Sex Au Naturel (12 page)
Authors: Patrick Coffin
In the original Greek, the New Testament also contains several references to
pharmakeia
, which is translated variously as sorcery, medicine, or drugs associated with magic (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15). The word carries overtones of the occult in connection with Babylonian practices, and many scholars identify
pharmakeia
with contraception, which was widely practiced by Israel’s neighbors throughout history in Babylon, Egypt, Rome, and Greece. It is well-known that, in New Testament times, various potions were mixed to suppress or stop a pregnancy. Each mention of
pharmakeia
is set in the context of condemning sexual immorality, and even murder (see Rev. 9:21: 22:15). The early Church held a dim view of the first century equivalent of the birth control pill.
The biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior are clearly set forth in both Testaments (see Gen. 19:1–19; Lev. 18:22–23; 20:13; Rom. 1:24–32; 1 Cor. 6:9). Sodomy in particular has something essentially in common with contraception; namely, sex without babies. From a strictly biological point of view, heterosexual couples who nullify their fertility through contraception (especially via sterilization) have dismantled the logical basis on which to criticize homosexual acts. The more honest and consistent Catholic dissenters have admitted that dissent from
Humanae Vitae
results in the logical acceptance (even if one subjectively finds them repellent) of many other perversions, including bestiality.
10
Despite sincere protestations, those who accept contraception implicitly accept every other sexual coupling that is shorn from conception.
There is a popular misconception that pits the allegedly wrathful God of the Old Testament against the merciful God of the New. The
Cliff ’s Notes
version of this Old Testament deity might be, “God creates man and everything man does gets God angry.” But this is a false dichotomy. The Father of Jesus is as concerned with justice as Yahweh was with mercy. The New Testament, in fact, records an instance where God metes out the death penalty, and its circumstances bring us full circle back to the Onan incident. It’s found in Acts 5:1–11, the strange case of Ananias and Sapphira.
This seemingly devout couple misled Peter and the apostles about property holdings they were meant to share with the community. They slyly withheld a gift, as it were, and defrauded their solemn commitment as leaders of the Christian community just as Onan defrauded his solemn commitment (or covenant oath) to bring forth new life for his brother. Ananias and Sapphira—not unlike Onan—discovered the hard way how seriously God takes covenant oaths.
At face value, the text in Acts 5 has nothing to do with birth control, but the similarity lies in the fact of lying, of giving the appearance of transparency and truthfulness while really engaged in a deception. Contraception likewise gives the appearance of openness toward the natural link with procreation while severing that same link.
In severing love from life, contraception does what God’s Word never does.
1
^
Even when God carries out the death penalty, which He does a few dozen times in Scripture, it is in the interest of protecting and valuing human life or some other good.
2
^
This chapter relies in part on two books by Protestant authors:
The Bible and Birth Control
, by Charles D. Provan; and
A Full Quiver,
by Rick and Jan Hess. These authors do not hold Catholicism in any special affection, and, interestingly, they are providentialists who reject even natural family planning as immoral.
3
^
A prime example is the tautology, “survival of the fittest.” How do we know which species is the fittest? The one that survived. And why did it survive? Because it was the fittest, of course.
4
^
Father Brian W. Harrison, “The Sin of Onan Revisited,”
Living Tradition
, (67) November, 1996.
5
^
John F. Kippley, “The Sin of Onan: Is It Relevant to Contraception?”
Homiletic and Pastoral Review,
107 (2007):16-22.
6
^
The Levirate tradition is also present in the Book of Ruth, and is also clearly on the minds of the Sadducees who question Jesus about who is married to whom in the Resurrection (Mt. 22:23–32).
7
^
Protestant scholar S.R. Driver pointed out that the verse should be understood as a frequentative use of the perfect and translated “whenever he went in” instead of “when he went in.” See S. R. Driver,
The Book of Genesis
(New York: Edwin S. Gorham, 1905), 328; Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline, 2d ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), p. 85; E. Kautzsch, ed.,
Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar
, rev. ed. A. E. Cowley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), 336.
8
^
For a fuller overview of the Bible’s treatment of sexual sin, see Manuel Miguens, OFM,
Biblical Reflections on “Human Sexuality”
in
Human Sexuality in Our Time: What the Church Teaches
, George A. Kelly, ed. (Jamaica Plain, MA: Daughters of Saint Paul, 1979) 102–118.
9
^
Blue Letter Bible, “Dictionary and Word Search for
shagal
(Strong’s 7693),”
Blue Letter Bible
, 1996-2010,
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H7693&t=KJV
(accessed September 26, 2009). A note of thanks to Father Mitch Pacwa, SJ, for this insight.
