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Religion: A quiver full of contraception
For most of the five centuries since the Protestant Reformation, the Protestant churches and the Church of Rome have agreed on the issue of contraception. It was bad, because – without qualification – babies are a blessing. Everybody who could have them should have them, and for 500 years, that also included ministers, who historically had large families.
As late as 1874, the average Anglican clergyman in England still had 5.2 living children. In 1911, however, [...] the average family size of Anglican clergy had fallen to only 2.3 children, a stunning decline of 55 percent.
It was the same in America.
For example, in the very conservative Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod, the average pastor in 1890 had 6.5 children. The number fell to 3.7 children in 1920, 42 percent below the 1890 number.
So, the question: what’s happened in the last 100 years to make more Protestants have smaller families? A gut feelings says it’s complicated: part economics, part cultural, part this, part that. Another gut feeling reminds me that children, without qualification, are a blessing. Even when they seem like a curse. A good piece from the Touchstone archives. Check it out.
back to top97 Comments to “Religion: A quiver full of contraception”
Wow, thank you for posting this, Harrison. I’m right in the middle of writing a story about family size and, frankly, am going round and round theologically as I interview people. I need to study this posting closely before I respond, but I’ll note one of my interviewees said:
“I think we’re trying hard to see gray where God may have spoken in black and white.”
And if God truly opens and closes the womb–I know several post-vasectomy and post-tubal-ligation babies–can we really block His will?
I have no answers, yet, nor do I know if I’ll ever have any, but it’s certainly something I’ve found some of my protestant friends pretty cavalier about. The devout Catholics, on the other hand, seem to be very thoughtful as well as philosophical in their discussions.
And, to me, a surprising number across religious beliefs have tried NFP. Interesting.
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I’m about to read the article, but couldn’t resist this birth announcement:
My sister just had #10, her 8th boy! He weighed 7lb 14 oz, and was born at home at 5 in the morning. My sister has, admirably, stayed trim. Their marriage is a happy and orderly one.
Their family runs very smoothly and the children are wonderful people. They’ll have as many children as God will give them, and they are raising them well.
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This is a very well written article. Being LCMS I have heard rumblings of the no birth control issue, but had not pursued any study of it.
As the article points out there are many factors in ‘deciding’ the number of children to have. Sometimes we have some ‘unexpected blessings’. Of course, the population control freaks will be on this.
Congratulations for EYG on a new nephew. Home birth is a great thing. We had our 4th at home.
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But is deciding to have children you don’t have the means to take care a good idea?
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“So, the question: what’s happened in the last 100 years to make more Protestants have smaller families?”
The cost of college!
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“And, to me, a surprising number across religious beliefs have tried NFP. Interesting.”
No matter how hard they try to get around it, NFP is morally equivalent to contraception. Roman Catholics will try to argue that it’s not because they’re not actually doing anything to prevent conception, but by planning their sexual activity in such a way as to avoid conception, it’s the same mentality. It’s nothing more than a loophole.
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What has surprised me, Kbells, is how many of the large families have said money was not an issue. “You just adapt,” one woman explained–a part time nurse with four children married to a youth minister.
Another woman in ministry, whose husband only makes $10 an hour, has seven children and “God has supplied every need. It’s really been amazing; even Christian school.”
Of course, these are all middle-class-sensibilities educated people. It would be nice if I could interview people from a different strata, but I don’t appear to know any. Hmmmm.
I agree, stewardship should be an issue, but another interviewee commented, “we don’t consider paying for college part of our job and we’re not sure we need everything “typical” Americans have.”
And in my own case, when I told God what financial need would block me from having a fourth child, the next week it was taken away.
So, the answer almost becomes do we trust God or not? As I said, I’m spinning around on this one. And how interesting I’m headed to the land of one-child policy in the middle of it. What an amazing God we have!
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Excellent, well written article.
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Thank you, Grandma.
I was present at the home birth of #6.
It was miraculous.
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The Catholic church allows people to practice the rhythm method, but isn’t that just another form of contraception?
There are others, like my brother-in-law, who feels that he should do nothing to prevent conception. He says he’s leaving it in God’s hands. He has six kids and counting. But technically that is still family planning.
Choosing to leave it in God’s hands is really just another way of planning to have a large family. How is that different from those of us who choose to have small families?
It basically comes down to an argument about whether sex is strictly for procreation. But the rhythm method is knowingly having sex without children in mind. So how is that different?
The Bible does not specifically disallow forms of sex between married people that don’t lead to procreation. On the contrary, the Bible commands that married people have sex often (or so I’d like to think), by telling us not to deny one another. (1 Cor 7)
I draw the line at conception. How the sperm links with the egg to become a living soul is in the hand of God.
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While pastors and their families will inevitably be looked to for examples, it is unwise to overemphasize this role. I would have had a lot of difficulty agreeing to my husband entering the ministry if I were expected to fulfill the expectations of the Pastor’s Wife common in many churches. (I don’t play the piano!) And expecting pastors’ kids to be models of exceptional behavior is setting them up for a lot of frustration and failure. Even putting pastors themselves on a pedestal is unhelpful. Yes, they should be faithful examples of Christian discipleship. But so should other Chrisians in the church, especially the elders. I would look at least as much to the elders and their families for models to follow – in family size or anything else – as the pastors.
Having good examples is important. And a lot of people growing up today have not had very good examples, especially when it comes to raising a family. My mother told me, from when I was a little girl, that she didn’t know how to be a good mother because she hadn’t had one (her mother committed suicide when my mother was 7). So I grew up fearing that I could never be a good mother.
In college I took Intro to Philosophy (at a Christian college), and the professor talked about man having been made in the image of God, and the responsibilities given to him in the garden, to work (cultivate the garden) and to be fruitful and multiply. He convinced me to give some thought to the possibility that I was, after all, expected (by God) to marry and have kids. I got married at age 27, but I was still pretty nervous about the idea of having kids.
We did use birth control, not to limit family size so much as to give ourselves a couple years to get to know each other (we had only met six months before we married) before having kids (this was the advice of older couples). After our first son, we tried for years to have a second, and had given up when I finally got pregnant. The pregnancy wasn’t life-threatening (like my husbands’ cousins’ second pregnancies), but difficult enough that I got my tubes tied the day after I gave birth. We’d still like to adopt, but for various reasons now is not a good time.
I recently met a wonderful family at our church. The father is on the leadership board, and they have four or five kids (hard to count when they’re running around). I wish I had known them or a family like them when I was younger and looking for good role models.
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I have some pretty strong feeling on this. My father is one of 12, brought up in a strict Pentacostal family. There isn’t one of them that isn’t damaged in some way. My father says the first time he ever left the dinner table full was once he joined the Navy. My mother was an only child and I was an only child. The thing I wanted most in life was a big brother, so I picked out a man who was a terrific big brother and married him. My daughter is an only child and I certainly didn’t want her to be. She keeps begging me for a baby brother or sister. I have explained that 1. I am not married and 2. By the time any baby was born she would be 11. By the time the baby was any fun she would be off at college and I would have 2 only children. But having said that I don’t think you should have children you cannot afford.
