In a class of mine lately, we have been discussing contraception. Because I have the (sometimes ill-placed) disposition to automatically and emphatically defend the Church's teaching, I responded fervently to the following questions that were given:

(1)What does it mean to say that an act is natural or unnatural?

(2)How does this weigh in on the arguments against contraceptives?

(3)Is it possible for someone to be a "good Catholic" and dissent from the teachings of Humanae Vitae / Evanglium Vitae?

Perhaps later on I'll post what I actually wrote in response to those questions. I had given a basic explanation of the definition of a thing's nature (internal principle of motion, etc.), form, the four causes, and the intellectual soul. For now, I don't have the text handy.

But an important element of what I wrote then involves a human experience that I think is fundamental to our concept of Natural Law. I haven't heard this expressed in quite these terms, so let me wax philosophical, and get some responses.

First, it seems that there is a basic, legitimate human right, which is this: the freedom to manage one's own resources, property, person, body, finances, etc. from the arbitrary compulsion of external powers. That includes governments, organizations, your neighbor, even churches (even the Church).

However, this right--which is recognized by the Church and constantly defended by her--is confounded with a dangerous expectation. That is: that this freedom of choice stands absolute, even in the face of the most elemental realities of human existence (marriage, family, gender, birth, society, social needs [commerce, poverty, government], sexuality, and even life and death itself).

This expectation is very deeply ingrained in Western culture; even faithful Catholics cannot help but feel its effects personally. It's a miasma; it's in the air; it's the result of the explosion of modern science and technology, and their dominance over our culture for 300 years or more. Control, choice, individual desire-fulfillment; it is absolutely pervasive.

Lately, this expectation has found a devilish friend: the absolutized fear and hatred of suffering. (Check out Evangelium Vitae for some great writing about this). Suddenly, suffering becomes the criteria #1 for what goes and what stays. And all those things I mentioned before (marriage, family, gender, birth, society, social needs [commerce, poverty, government], sexuality, and even life and death itself) become expendable.

So, we have individualist megalomania--a world of nature-blind control-freaks. Nothing new. But there is a certain foundation that we can see pretty clearly: all of those beautiful, ancient, natural, life-giving and meaningful parts of life are devalued. Why? Because they are ambivalent; they are a struggle of pain and pleasure; a mixture of light and darkness (shadows and candles). Gender gives us boundaries; marriage calls for fidelity; government implies obedience; childbirth hurts; family takes away free time; and so on.

The deception is that these shadows are bad and destructive. So people feel like they have the right banish the shadows by blasting on the aritificial, flourescent flood-lights. People want to destroy and run away from the very parts of life that define the truth of our experience.

The whole point of natural law is that the person has the natural potential to tap into Truth (via the intellectual soul). Non-reflection, non-reason is unnatural. And Truth, as such, will show to anyone who reflects upon it with an open mind and a healthy conscience, that we are not masters of life and death. That, in fact, we are thrown inexorably into a world that is given to us, that has its own principles and laws (facts), and that calls for a relationship in which we fit it, and not vice-versa.

And the wonderful part is: this *fitness* brings us freedom. A person who denies the principle of gravity is not free, because he is mad; though he claims for himself the right to float or fall upwards, he will continually disfigure himself in the attempt.

It is only in acknowledging and loving gravity that we are free to run and jump and fly and swim.

So also with our other Beneficient Masters: In the loving of motherhood and childbirth and family, we see the fulfillment of the heroism and complete truth of the family. When we deny the value of motherhood (or accept it only on our own terms) we disfigure ourselves, disfigure society into atoms of mad little voters, making a mockery of democracy.

When we deny our gender, we butcher ourselves in a rage against creation. When we love and celebrate the gender we were born with (even those who struggle with homosexuality), we celebrate our being and the givenness of the being around us.

When we accept and love the fact of need and poverty in the world, we no longer seek to banish it from our sight, and so we attend to the poor and the hungry with Christian love and generousity, but also learn from them, because theirs is the Kingdom.

There is "ray of truth" in the mythical polytheism of nature religions: all of these wonderful things I am talking about become Beneficient Masters. The Sun for the Aztecs was the giver of life and death; the provider of food and burner of forests. We can choose to rub-out ambivalence, and create a fake picture with no shadows (the very definition of ideology). Or else we can "stop worrying and learn to love the Sun." The Sun representing all of those wonderful, ancient, natural parts of human life I keep bringing up, of course.

