tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18631784.post2447133890818074436..comments2023-12-05T19:10:42.635-05:00Comments on Lutherans and Procreation: The Culture of Death isn’t really so (Post)Modern after allErich Heidenreich, DDShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12819223688598369327noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18631784.post-80808368559274238472008-03-17T09:34:00.000-04:002008-03-17T09:34:00.000-04:00Thanks, Jon, for joining L & C and for a great int...Thanks, Jon, for joining L & C and for a great introductory post.<BR/><BR/>As for the connection of the culture of death (and of contraception in particular) to Manicheaism, you quote the R.H.C. Davis saying that to the Manichees "prostitution was normally a lesser evil than motherhood." This is certainly true. They actually forbade marriage to the "Elect." Yet, interestingly, they allowed marriage for the "Auditors" - the catechumens. They simply advised these catechumens to practice what is now known in its more advanced form as NFP ("Natural Family Planning.") In so doing, Augustine says they turn the wife into a harlot.<BR/><BR/>Consider the following citation from <I>Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists,</I> by John T. Noonan, Jr., Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966.<BR/><BR/>[Quote]<BR/><BR/>Two books composed in the first year after his baptism as a Catholic Christian proclaim the reaction [of St. Augustine to contraception]. They are The Morals of the Manichees and The Morals of the Catholic Church. They were written, Augustine states specifically, to refute the Manichean claims of continence. In The Morals of the Manichees, Augustine declares that the Manichees are opposed to marriage. They are opposed to marriage, because they are opposed to procreation which is the purpose of marriage. They permit marriage, it is true, to their Auditors, the multitude of followers or catechumens who are not held to the standards of the Elect. These marriages of Auditors, however, the Manichees attempt to deprive of substance, for they advise the Auditors to avoid procreation. Augustine recalls the advice given and evaluates its significance in a passage which turns into a major attack on contraception:<BR/><BR/><I>Is it not you who used to warn us to watch as much as we could the time after purification of the menses when a woman is likely to conceive, and at that time refrain from intercourse, lest a soul be implicated in the flesh? From this it follows that you consider marriage is not to procreate children, but to satiate lust. Marriage, as the marriage tablets themselves proclaim, joins male and female for the procreation of children. Whoever says that to procreate children is a worse sin than to copulate thereby prohibits marriage; and he makes the woman no more a wife but a harlot, who, when she has been given certain gifts, is joined to man to satisfy his lust. If there is a wife there is matrimony. But there is no matrimony where motherhood is prevented; for then there is no wife.</I> (The Morals of the Manichees 18.65 PL 32:1373)<BR/><BR/>The method of contraception practiced by these Manichees whom Augustine knew is the use of the sterile period as determined by Greek medicine. The Manichees, despite their keen interest in avoiding procreation, had acquired no better information. Probably they explained the disappointments which this advice must have entailed as due to some failure to watch the period closely.<BR/><BR/>In the history of the thought of theologians on contraception, it is, no doubt, piquant that the first pronouncement on contraception by the most influential theologian teaching on such matters should be such a vigorous attack on the one method of avoiding procreation accepted by twentieth-century Catholic theologians as morally lawful.<BR/><BR/>[End quote - Noonan]<BR/><BR/>To be fair, NFP is NOT accepted by the Roman Catholic church as morally lawful except in extraordinary circumstances. It is only to be used in cases which involve casuistry. We would allow contraception in such rare cases as well. I would not necessarily limit one's choices in a moral dilemma to NFP. The circumstances are conceivable to me, for instance, in which tubal ligation might even be the lesser evil if a woman's life would unquestionably be in grave danger if she were to ever become pregnant again and there was no chance this condition would change.<BR/><BR/>In any case, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters should beware of the unlawful promotion and use of NFP as a means of contracepting at will for unapproved and un-counseled reasons. Such selfish use of NFP is condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and is nothing but the same Manichean heresy you describe in your post, Jon.<BR/><BR/>Thanks again! Great thoughts here worth pondering.<BR/><BR/>ErichErich Heidenreich, DDShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12819223688598369327noreply@blogger.com