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This was a well written, thoughtful article. And with seven children this is an issue that has obviously been brought before the Lord in much pondering prayer.
Our feeble conclusions thus far, let God lead, let God speak, but don’t forget a little common sense. It would be interesting to get a statistic from the 18th Century on how many pastors had scads of children, but with more than one wife, due to the death of the mother.
All my children have been unspeakable blessings, but without contraception my husband might have one or two more children, but I would be dead (and that is not as uncommon as one might think). It would be appreciated to hear male theologians take on the subject of a husband’s courtesy towards the effects of child bearing on his wife’s body. I am glad my hubby considers the grayer areas where some see only black and white.
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Certainly, children are blessings. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is sinful not to pursue maximum procreation. Money is also called a blessing, but that doesn’t excuse greed. I have known families who may only be called greedy for children. Often, they are a sanctimonious burden on those around them. Most of you know such people. Some of you might be such people.
Camels and donkeys are called blessings. If someone offers me a camel and I decline, have I “despised God’s blessing?”
The Scripture says “happy is the man whose quiver is full,” not, “happy is the man who maximizes the number of children he has.” That would most assuredly have been followed by “happy is the mother who finds an excuse for a hysterectomy!”
Praise God that we live in a time when we may have marital sex even after our quivers are full without significant risk of, well, overfilling the quiver!
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Amen and Amen, Stubob!!
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150 or so years ago how many of those children we had to help support the farm or family and how many of them made it to adulthood? How many women died in childbirth?
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Pastor John Piper writes why he does not have a problem with non-abortive forms of contraception here.
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I have multiple thoughts on this. I come from a family of seven and have eighteen nieces and nephews from four married siblings, so I could never feel like one or two children was “enough.” But, being single till 40, I’d now feel blessed with just two! (Just one would not feel like enough–I’d never want to raise an only child.)
First, letting God choose your family size doesn’t necessarily mean large families; not all couples have children readily. But I do think letting God choose one’s family size means accepting it if He sends fewer than 12! (I know someone who chafed at having “only” four children, lest people think she’d limited her family size. I wanted to ask, Since when is your family based on what others think? If you leave it in God’s hands, then be happy He sent you four healthy children; not everyone is so blessed!!) If I were married, I’d want four. If I were married and younger, then I’d want to adopt if I could only bear one or two. (I’d adopt in a heartbeat, and would still readily adopt more than two. But I might be content with just two now, whereas I wouldn’t have at 30.)
I fall somewhere in the middle. “We can’t afford more kids” usually strikes me as a weak excuse–as a rule the people I’ve heard saying that have two children, two working parents, newer cars, and houses of more than 2,000 square feet. Money simply isn’t the issue there. I know people who earn very little money but have large families, along with amazing stories of God’s provision. As to the reason, “We can’t send them to college if we have more kids,” so what? My sister had a great answer to that: “There isn’t one of my siblings I’d trade for a college education!” (The five of us who wanted a college degree all got one, and one got a master’s beside. And we all have good money-management skills.)
On the other side of the equation, I think it’s wonderful when God sends a large family and sends the provision for it: The McCaughey septuplets come to mind. But when I see families of more than a dozen who make ends meet only because other people build them a house, buy them vehicles, regularly provide food and money, and so forth, it rubs me the wrong way. You don’t deliberately have children you cannot afford, whether you place the expense on welfare or on your church family. When you do so, among other things you may be limiting another father from having the funds to provide for his own growing family. (Why should a father who “can only afford two children” be helping people who have five kids on welfare or fifteen children who need regular, large contributions from others in the church to keep afloat?)
So, I come down on the side of those who would prefer to avoid birth control, and don’t like to see families limited to two kids, but who also thinks families should be limited when there are genuine issues that make more kids problematic (health issues, financial issues). I know someone who was told by her doctor in no uncertain terms that another child might kill her; she “left it in God’s hands” and ended up never getting pregnant again–I would think in such a case, medical intervention is as legitimate as is medical intervention in any other health issue. (Do we leave cancer or diabetes “in God’s hands” if the doctor says, “Continue in your current lifestyle, and you will die”?)
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When I worked for Catholic television I often had to edit with video of half naked, hungry children in Catholic families in third world countries. It was suppose to tell people how wonderful it was that they were being given a piece of bread and a little powdered milk. I think their dad should have been given condom.
I also don’t have a problem with promiscuous unmarried pagans using non-abortive birth control either.
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You know what’s a real blessing?
Not having a cadre of religious busybodies either lecturing you to your face or tut-tutting behind your back about how large or small your family is.
Priceless.
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BTW having only one child was not my choice. This one took six years and all our savings to get. We were already in our mid forties. I doubt we could luck up again.
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Thanks Kbells for saying what I was thinking better than I could have.
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SteveG,
You know what’s another blessing?
Not having a cadre of agnostic busybodies either lecturing you to your face or tut-tutting behind your back about how large or small your family is.
I have had more in-your-face comments by them than by the religious sort. To which my reply has always been, “You are pro-choice aren’t you?” They always stammer a “yes,” not quite sure where I’m going with that. So I add, “You should say you are anti-child instead, because people like you never really want to allow me my choice.
Priceless!
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I suspect one factor contributing to smaller families today is that education is now a lifelong necessity. Breadwinners of previous generations learned a skill or trade when they were young, and they could (generally) use that trade or skill throughout their lifetime to provide for their family. Now, technology changes so quickly that a breadwinner may need to train throughout his/her life. Having to spend so much time training and retraining makes having large families difficult. Agree/disagree?
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Adios, no argument. People should mind their own business about other people’s personal choices. Whether you want to be married and childless by choice or have ten children, it’s nobody’s business but the couple’s.
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Way to go Adios!!! I definately wanted more than one but did not get it.
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Not to be too pragmatic here, but I think a lot of it is just the decrease in infant mortality. People don’t feel like they have to have several children just to ensure that one or two survive.
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I wanted four children, but my wife wanted two. So we had two.
I don’t regret it though. We’ve been able to travel and do so much that would have been harder with a larger family.
Just how full must a quiver be? Two arrows turned out to be plenty for us and we are thankful!
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I think another factor in changing family size is the fact that people don’t stay in one place, near the rest of the extended family. Those large families in the past (and the article did specify “living children” in large clergy families, so I don’t think infant mortality is what makes the difference) also had a lot of grandparents and aunts and uncles nearby. The parents of six or eight or twelve kids weren’t on their own – they had help from lots of relatives.
But these days a lot of jobs require relocating. There are still a lot of jobs that you can get in most communities, but there are others that require moving to where the jobs are. And others require moving from time to time over the course of one’s career. It’s true that those who are committed to family – not just their own kids but the extended family – can choose not to pursue those careers. But it is going to mean that a lot of young people will make their life plans with the understanding that moving is simply a part of life. And those plans are much less likely to include a large family.