10
^
Michael Valente,
Sex: The Radical View of a Catholic Theologian
(New York: Bruce-MacMillan, 1970); Anthony Kosnik et al.,
Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought
(New York: Paulist Press, 1977); Charles E. Curran, “Divorce in the Light of the Revised Moral Theology” (Notre Dame, IN: Fides, 1975), 77–78, cited in Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., Joseph Boyle, JR., William E. May,
Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation and Defense
(Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 1998), 47.
Chapter Five
The Implications of Divine Self-Gift
I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor; I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me.
—Saint Gregory Nazianzus
From God’s revelation in Scripture, we now consider God as He is, and unpack what the Blessed Trinity might have to do with birth control. At first glance, absolutely nothing. They barely belong in the same sentence, one being of heaven, the other of earth. The dogma of the Trinity, however, carries two implicit condemnations of contraception, both of which are related to imitating our Creator in the choices we make, particularly in the marital, sexual, realm.
But before we explore them, a quick review of the grand old teaching will better show the correspondence between the life of the Trinity and the teaching of
Humanae Vitae
.
Many people feel it’s impossible, even pointless, to try to understand the Trinity. They feel it’s either an unsolvable puzzle, like a square circle, or an abstraction up in the clouds somewhere. For others, it’s an article of faith, and that’s enough for them. “It’s a mystery,” they shrug, and turn back to the football game. But we were
made
to understand the Trinity. If we’re going to spend eternity with God—and God says He is a Trinity—it’s a good idea to learn as much as possible about what that means. If you were on a bus to Florence, wouldn’t your visit be more enjoyable in proportion to how much you learned about art?
The mystery of the Trinity embraces every other mystery of faith: our creation, our identity in Christ, and our final destiny in heaven. It’s the tantalizing secret God couldn’t keep to Himself (Rom. 16:25, 26), which, in the fullness of time, He sent His Son to reveal (Gal. 4:4).
The early Church formulated the Trinitarian dogma, fittingly enough, over the course of three Ecumenical Councils, Nicea (325), Ephesus (431), and Calcedon (451). The dogma may be summarized by saying that God is one divine nature (His
what
ness) which belongs to three divine Persons (His
who
ness). The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and none of the Persons is any of the other. One God, not three Gods. The First Person, the Father, we designate as Creator; the Second Person, the Son, we designate as Redeemer; and the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, we designate as Sanctifier. Or, the Father above; the Son beside; the Spirit within.
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While Christians, like Jews and Muslims, believe strictly in one God, this one God drops a hint early on about some kind of plurality within Himself. After creating the world and everything in it, God suddenly uses the first person plural when creating man. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This idea is repeated when sin enters the Garden. “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22).
2
Us? Our?
With the coming of Christ and the New Testament witness to the divinity of the Holy Spirit, these murky hints of more-than-oneness were brought to full clarity.
3
The Father loves the Son infinitely; the Son loves the Father infinitely in return. The infinite love of Father for Son, and Son for Father, “breathes” (spirates) a third infinite love, which is the Holy Spirit. According to the
Catechism
, “The Church confesses, following the New Testament, ‘one God and Father
from whom
all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom
all things are, and one Holy Spirit
in whom
all things are’” (CCC, no. 258, emphases mine).
That’s the Trinity in a nutshell. It’s the Big Idea of Christianity: not a picture to be imagined but a truth to be known, three Persons to be loved. (Religious works of art depicting the Trinity, despite noble motives and luminous beauty, haven’t exactly done the inquiring mind a big favor. For only the Son is “representable” in visual form; the Father and the Holy Spirit are by definition formless and invisible. If all you learned about the Trinity was gleaned from stained glass depictions, you probably think the Father is an old guy with a long beard, the Son a young guy with a short beard, and the Spirit some kind of white bird in flight.
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)
So what does any of this have to do with contraception, let alone with condemning it? The answer has two facets, both of which bear upon our vocation to imitate, not just the triune God, but also the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, especially in his supreme example of self-emptying. Call it an application of the natural law in Trinitarian attire.
This God wants us not just to imitate Him; He wants us! And He has a nature far above ours to share with us. “As he who called you is holy,” writes Saint Peter, “be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:15, 16).
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Jesus, the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), introduced this idea by commanding us to do something that, on first blush, seems impossible: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).
Of our own feeble resources, obviously, we can do no such thing. Jesus asks us to do our best, but more importantly, as the Offertory at Mass hints, to let Him do His best
in us
: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”