It is a way being exemplified by our Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Here is a thought experiment.

We eat. We eat for pleasure and nutrition. In moderation (in accord with reason) we eat what we like to eat. That's natural. Sometimes we do not eat. That is natural too--we want to lose weight, or fast, or something. But there is something we do not do: we do not give ourselves tapeworms so that our eating is worthless. That is unnatural. It is also dangerous.

So too for conjugal unions. We have sex. It's also OK to have sex for its own sake. That's natural. But there are lots of natural reasons for not having sex. (They are "natural" by virtue of being reasonable, and us being "rational animals"). So, being unmarried, or living a celibate vocation, or even using Natural Family Planning. These are all reasons (in accord with Truth) why someone would not be sexually active.

But, like the tapeworms, Catholics of faith do not use contraceptives. Like the tapeworms, they're unnatural. Like the tapeworms, contraceptives represent a desire for control over one of our Beneficient Masters, and the irrational fear of all suffering, and the ignorance of the joy and freedom that comes from a conjugal act in loving marriage, bringing life into the world.

That's why the Pope writes in Evangelium Vitae that Contraceptives deny the full truth of the love given in the conjugal act. (a paraphrase).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So anyway, I don't think I've come up with anything really original here. But I think I have discovered a good way to preach the Church's moral teaching: the joy of loving obedience to beneficient nature.

-- anon (ymous@God.bless), March 07, 2004

Answers

Bump-a-rama!

-- The Bumper! (Bump@bumpitybump.bump), March 07, 2004.

"It is a way being exemplified by our Holy Roman Catholic Church."

Are you absolutely sure about this? I was hoping you might be more specific.

Some unenlightened, ignorant medieval tossback such a myself might get these concepts mixed up with things I have no knowledge of, such as the Great White Brotherhood and the ways of Sanat Kumara. lol!

Things like this make me nervous, you know. Help me out here.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), March 07, 2004.

Emerald,

All I'm talking about is Church teaching on marriage, family, sexual morality, the evil of aritifical contraceptives, etc. Catholic morality is above all Scriptural, but it is also based in part on Natural Law, the law written on our hearts.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 07, 2004.

Here is a more simple summary.

There are three bad things about secular Western culture:

(1) People exaggerate their freedom of choice; they think it extends to areas of life like marriage (and family), gender, birth, death, the body, and even Truth as such.

(2) People have an exaggerated fear of suffering. All suffering is bad. No suffering is meaningful. People don't want to see it or hear about it. They don't want to risk having it.

(3) People have forgotten that obedience to natural law (including its challenges and boundaries and occasional acceptance of suffering) is a source of joy and meaning. That is because it is more True to do so, i.e., it "fits" nature rather than "fights" it.

Here are examples of behaviors that rage against nature, and their disfigurement:

• [Model] Giving one's self a tapeworm. Disfigures the act of eating. Solution: Diet, learn responsible eating habits, eat better foods, have a natural relationship with food and its effects.
• Artificial contraception. Disfigures the conjugal act. Solution: Abstain, take a course in NFP, or else plan for children. Tap into the mystery of childbirth as participation in God's act of creation. Deepen your relationship with your beloved. Have a natural relationship with sex and its effect.
• Trans-gender procedure. Disfigures the human body. Solution: GET HELP, learn to make your body your home and temple; find comfort in the skin you were born with. Get guidance to look for the devils that torment you.
• Homosexual marriage licenses. Disfigure the family as a stable unit of society. Solution: A society based on natural families is necessary in order to (most) reliably teach values of tolerance and love for all people.
• [A possible stretch but...] Laws that prohibit begging. Disfigure the perennial condition of humanity wherein the poor are visible and accessible. Solution: Begging licenses to allow safe begging for the poor, and social aid programs.

's-allright? 's-allright.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 07, 2004.

By the way,

"Poor, unenlightened medieval tossback" is a compliment in my view. But then, Emerald, for all of my anger directed toward you, I've never accused you of being out-of-date.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 07, 2004.