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A hearty agreement with Stubob. My husband and I have been all over the map in the thoughts about children. We finally settled with six. In my immaturity, I thought that many children = very spiritual. But over time, I have met families with many children who are not spiritual and instead desperate. These families have expected the rest of us to help take care of their children or their expenses or their problems as a matter of course. After awhile, we in the community have tired of being burdened with their “blessings”, especially when it takes away from us taking care of our own children. And these children in those families are suffering for the decisions of their parents- not just the number of children they have, but how they choose to raise them.
As time has gone on, it becomes more clear that it is wrong to take your thoughts and what you believe God has given to your family and make it the only standard. That somehow, having fewer than your amount isn’t spiritual, or having more than your amount is wasteful.
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Great discussion.
But how do you evaluate which child not to have had??????
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Michelle,
One of my sons who is in that weird stage of asking questions like, “Would you rather get poked in the eye with a sharp stick or step on hot coals barefoot?” He asked me the other day, “If you had to not have one of us, who would it be?” Well, that is unthinkable. I couldn’t imagine not having any of them. On the other hand I don’t sit around wondering about children I didn’t have.
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You don’t have to decide which child not to have had. By the time you have them, they are already there.
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20-
Absolutely!
The curse on Eve: “I will greatly multiply thy pain AND thy conception.”
The curse on Adam: “cursed is the ground for thy sake…thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee”
Where is the role of each couple deciding before God what they can handle for his glory?
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I remember hearing my grandmother say, all right which one of you would you rather me not have had? You? I don’t think that is a question that has an answer. I am an only child but I was born after my mother had her tubes tied. My father, 2nd oldest of 12, never wanted any children, but here I am. And believe me he desperately wanted the grandchild he got.
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Adios #23 – I have had more in-your-face comments by them than by the religious sort. To which my reply has always been, “You are pro-choice aren’t you?” They always stammer a “yes,” not quite sure where I’m going with that. So I add, “You should say you are anti-child instead, because people like you never really want to allow me my choice.
In the post called “An Inconvenient Truth,” about liberals’ distaste for large families, I mentioned the same idea about “choice” (see comment #26). SteveG labeled my argument as “petulant selfishness” (#33). Adios, has anyone ever responded to your statement with that accusation?
When we start our family, I would prefer to have fewer rather than more kids, but I’m not going to limit other people’s *choice* to have more kids than society deems proper (or ecologically “sound”)! Some call it selfishness. I call it freedom.
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Vivianpierce,
I have been called selfish, but not petulant. Our choice to have as many kids as we did was based on what my husband and I saw as the will of God for us. Most of the people who have tried to shame me (there is no other way to put it) would barely discuss it. They said it, they believed it, that settled it. They were as fundamentally extreme as they accused me of being and would brook no dialogue.
Sigh, that is much of the world’s prolems eh? No one sees the way through the smog as clear as I do:)
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VivianPierce at #36:
I did because your argument was not simply a defense of the right to have a large family; it was: “We’ll have as many children as we choose, and it’s none of your business.” … suggesting an unwillingness to even consider the wisdom of that decision.
That’s petulant.
Also I am amused that you characterize that thread as being about “liberals’ distaste for large families” … implying that the only reason for questioning the wisdom of large families is a personal “distaste” rather than actual concerns.
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SteveG,
You and your double standards. They’re glaringly obvious on thread after thread, despite the superficial appearance you try to project of being “fair and reasonable.” Although I believe that you’re thoroughly convinced of the genuineness of your own facade.
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SteveG, I don’t think you will deny that overpopulation is high on the liberal list of global concerns. Overpopulation tops Gore’s list of global warming cures.
Al Gore, George Soros, Ted Turner, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates etc. have committed vast wealth to fighting overpopulation. They have set up foundations that fund birth control and abortions for third world countries.
To say that liberals are “concerned” about family size is a generalization, but one that even you admit right in post #38.
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I’m willing to bet, Adios, that you and I would have been sanctioned by Margaret Sanger to have all our kids. She was for population control of ignorant minories, not of educated middle-class people who could afford their children.
The article I’m working on actually is not about birth control, but about how you knew, came to know, or reached your conclusion, about how many children God wanted you to have.
And Ree, up in #6, it’s been fascinating to hear the theological parsing on NFP. It seems to me that any Christian trying to hear the will of God in their life is just as open to life as Humanae Vitae asks. But, I’m still thinking about it all and I appreciate all the above comments.
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I have always counseled couples to ask God for direction in whether to do birth control or not. I truly believe that God knows what is best for you and your family. The problem I have is when Christians will NOT ask God because they think they KNOW what His answer will be- 14 children. In my own experience, my husband and I have each prayed separately about what to do and then we come together and share. Each time we got the same answer.
Before we got married we felt that we weren’t supposed to do any birth control. I got pregnant on my wedding night. After the first child we still felt we weren’t to do any birth control. I got pregnant when my first child was 6 months. After my 2nd, we felt that we could do nfp. I got pregnant when my 2nd was 9 mths. After my 3rd, we both felt that we were to take a break for a while. Shortly after this decision I went back to school for my Masters. The weekend of my graduation (2 1/2 years later) I got pregnant with my 4th. After the 4th neither of us got clear direction about what we were to do, so we did nfp. 2 1/2 years later I had a miscarriage. After that pregnancy both my husband and I felt firmly that I was not to be pregnant anymore.
God may have a different opinion, but I have seen more confirmation of me being done with being pregnant than less confirmation.
We asked for direction prior to each pregnancy. We both got clear direction and it was different for each pregnancy.
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Xion at #40: To say that liberals are “concerned” about family size is a generalization, but one that even you admit right in post #38.
Exactly. Liberals are concerned about overpopulation — which too many large families not counterbalanced by many small or childless ones can contribute to — because of issues such as resource depletion. NOT because liberals have a “distaste” for large families.
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#43 Understood, but doesn’t one lead to the other?
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It’s a matter of using language to trivialize the other side’s concern. A “distaste” for something implies just a personal dislike, not a principled or reasoned position. So phrasing it that suggests that “liberals” just don’t like big families, not because there may be good reasons to limit family size, but just because.
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But Steve,
You’re ignoring that there might also be good reasons to have lots of kids! Why should it be OK for anyone to tell someone else, “You have too many kids.” Even with the smaller-families-better argument, the average family size in America is small enough to afford the choice to families that want more than four children.
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My sister visited me in San Francisco. She has 3 young children. She actually had people at stores make rude comments about her having too many kids.
My wife and I struggled to have children for many years. There was nothing more annoying than having people at church comment that we should be having children.
I have seen both sides. Couples should be able to decide prayerfully how many children they should have. It is a private decision between the husband, the wife, and God.
