artificial birth control…but the Council according to Paul VI’s Jan ’66 audience said nothing newly infallible itself),…both men… were not punished by any Pope whatsoever for publically dissenting (Haring was merely the subject of an inquiry that faded away)…when in fact, all the moral theology tomes and even Grisez’s recent one…argued for silence when one dissents from an as yet not provably infallible position.
I think NFP is fine but it was not available in its accuracy to almost 19 and a half centuries of Catholics. And the natural periods were not allowed explicitly until Rome was asked in the 19th century in dubia by priests as to whether it was licit (Augustine had seemed to denigrate the natural methods in a letter to an Manichaen (which group used it to avoid all children)
which raises the question: what did Catholics do til the recent accuracy of NFP. It was a rythmn using group headed by a couple who were at the birth control commission that were seeking change by way of letters by thousands of their members in the Family Life Movement to Rome seeking permission to use artificial means..ie the pill at that time.
Tomas Sanchez centuries prior in the Baroque period was a Catholic theologian who suggested that it was not a mortal sin if parents sold one or more children into servitude in order to pay for food for the other children they had.
All of which means what? It means this recent thing of accurate NFP is brand new in the lives of Catholic couples. John T. Noonan Jr. in “Contraception”(Harvard Press) gave population stats that showed that many Catholics in the 19th century were limiting children somehow. Some were poor and could not afford more children and some were rich and did not want to see their family descend classwise if they left their finite inheritance to 10 children rather than to three.
We take NFP and its accuracy for granted but imagine the majority Catholic History as having no such thing available and imagine a Catholic theologian suggesting one could sell some children to feed others.
Didn’t God take care of all cases of large families? That would imply that no one starves in Africa.
John Paul II was the ideal man to write an infallible encyclical on this matter. He did not because the research is torturous I would guess as Noonan’s book showed. It was in the decretals for centuries but so was Gratian’s “anything beyond principal is usury” and we know where that went. And so was the dictum that the child of a slave mother was also a slave (Aquinas gives the cites) and we know where that went. Birth control was condemned in the Didache but that little book also said that lying led to theft… and we know where that went.
The Church’s position is called “authentic Church Teaching” which is what the dissenting theologians had to sign to and it is below the infallible level as noted by Brian Harrison on a different issue…torture. It must be obeyed unless there is struggled and prayerful dissent and that is why Rahner and Haring could not be indicted even by John Paul II who never did so.
With the dissent of some of the major 20th century theologians, the issue lacks what is called diachronic consensus which it seemed to have til the science of sex became scientifically known and a generations’ synchronic consensus failed publically even.
Diocesan clergy are kind of in the position of prosecutors of the flesh in their own mind and a prosecutor has no obligation to help the defense position which one however does find in major theologians on this issue.
That is just patently offensive and false.
I will not be answering slicers. My observation that only struggled and prayerful dissent is allowed contradicts Jeremy taking the above quote as licentious. Slicers forget the parts that contradict their take on the slice.
Oh come’on – you said the clergy are prosecutors and imply that they have an adversarial relationship with their flock. Struggled and prayerful dissent no way contradicts me. I agree with struggled and prayerful dissent – but I don’t think we will agree and what that means.
Bill, while Church teaching has developed on a lot of issues, I don’t see that happening with sterilization. That’s what we’re really talking about – the sterilization of the conjugal act. And to return to the topic of my post, the idea that we can’t mess with God’s ordered design of not only the human body, but of the created world, is something very frightening to a world that worships its own technological power.
Nate
Should you come across the “castrati” and their place in Church singing someday, see if the word “mutilation” was ever used in its regard…while it certainly was used about sterilization as soon as fascism was using sterilization to limit procreation coercively of some groups. So did the act become negative by association with fascism in the mind of Pius XI. Remember that some early saints deplored soldiering in general because they associated it with the Roman Empire which grew worse under Caligula et al. In short, were a Pope working on an ex cathedra encyclical on birth control, he would have to face this question of “guilt by association” as to sterilization which “guilt by association” turned out to be baseless in the matter of soldiering per se even if Abu Ghraib brought back such feelings in christians recently.
It’d be nice if religions were able to adapt to science. The belief that the sperm was the ‘whole thing’ caused people like Augustine and Aquinas to think masturbation worse than heterosexual incest. The woman as mere receptacle, seed and soil. Now that we’ve known for quite a while that masturbation isn’t genocide it’d seem logical for a church to stop the every sperm is sacred mantra. Granted, I do wear contacts. Spine’s fine though.
A majority of Catholics is aware that the rules say one cannot use contraception (and they don’t care), but I doubt more than a handful know that they aren’t allowed to complete manual/oral festivities (on the male end). It simply is too strange a concept.
I found it amusing when I read NFPers praising the fool-proof nature of NFP (in preventing pregnancy).
Clearly, a lawyer came up with the idea of being ‘open to life’ by avoiding sex during fertility and calculations/bookkeeping :) In reality, there is no difference in intent between having sex using contraceptives and not having sex as contraception……other than less sex of course :-) …. which also explains the popularity of the former over the latter.
This loophole strategy remind me of priests of old wielding only blunt weapons, avoiding edged ones, because priests aren’t allowed to “shed blood.”
Bill Bannon,
Thanks for taking the time to articulate your thoughts.
Gerald,
Thank you. Did some investigating just on net and found that Pope Sixtus V in 1589 issued a bull which allowed the castrati in the Papal services because he was so against women speaking in Church and that lasted until 1904 when the Pope abrogated the castrati doing so. Sixtus V was the most virulent against contraception and yet he then ended up supporting the sterilization of pre puberty males to avoid women singing in Church which lasted from 1589 to 1904 and only then was sterilization later called “mutilation” as far as I can see and at that when it was associated with fascism. Was it non mutilation when it resulted in great singing but mutilation when couples did it. Words can be ad hominem when human nature needs them to be.
Gerald N, while the intentions behind using contraception and using NFP may both be the same, Catholic morality doesn’t focus primarily upon intention, but upon the object of the moral act.
Sterilization of the conjugal act is an objectively disordered act, regardless of intention. Avoiding the conjugal act is not. It’s the difference between manipulating our sexuality and regulating our sexuality – regardless of intention. Now a bad intention will still ruin NFP, but a good intention will never make sterilization good.
And that makes me wonder about nature, which itself is ordered by God. Modern men assume that intention – a disembodied freedom – is all that counts in morality. So while people argue about to use nature (and their bodies), they never ask – “how is this *designed* to be used”.
Nate, personally I don’t care how people have sex. I’m sure one can survive without particular practices :) I merely found it peculiar how NFP is frequently advertised (it’s so safe!). Much like the pope talks about condoms (they’re not safe!), as it happens – using arguments inconsequential to the reasons for the position on ‘your’ books. It’s as if ‘you’ don’t trust in the actual reasons.
I agree that intention cannot save something one considers bad, but a malicious intention makes it worse. It’s the difference between causality and culpability.
That an unscientific view of sexuality (seed = baby) is at the bottom of the minutiae is a topic for a different thread :)
Thank you for the kind words Mr. Campbell
you asked “We have created a consumer economy. What impact does that have on the environment? Can we become less of an acquisitive society? Can we become better human beings? Is lifestyle the only form that matters?”
I think we can – and listening to Obama speak today at Notre Dame it seems to me that we are at the beginning of a deeply meaningful period towards the kind of ideals that you so deeply desire.