Well, hmmm. Let me ask you this, though: you are fully aware what the Beneficient Masters are, right?

I guess I'm asking, first, do you know what they really are, and if so, then are you meaning to use them to point to a kind of parallel or substituted real meaning within the reality of Catholic truth?

Or do you accept them for what they in common use, at face value? This is of course assuming we aren't equivocating on what's meant by Beneficient Masters.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), March 07, 2004.

Oh that.

I'm sorry Emerald, I was just being poetic. Our only Benificent Master is the triune God.

Poetically, I was only personifying the boundaries of nature as 'Benificent Masters' insofar as obedience to natural law is a source of meaningful joy. I assure you it was as innocent as St. Francis' Canticle of Brother Sun.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 07, 2004.

Ahhh. O.k. Well, you scared the Quetzalcoatl out of me.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), March 07, 2004.

Just so you know, my intent is not to cause needless controversy. What it stems from is this: the more someone knows, and the more they are attuned to the way things are, it seems more important than ever to be extra watchful... keeping the distinctions between things from becomed blurred, or from being taken out of context.

From being blurred: you addressed that already, about the Beneficient Masters thing. You are talking about natural virtue, after all, so I guess if that's understood there might not be any blurring going on there. I'll put my anti-eastern mysticism gun down, but there's something deeper than that that concerns me:

Regarding context. There is a real subsistence where all created things subsist in God, however, it's so very easy to admire particular created goods only to find out later that they have been moved outside of their proper subsistence in the Creator. All in the process of admiration. So again imho watchfulness is required.

How is one watchful... you mentioned the four causes. My focus: final cause or End Cause. Forget the other three for a minute; I tend to focus in that with just about everything. Maybe that's the source of all my sparring with you on various topics as well as with others. The Four Last Things, Final Cause, and this: the first in intention is the last in execution.

You're talking about created goods within time and a certain context, passing away, against a backdrop of the Creator and eternity. You and I would differ on how to approach created goods under these circumstances, imho. There are a lot of truths contained in your post I would agree to, but something seems amiss as to how one should treat of created goods. Let's say I can't full connect with what you are saying without wondering if I'm being led to consider entertaining the here-and-now in a way that might possibly distract from the hereafter. Eternity is a long, long time and this life is short.

So iow, "'s-allright?" Not quite; and not quite sure why. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), March 08, 2004.

Emerald,

I think I know what you're talking about. If it helps to asuage your doubts, I can try and put my opinion into different terms:

God created the world, and he created man. He gave man a lordship over creation, but not an absolute lordship. In other words, it is given to man to be certain things and do certain things. But there are other things which it is not given to man to be or do.

Thus we are in the world much like a spider in its own web. Spiders can walk in their own webs because some parts are sticky and others are not. It is given to the spider to walk some places, but not others.

And so we live in the world in some ways active, and in others passive. We are active insofar as we act on the world for our own good. We are passive insofar as the world acts on us, also for our own good. This is a Christian humanism; because man is created by God in his image, natural law is established according the perfect balance of activity and passivity with respect to man.

Now keep in mind, obedience to natural law alone is not sufficient for justification. Nevertheless, its source and its destination is God, and by itself it is a preparation for the Gospel. Further, it is the root of a great part of Catholic morality.

There are two errors with respect to natural law, both of which are discussed in Evangelium Vitae: Excessive passivity (such as in "Nature religions" which confound the creation for the creator) and excessive activity.

My posts have focussed on the problem of excessive activity; which is to say that modernists commit the original sin over and over again. They try to do and to be what it is not given to them to do and be.

I.E., I was born a male, so it was given to me to be a male. The sexual function's final end is children, so it is given to the sexual function to be open to children.

It is by the intellect that man discerns the balance. In other words, it is given to me to have the urge toward conjugal relations; but it is also given to society to be constituted by family. Thus, the intellect and the freedom of the subject choose accordingly with the Good.

*** My big point is that the modernists, with all their obsession with control and choice, are missing out on the more profound joy of fitting nature rather than fighting it. When I say "fit" nature, I do not mean that we are absolutely passive to the created world around us. That is unnatural. I mean rather that we fit our nature, as free transcendent createds-by-God, as man.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), March 10, 2004.

Actually, that sounds pretty good...

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), March 10, 2004.