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Xion, concerning the question in #10 about ‘The Catholic church allows people to practice the rhythm method, but isn’t that just another form of contraception?’ We don’t specifically promote the Rhythm method, due to many problems with that method. The Church says that any method that requires the use of abstinence during the fertile time is allowed. This is because the sacrifice of abstinence requires taking up our cross as commanded by Christ, where as contraception denies that cross. Most Catholics that respect this teaching of the Church today reject Rhythm (based on typical cycles of most women) in favor of Natural Family Planning (tailors the use to the individual by using observations of actual fertility)
Also, the Church agrees that we must be responsible about bringing children into the world. In the same document that reaffirmed the rejection of contraception, Humanae Vitae (paragraph 10, note there is a significant amount of disagreement about the translation of the words ’serious reasons’).
Of course, what you really are saying is, how is NFP different, morally, than contraception?
NFP is different, because contraception can only be used to avoid pregnancy while NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy.
While a person using NFP may be using it to avoid pregnancy, it should only be done so prayerfully, with an intent of doing what God wants us to accomplish with our life. If somebody uses NFP long term to avoid pregnancy without considering God’s wishes on the matter, then they will have to answer to God the same as the person who uses contraception.
The Catholic ban on contraception is biblical. Look at http://www.staycatholic.com/contraception.htm for an explanation of the Catholic stance on this issue.
Do the ends justify the means? That is, are two methods to reach the same end morally equal. For instance, while there are many ways to end up a millionaire, starting a company, inheriting from a rich relative, or investing in the stock market are moral ways to become wealthy. Thievery or blackmail are not. So even though contraception and NFP can have the same end in avoiding pregnancy, they may be different in the eyes of God. Contraception rejects God’s place in our lives while a couple using NFP on some level acknowledges God’s prerogative to make a baby if he chooses.
The Catholic Church denies that procreation is the only end of sex, or it couldn’t talk about responsible parenthood in Humanae Vitae (as mentioned in paragraph 10), because the only way to legitimately avoid pregnancy would then be abstinence. In fact, under an extreme interpretation, some have speculated that that stance would require abstaining from all sex except during the fertile time, but the Church does not advocate that, and likewise rejects the premise.
So does all of this mean you and your wife should have had more than 2 children? Not necessarily. Does it mean that you should have gotten there differently? Definitely.
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Maybe the pastors referenced in the article simply changed their focus from eternal treasure (your children are the only things you can take to heaven with you) – to temporary treasure, i.e. money, and the stuff it can buy.
Being blessed with 6 children, I get lots of mean, rude comments about them, mostly from old women. When I had two, people everywhere commented that I had a ‘perfect’ family. As soon as I was noticeably pregnant with my third, all such comments ceased. However, that third child, even with his autism and epilepsy, makes my family more perfect.
As for the rude people, I am training up my children to treat them with mercy and respect. Maybe it’ll be my children who’ll grow up to be the doctors and nurses who care for them when they’re old and sick, that are ready to buy their stock when they need to cash in their 401Ks, to work to pay the taxes to pay out their Social Security and Medicare, to visit them in the Nursing Homes when they are lonely.
Of course, simply having more than two children doesn’t automatically make them good, happy and content. The essential ingredients are love and joy, bucket loads of it.
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CherylD at #46: You’re ignoring that there might also be good reasons to have lots of kids! Why should it be OK for anyone to tell someone else, “You have too many kids.”
It isn’t, that’s my point. How many children a couple has, whether many, few or none, isn’t really anyone else’s business, so long as they’re able to provide for however many they have.
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I should also add: The methods people use to prevent unwanted children are also nobody else’s business. (#48)
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” How many children a couple has, whether many, few or none, isn’t really anyone else’s business, so long as they’re able to provide for however many they have.”
Right, because we’re all isolated atomistic little entities spinning around in the universe. But wait, what if the family thinks they can provide for the children when they have them, but their circumstances unexpectedly change? Or what about the couple who decide not to have children who become a burden on society in their infirmity whose children would’ve cared for them, had they existed? Hmmm, maybe we’re more inherently interconnected than we thought and our choices matter to everyone.
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Some issues that haven’t been touched: From a practical standpoint, I would agree that contraception has benefits and is a good thing. Why the Catholic Church has this rule to begin with: It has to do with naturalistic philosophy. Scripture seems not to directly forbid contraception as it does with say homosexual acts. If Sola Scriptura is all that matters, then the former is permitted, the latter forbidden.
However, there is also a “naturalness” argument against homosexuality and that is directly tied to contraception. The natural teleology of sex is procreation and contraception violates that norm as much as homosexual behavior. Think about that the next time someone tries to argue homosexuality is “unnatural.” It is…in the same sense that married couples having contracepted sex is unnatural.
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EricRun #48 “The Catholic ban on contraception is biblical.”
Just because something is in the Bible, does not necessarily make it biblical. Are you being unbiblical when you eat a cheeseburger or ham sandwich? You are confusing a specific violation of the law of Moses with a general rule for Christians.
There is no law in the Torah about spilling seed on the ground. So obviously Onan violated no law by doing that. The violation was of Deut 25:5, i.e. not raising up children for his brother.
According to Galatians 3:24, nearly every account in the Old Testament is Messianic in some way. The reason this story of Onan and Tamar is included is because Judah was in the royal lineage of Christ. If you follow the royal line, beginning with Abel, you will see all sorts of people being judged or killed along the way.
Noah’s grandson Canaan was cursed. Later Judah took a Canaanite wife and his offspring from that line were judged. Judah is then tricked by Tamar to fulfill the deed that Onan refused to do. And so the royal line continued.
You say that “The Catholic Church denies that procreation is the only end of sex.”, then you chastise me for the means we took to arrive at two children.
Since you don’t know the means, I suppose you presume that any means other than the Catholic one is condemned by God. Well, I have demonstrated that the Catholic position on this is not biblical. Therefore your condemnation of my family is unfounded.
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Folks in the Prot west are marrying later. Blame that on varying amounts of selfishness but you shouldnt rule out a culture that deifies moms working out of the household (Disclaimer: SAHMs are some of the busiest gals we know!) Lotsa churches will invite a man to pastor but not include his wife’s pregnancies on the health insurance. (A friend of mine told me her hub left ministry for corporate HR work over the health insu issue. He still teaches whenever he can, just not as paid pastoral staff).
I think today among civilian men only those who have high-paid professional training can bring down an income big enough to allow for full-time SAHM. I have met career military guys O6s E8s etc who stayed in the service for the 100% medical/dental for their 6 or 7 kid households. Lotsa them are LDS, but a few are protestant or Messianic Jewish.
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Xion #54: There is no law in the Torah about spilling seed on the ground. So obviously Onan violated no law by doing that. The violation was of Deut 25:5, i.e. not raising up children for his brother.
Peter Scott:
Question: Is there a Scriptural foundation for the Church’s teaching on contraception?
Answer: The importance of this question lies in convincing Protestants of Catholic truth on this question. For, if they sometimes see the evil of abortion, in general they approve of contraception.
It is true that in the Bible there is only one explicit reference to the sin of contraception, from which it receives its technical name of Onanism. The text that describes the sin of Onan, the second son of Juda, is found in Genesis 38: 8 – 10. “Juda therefore said to Onan his son: God in to thy brother’s wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother. He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s wife, 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.”
Protestant apologists, however, maintain that the sin for which the Lord God slew Onan was not specifically that of spilling his seed, but spilling his seed, so that he would not raise up children to his brother. However, this latter was a grave obligation, promulgated in the Mosaic law, and called the law of the levirate, according to which a man had the obligation of raising up children for a deceased brother by taking his brother’s widow for his own wife, and engendering and raising children in his brother’s name, who would legally be his brother’s. (Dt 25:5-10).
The first problem with this explanation is that Onan lived in the time of the patriarchs, before the departure into Egypt, and 400 years before Moses and the promulgation of the Mosaic law that is described in the book of Deuteronomy. If it is true that the Mosaic law legally acknowledged and approved a much more ancient custom, it cannot be said that Onan’s refusal to observe this custom is a crime punishable by death by law.
A further objection is that even the Mosaic law did not consider the refusal to take one’s deceased brother’s wife as punishable by death. The punishment prescribed in Dt 25:9 & 10 is nothing more than a public humiliation: “The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of the unshod.” Canon Clamer has this comment to make on this obligation: “The obligation that arose from the law of the levirate was not so rigorous that one could not escape from it. If for one reason or another a brother-in-law did not agree to take his sister-in-law, the law, without obliging him, allowed the abandoned and outraged widow to inflict upon him a humiliation which became the sanction of law.” (Pirot-Clamer, La Sainte Bible, II, p. 670).
Catholic exegetes dispute as to what degree Onan was punished for breaking the law of the Levirate, and to what degree it was for his use of contraception. Nevertheless, it must be a combination of the two, for it can hardly be considered just for Almighty God to have punished Onan by death for a crime condemned by custom only, and not under pain of death. Furthermore, Onan did not refuse to take Thamar, his brother’s wife, but did actually go into her (Gen 38:10). Consequently, the evil crime that he committed consisted not in his refusal to marry her, but in his refusal to engender children, namely his frustration of the procreative act. This selfishness, inspiring as it did a sin against the very nature itself of the marriage relationship, is manifestly the reason why God struck him dead. Consequently, this text can certainly be used, as it always has been, to establish the biblical foundation of Catholic teaching on contraception.
It ought not to astonish us that other texts on this subject are not found in Sacred Scripture. The reason for this is that it is such an evident and obvious conclusion of the natural law, that it is presupposed for the supernatural revelation condemning sexual immorality. The Church has always taught that contraception is wrong because it is against nature, that is against the natural law. A few texts will establish this. In 1679 Innocent XI condemned the proposition: “Self abuse is not prohibited by the natural law. Hence, if God had not forbidden, it could have been often good and even sometimes obligatory under pain of mortal sin” (Prop. 49, Ds 2149). Self abuse is effectively the same thing as contraception, since it produces a spilling of the seed.
Furthermore, in 1851 the Holy Office condemned the proposition that contraception could sometimes be justified for good reasons as “scandalous, erroneous and contrary to the natural law of marriage” (Ds 2791). Of the proposition that contraception is not prohibited by the natural law, it stated: “Scandalous, and elsewhere implicitly condemned by Innocent XI’s proposition 49” (Ds 2792). In 1853, the Holy Office repeated its condemnation of contraception, giving as its reason that it is “intrinsically evil” (Ds 2795). If something is intrinsically evil, it is perverse, against the natural order. There consequently can be no doubt that the Church’s firm condemnation of contraception is for this reason.
Paul VI repeats this teaching in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, pointing out the intrinsic evil that makes it against the natural law even if done for a “good” intention: “Excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible….It is an error to think that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal life” (§14).
When entering into discussion with Protestants, it is imperative to understand this reason why the Catholic Church condemns contraception. For Protestantism is based upon the philosophy of Nominalism, that denies the common sense and obvious fact that we can know the real natures of things. If there are no natures of things, then the distinction between nature and grace does not make sense, nor the mystery of the Trinity, three Persons with one Divine Nature, nor the Incarnation, one Person having two natures, nor the Real Presence or the whole concept of Transsubstantiation, a change of substance. Equally difficult for them to comprehend is the natural law, establish by the Creator, a moral ordering that is inscribed in man’s nature itself, and that he cannot escape from. For them, morality is purely positive; it is simply being told what to do, and what not to do, and then having to abide by it, without anything being intrinsically good or evil in itself.
The Protestant will consequently not be convinced of the objective truthfulness of the Church’s teaching on contraception until he has come to understand that there is an objective order of things that we call the natural law. Just as this manifestly exists in the ordering of creation in nature, and can be clearly established, so also does it exist in the moral realm, and it regulates man’s actions and his relationships with others. Once he has understood this, he will see that there is such a thing as an intrinsically perverse act, and that contraception is such an act, taking away from the nature and final purpose of the marriage act, inscribed in nature, which is to procreate children. He will then understand why Almighty God did not repeat in Sacred Scripture this self-evident truth.
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Mozzie, you say, “The importance of this question lies in convincing Protestants of Catholic truth on this question.” Then you go on to say that Catholic exegetes dispute it.
What “Catholic truth” offers us is condemnation for not being Catholic or following Catholic methods. Biblical truth sets us free from this law of sin and death.
Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Heb 13:4
Rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love.” Prov 5:18,19
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Xian, Christians are not subject to the Mosaic Law as explained in the Acts of the Apostles. I was referring to a New Testament passage written specifically for Christians, paragraph 6.
If your means were thwarting the natural result of the act, then you are in the wrong.
I was thinking today about this, and I think I see where we differ. The Catholic Church makes a distinction between the individual acts between the man and the woman, and the overall practice and intent.
For a single act of love, preventing a pregnancy with contraception is always wrong. You can’t prevent an individual act from conceiving with NFP because your wife either is or is not fertile and you are doing nothing to prevent the pregnancy from happening in an individual act during the infertile time.
For the overall method use with contraception, the morality of the individual acts and the overall is one and the same. With a couple using NFP, that is not the case because it is possible to be legitimate in the individual acts and still error in the overall practice by using NFP with a contraceptive heart.
While I condemn the acts you may have used to limit your family size, I only do so that you might see the error of your ways, not to judge or condemn you. The matter of fact attitude you have when you tell people to disregard the sinful nature of contraception is dangerous to their soul, and you do them a disservice.
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Regarding large families, what would you say about a pastor who says that a vasectomy or contraception is equivalent to abortion. I know of such a church.
Several of the large families at that church are on welfare and get their food and clothing from the local food bank. They say this is God’s provision. Maybe so, but the US taxpayer is also involved.
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Otoh, the actual behavior of women seems to indicate another story. Rising education and women’s participation in the labor force appear to be correlated with decrease in family size. Large families may have a significant socio-economic dimension, where children are a kind of wealth, either by display, or for the more practical need for hands to man the plow.
That this decrease in fertility is wide-spread suggests a different sort of Natural Law than what I suspect Mozzie has in mind.
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Sawgunner, #55–not true, that only those with high incomes can afford a SAHM. I know families making less than $30,000 with numerous children. I also know families with 3000-square foot houses and two kids, where the wife “needs” to work.
It’s not the income that matters. It’s the priorities, the budgeting, etc. Studies have shown that a second income actually adds little to household wealth. The couple with two incomes pays more in taxes, food (they eat out more, and also use more prepared foods), gas, clothing (work-related clothing), childcare, often health-care costs (because the children get sick more often), etc. Also, husbands whose wives do not work can focus more on work, because the household is in better shape–and statistically those husbands actually earn more. I’ve heard (can’t verify) that families with working wives are MUCH more vulnerable to divorce and adultery. The family with an adult at home can scrimp, and the adult at home can work part-time when the family needs allow it. (I could, for instance, continue to freelance from my home.)
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#58 EricRun
I understand where you are coming from, but you would do better here to argue biblical doctrine rather than Catholic tradition.
The Bible says nothing about Catholic procedural minutia describing the proper way for married couples to have sex. Therefore you are elevating the traditions of men above the word of God.
The real tragedy here is the heavy legalistic burden placed on families by this unbiblical doctrine. It proscribes a list of peculiar procedures that supposedly please God, but amount to nothing more than self righteousness.
This is what happened to the Pharisees. Not pleased to do what God commanded, they made up their own commandments and kept those instead.
Catholic overzealous prescriptions for sexual practice gave us a celibate priesthood, forbidding them to marry which 1 Tim 4:3 calls a doctrine of devils. This led to centuries of sexual deviancy. Machiavelli’s Prince describes the offspring of a Pope who could not remain celibate.
And so, Catholic doctrine on sexual practices is hardly an exemplary standard. And since it continues to change, it is really not a standard at all. The Bible is the only standard we need. Sola Scriptura.
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And since it continues to change,…
Has the doctrine on sexual practices changed that much, if at all since the Middle Ages?
I know certain doctrines have liberalized ala Vatican II, but I see their teachings on sex the same as they were when St. Thomas Aquinas articulated them.
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#63 I was told that the Rhythm Method is out and Natural Family Planning is in. That sounds like a change to me, though I am not exactly sure what is different.
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Xion at #62: The Bible is the only standard we need. Sola Scriptura.
That might work if the Bible offered a single, consistent doctrine on sexuality, but it doesn’t.
Example: Is it a sin for a man to have sex with a prostitute? The Bible never says it is; it says it’s not wise, but there is no explicit law against it. Yet most Christians today (and most decent people of any religion or none) would say ‘of course it is!’
On the other hand, the Bible’s God DOES require a woman to marry the man who raped her (actually it requires the rapist to marry the woman he raped, the marriage being his duty after taking her maidenhood. Nothing about it suggests the woman should have any say or consideration in the matter.) Very few Christians would even consider that to be approrpriate now.
Oh, but you will say, that’s from the Law of Moses that Christians are not under. OK, but you are still worshiping a God who once did require it, and seem to think that just saying ‘it doesn’t apply anymore’ makes it ok.
New Testament teachings on sexuality are even more vague. At least the law of Moses lays out some clear rules.
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SteveG #65 The Bible does offer a consistent doctrine on sexuality. There is only one doctrine, namely that sex within marriage is good and encouraged and all sex outside of marriage is sin. That’s it. Case closed.
The Bible is clear about prostitution. Read 1 Cor 6:15.
As for rape in the OT, the sentence was usually death for the man (Deut 25:25). However, in the specific case where a man tempts a woman who was not married (this isn’t rape), then the man shall have to pay the father money. The father has the right to refuse to give his daughter to the man for marriage (Ex 22:15-17).
This was important because women who weren’t virgins would have no means of support. Why did God care so much about virginity? Well, the answer should be obvious. (Think Mary)
But that is of no consequence. The law was not some universal rule of primitive morality. It was a specific teaching tool for the Jews about their Messiah (Gal 3:24). It did not apply to anyone else. Once he came, there was no more need to teach about his future coming since he was here.
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This … for me … was a tough question after first being married. The answer I received though was made very clear to me some (roughly) five years after marriage. The result was that our family remained at five in number.
For all practical purposes, our three chldren are independent now. Each knows and is walking with the Lord.
There are several issues which remain unclear to me in the sense of a single, clearly delineated direction with this currrent topic having been a struggle I also wrestled with. Other issues include: remarriage, doctrinal abberations which seem so obviously wrong yet widely practised, disrespect toward others on the part of those who surely should know better, and a lack of spiritual maturity and understanding which is by-and-large deeply rooted and extremely common.
Intellectually, realizing that all of creation is simply God expressing Himself and in that sense purpose, direction, and counsel can be found is very much freeing. The issues of laws, habits, life-styles, and – in particular – the specific choices we make become far more managable.
Don’t beat yourself over these hard to be understood issues … give yourself time (it is always a time intensive process) to grow and come to some sort of solution based on your understanding of the Word. Others may understand the issue perfectly which is great for them … not so good for you necessarily. Remember our walk with the Creator is first and foremost personal and it’s this personal walk which will bring about the answers which we need.
By-the-way, as to the question of “is visiting a prostitute sinful?”, Paul admonishes the believer to flee such a thing (I Cor. 6:18).
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Xion at #66: The Bible does offer a consistent doctrine on sexuality. There is only one doctrine, namely that sex within marriage is good and encouraged and all sex outside of marriage is sin. That’s it. Case closed.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that.
The Old Testament law lays out a long list of forbidden sex, but nowhere does it say “all sex outside of marriage is sin.” If it were that simple, there would not need to be detailed rules about when you can and can’t have sex or who with. Nor would there be different rules for men and women. (The requirement to be a virgin on the wedding day applies to women only; a man who wants to have sex with a woman who is not a virgin will find nothing in the Law of Moses to forbid it.)
Now for Christians who believe those laws no longer apply because of Christ, the New Testament offers “flee fornication,” without ever saying just what fornication is. You interpret it as “all sex outside of marriage,” but it’s not at all clear that that’s what Paul meant. Some would say it refers to indiscriminate promiscuity, but not to sex within a committed monogamous, but unmarried, relationship. Others would go the opposite way and say it applies not just to sex outside of marriage, but to anything remotely sexual. Seeing a brief flash of nudity in a movie or glancing at a racy perfume ad in a magazine (especially if you let your eye linger on it a second or two longer than mere happenstance justifies) would be “fornication” under that definition.
I do agree your interpretation is the most common and probably most reasonable understanding, but it’s nowhere clearly established. That is, you’re not really relying on sola scriptura, you’re adding your own interpretation to the words.
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#68 Nowhere in the Bible does it say that.
“Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Heb 13:4
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Xion at #66:
As for rape in the OT, the sentence was usually death for the man (Deut 25:25). However, in the specific case where a man tempts a woman who was not married (this isn’t rape), then the man shall have to pay the father money. The father has the right to refuse to give his daughter to the man for marriage (Ex 22:15-17).
That’s not the passage I’m talking about. Deuteronomy 22:28-29:
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
(Verses 23-24 of this same chapter decree that a married woman who is raped and doesn’t scream for help should be stoned along with her rapist … because even if he has his hand over her mouth or a knife at her throat, she’s assumed to be consenting to adultery if she doesn’t scream … nice.)
Either the passage you cited from Exodus or this one from Deuteronomy treat the woman as a piece of property, by the way. She belongs to her father who can “sell” her to a husband, completely regardless of her wishes.
I tried to look up Deut. 25:25, but Deut. 25 has only 19 verses.
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Mozzie,
In response to your copied and pasted answer, Onan didn’t just refuse to bear his brother’s children, thereby justifying public humiliation according to the later law. Rather, he agreed to the carry out that responsibility, then subverted it–very much analagous to Ananias and Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit and receiving the exact same penalty Onan did. Just as no one was struck dead for refusing the law of Levirate marriage (or the principle before it was part of the law), no one in the New Testament was struck dead for failing to give generously to the Lord. Lying to God is another matter.
In regard to the nature of things, Protestants don’t deny the argument from nature–what we would deny is that we can deduce infallible doctrine from natural revelation. And even Roman Catholics are selective in their application of doctrine according to nature. Perhaps I just missed it, but I’m fairly certain there’s no Catholic prohibition against bottle feeding an infant, despite the fact that nature prescribes breast feeding.
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Rhythm Method involved looking at a calendar and trying to calculate based on a woman’s cycle when she might be ovulating–it was basic math.
Natural Family Planning is a sympto-thermo method. A woman takes her temperature every morning before she gets up and charts it. By doing this everyday, she usually can get a good idea when her temperature rises and stays higher–we’re talking .1-.3 differences in temperature–which is an indicator she is about to ovulate.
In addition, she checks her physical discharges–which I won’t go into here–several times a day which also indicate when ovulation is about to occur. Many women rely only on symptom checking.
The symptom method alone is not quite as effective as combining it with plotting the temperature gradiant, but is easy to learn and keep track of for women not as technical as modern western folk.
NFP requires cooperation between the husband and wife and means both have to be intune with the wife’s body. In theory, it can result in a couple becoming closer as they have to communicate frequently on an intimate nature.
And, as noted above, you just have to reverse the process when you want to get pregnant. No cost, no unnatural drugs, no latex, simple. You just have to abstain during ovulation if you don’t want to get pregnant.
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Reading SteveG’s and Xion’s back and forth (and the other comments) reminds me that people read into the Bible what they want and read out what doesn’t fit their framework.
“That doesn’t apply anymore”
“This actually means that”
And so forth.
They have elaborate explanations for why their particular interpretation/understanding is correct:
You see x = y and y = z. Therefore z = m, but only if you add b and k together and take away r for every 1,000 years…
*****
Of course, SteveG has it right: let every family decide for themselves how many children to have (and whether or not to use birth control) and leave the judging to God.
Of course the Catholic church (and a growing number of conservative Christians) has long tried to assert that they have the right to pull up a chair next to people having sex and instruct them on what is or isn’t “acceptable” to the church. It’s really more about power and control than anything.
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SteveG at # 38 – The phrase “liberals’ distaste for large families” didn’t come from me. It came from the post I was referring to, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was HSK, I think. I should have put it in quotes.
I [labeled your argument as petulant] because your argument was not simply a defense of the right to have a large family; it was: “We’ll have as many children as we choose, and it’s none of your business.” … suggesting an unwillingness to even consider the wisdom of that decision. That’s petulant.
I thought the dictionary defines “choose” as a considered decision instead of a rash act. I take children seriously – the having of them and the raising of them, and I suspect most other Christian parents (and not-yet parents) discuss the issue of children thoroughly as well. It’s a life-changing event.
And my choices about my body (in terms of kids I have) IS no one else’s business. It’s the same argument that pro-”choice” people use; why isn’t it applicable here? Seems a bit hypocritical.
If a woman births “too many” kids, finds she can’t take care of them, and decides to go on welfare, fine. As a taxpayer, even though I have doubts about many aspects of welfare, I’ll pay for her welfare support because she has the right to have those kids – just as I have the right to have mine.
This is similar to the free speech debate. We may not like what some people say, but they still have the right to say it. Or in this case, the right to have the number of children they see fit.
I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution or Amendments that limits the number of children a woman can have – whether she deliberately chooses to have numerous children or not.
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“Reading SteveG’s and Xion’s back and forth (and the other comments) reminds me that people read into the Bible what they want and read out what doesn’t fit their framework.”
Although this can be true for some people, your implication seems to be the same old postmodern drivel implying that words don’t really mean anything and communication is inherently impossible. Convenient way to dismiss any and all truth claims without even having even think, isn’t it.
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Ree,
There have been disagreements and debate over the Bible since it was first written. You can’t even get past the first couple of chapters of Genesis without huge debate and disagreement over how to interpret it. Catholics and Protestants (and others) can’t even agree on which books should be included in the Bible. Also, no human, including the greatest theologians that have ever lived, is infallible. I know there are a lot of people who go around claiming that they possess the Truth. (Our conservative Christian friends are no different in that regards). That’s a pretty audacious and arrogant claim considering that we’re all imperfect human beings.
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Ree: When someone confidently asserts, “The Bible clearly says … ” something that in fact the Bible does not clearly say, questioning the confident assertion is completely justified.
What happens very often is that various passages scattered over a few books in the Bible, read in a certain way, and interpreted just so, and ignoring other passages elsewhere in the Bible, can be claimed to mean what the person says. In the person’s mind, this becomes a “clear statement,” and asserted as such.
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Anlir,
It’e audacious and arrogant for me to say that I made up the truth. It’s equally audacious and arrogant to refuse the truth when God gives it to us. I don’t claim to know the truth because I’m somehow special, but I can know what God has said, and I really have no choice but to accept it and believe it. God is not going to accept as “humility” someone’s refusal to believe Him; He will judge it as pride.
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SteveG #70 I was quoting the same chapter as you. Should have been Deut 22, not 25.
As for rape, I concede that more liberal translations do use the word. I also concede that the interpretation is not literally invalid, but it is reading much more into this than is given.
The NIV translators took liberty to interpret the words for you. The original text does not actually say rape. Ex 22:16 deals with precisely the same issue, but it is described as a man enticing a young girl and the father have the right of refusal. Do you have a say over what your daughter does? Of course, yet you would not call her property.
This is spoken of in the New Testament also in 1 Cor 7:9. It is talking about two unmarried people who can’t keep their hands off of each other. The commandment for them is to marry. What is so horrible about that?
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#76 Anlir
Yes, people disagree about biblical interpretation. But people debate all sorts of things. You seem to think that anything debatable is by its nature invalid. So let’s do away with politics and science and art and engineering and on and on. Happy now?
As for the debate between SteveG and I, you must have missed the fact that you and Steve and I are really on the same side when it comes to the bedroom. God ordained marriage, but he died for all the deviations.
I kept quoting Heb 13:4 and other verses to this effect, but I forgot that you have no interest in the Bible, unless you find yourself out of toilet paper or kindling. In that case, might I recommend the NIV?
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Yes, CherylD. But what do you do when two people claim that God has given them the “truth” and come to different or opposite ideas, beliefs, or conclusions? With all the churches, denominations, and religions around the world claiming that they possess the truth, I don’t know how we’re supposed to figure out who’s right. Maybe they’re all wrong.
People can claim that they have received the truth from God, but they should put a gigantic “*” next to it with a note saying “I’m an imperfect human being, so I could be wrong”.
I’ve always found it interesting to meet people who proclaim with absolute certitude that what they believe is true and that there is no possibility that they could be wrong. The rest of us mortals look at them like a calf at a new gate.
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Xion at #79: As for rape, I concede that more liberal translations do use the word. I also concede that the interpretation is not literally invalid, but it is reading much more into this than is given.
The NIV translators took liberty to interpret the words for you. The original text does not actually say rape. Ex 22:16 deals with precisely the same issue, but it is described as a man enticing a young girl and the father have the right of refusal. Do you have a say over what your daughter does? Of course, yet you would not call her property.
Hmm. The problem is that in the NIV, the Exodus passage says “seduces a virgin” and the Deuteronomy passage says “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her …”
They actually appear to not be addressing the same situation.
Just to be sure it wasn’t a matter of translation/interpretation, I looked up the two passages in the King James as well:
Exodus 22:16: And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her…
Deuteronomy 22:28: If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her…
The phrase “lay hold on her” is more genteel than “rapes” but I do believe it makes the same distinction (use of force/coercion) that distinguishes the Deuteronomy verse from the Exodus passage.
The fact that in both cases the Deuteronomy passage is rendered different than the Exodus passage suggests to me that in fact the two laws are about different situations, one in which the woman was willingly seduced, and one in which the man forced himself on her.
Either way, she has to marry him.
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Interesting Xion that you have never met me and you don’t know me personally, yet you claim to know that I have no interest in the Bible except to use it as toilet paper. I’m not sure how that works. Did God give you a special revelation about me?
In fact, I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover twice (KJV and NIV), plus numerous other books and passages many times. I even read the boring parts where “so and so begat so and so”.
Perhaps the “truth” God revealed to you about me was lost in translation.
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SteveG, you would make a wonderful Rabbi! Shalom!
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Well Anlir, how many years have we been debating now? You seem like an old friend. You’ve made your views about Christians and the Bible quite clear. That is why I thought you would appreciate my humor.
PS. You may find this strange, but I think the begats are the most exciting part! There is nothing more thrilling than tracing the Messianic line, except the topic at hand, of course!
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SteveG, you would make a wonderful Rabbi! Shalom!
Oy vey!
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Anlir,
Disagreements don’t negate the fact that God infallibly reveals truth. Humans are sinful and fallible and, therefore, won’t always correctly ascertain all of what’s revealed. But to dismiss the revelation on that basis is culpable just as a child is culpable for dismissing his parents’ authority because he and his sister can’t agree whether Mom meant for them to be come home when the sun started to set or when it was completely dark outside.
Making claims about what God requires only seems arrogant to the one who places himself in the place of God–the one who presumes himself and his own intellect autonomous.
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SteveG,
Questioning the clarity or the interpretation of a given Scripture teaching may or may not be justified, depending on the underlying heart condition of the one doing the questioning.
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Well, Ree, human beings can’t even agree on a definition of God, much less the Bible and all the other stuff. The world is far bigger and complex than just you and the people around you, who all might think and believe a certain way. Truth is an individual thing and certainly fallible. What may be true for you will be different for another person.
If God infallibly reveals truth, to whom does She reveal it? How are we to decide which human beings have received the infallible truth? What if two or more people claim to have received the infallible truth and come to opposite ideas or conclusions?
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ANLIR:
Let’s say it this way instead: How we PERCEIVE truth is different for every individual; the truth itself remains the same across the board–throughout time and for each person.
Truth is an external thing; it is facts and definitive statements, no matter how difficult to understand, and therefore it does not vary.
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Anlir,
When you meet God, He won’t treat your questions as cute. He gave us His Word; we can ask and answer silly questions all day, but He has spoken clearly. He has also spoken through nature, and spoken very clearly through Jesus. As an educated American who has read the Bible and hung out on here, and interacted with Christians in other settings, your questions don’t hide the fact that you’ve been clearly exposed to the truth of God’s Word. God doesn’t owe you your own private revelation.
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Cheryl: The simple fact that Christianity has divided itself into hundreds, if not thousands, of denominations, and they hold some pretty serious differences of opinion over doctrine and praxis, is proof that the supposed clear revelation you speak of is anything but.
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SteveG, God is clear enough. People disagree on minor points out of honest differences, and on major points because of refusal to believe God’s Word.
It’s really not ambiguous, for example, that Jesus is God, or that salvation comes by faith and not by works. It’s perfectly OK to disagree on minor points. But refusing to believe the Bible on major points is simple unbelief, no matter what excuses people might make about “all the denominations disagree, so maybe they’re all wrong.” God won’t accept that one.
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Nah. The idea that the Bible itself is “the Word of God” in whole, and not to be doubted, is just an article of faith. It’s not even one the Bible demands. Many denominations, and many inidividual Christians, are quite comfortable taking it as something less than the infallible dictated words of God you think it is.
Your argument depends on first establishing that you believe the Bible to be the inerrant Word of God, and then to dismiss any dissenting view as “simple unbelief.”
But your argument is built on air. Take away the assumption — and it is an assumption — of inerrancy (and literalism) and you have no grounds to assert your view to be right and others wrong.
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no matter what excuses people might make about “all the denominations disagree, so maybe they’re all wrong.” God won’t accept that one.
I didn’t say that. I said the existence of the disagreements, among people of equal faith and devotion, shows that there is ample room for differing interpretations of the supposedly “clear” revelation.
You take the position that “Of course, my interpretation is the right one, because it’s just so clear,” which is typical of dogmatic people, but settles nothing.
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Anlir,
Is it true that truth varies from person to person or is that just your perception of truth?
People can’t agree on the correct epistemology, so that falsify yours?
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>>>Regarding large families, what would you say about a pastor who says that a vasectomy or contraception is equivalent to abortion. I know of such a church.<<<
Did you have in mind pastors such as these?
“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. . . . Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 24).
“Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. [Genesis 38:9, 10]. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, Yes a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates; and, when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime to produce semen and excite the woman, and to frustrate her at that very moment … He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him…” (Luther, Martin Luthers Works, Volume Seven)
“Besides [Onan] … preferred his semen to putrify on the ground, rather than to beget a son in his brother’s name…. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. … Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, (contraception) then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth with his seed, ….” (Calvin, John Commentary on Genesis)
“Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married, … he refused to raise up seed unto his brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile actions. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord–And it is to be feared, thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.” (Wesley, John Commentary on Genesis)
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