What is the Biblical argument against using birth control?
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Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
Illuminator
Well-Known Member
Gen 1:28, 9:1,7; 35:11 – from the beginning, the Lord commands us to be fruitful (“fertile”) and multiply. A husband and wife fulfill God’s plan for marriage in the bringing forth of new life, for God is life itself.
Gen. 28:3 – Isaac’s prayer over Jacob shows that fertility and procreation are considered blessings from God.
Exodus 23:25-26; Deut. 7:13-14 – God promises blessings which include no miscarriages or barrenness. Children are blessings from God, and married couples must always be open to God’s plan for new life with every act of marital intimacy.
Lev.18:22-23;20:13 – wasting seed with non-generative sexual acts warrants death. Many Protestant churches, which have all strayed from the Catholic Church, reject this fundamental truth (few Protestants and Catholics realize that contraception was condemned by all of Christianity – and other religions – until the Anglican church permitted it in certain cases at the Lambeth conference in 1930. This opened the floodgates of error).
Lev. 21:17,20 – crushed testicles are called a defect and a blemish before God. God reveals that deliberate sterilization and any other methods which prevent conception are intrinsically evil.
Deut. 23:1 – whoever has crushed testicles or is castrated cannot enter the assembly. Contraception is objectively sinful and contrary, not only to God’s Revelation, but the moral and natural law.
Deut. 25:11-12 – there is punishment for potential damage to the testicles, for such damage puts new life at risk. It, of course, follows that vasectomies, which are done with willful consent, are gravely contrary to the natural law.
1 Chron. 25:5 – God exalts His people by blessing them with many children. When married couples contracept, they are declaring “not your will God, but my will be done.”
Psalm 127:3-5 – children are a gift of favor from God and blessed is a full quiver. Married couples must always be open to God’s precious gift of life. Contraception, which shows a disregard for human life, has lead to the great evils of abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide.
Hosea 9:11; Jer. 18:21 – God punishes Israel by preventing pregnancy. Contraception is a curse, and married couples who use contraception are putting themselves under the same curse.
Mal. 2:14 – marriage is not a contract (which is a mere exchange of property or services). It is a covenant, which means a supernatural exchange of persons. Just as God is three in one, so are a husband and wife, who become one flesh and bring forth new life, three in one. Marital love is a reflection of the Blessed Trinity.
Mal. 2:15 – What does God desire? Godly offspring. What is contraception? A deliberate act against God’s will. With contraception, a couple declares, “God may want an eternal being created with our union, but we say no.” Contraception is a grave act of selfishness.
Matt. 19:5-6 – Jesus said a husband and wife shall become one. They are no longer two, but one, just as God is three persons, yet one. The expression of authentic marital love reintegrates our bodies and souls to God, and restores us to our original virginal state (perfect integration of body and soul) before God.
Matt. 19:6; Eph. 5:31 – contraception prevents God’s ability to “join” together. Just as Christ’s love for the Church is selfless and sacrificial, and a husband and wife reflect this union, so a husband and wife’s love for each other must also be selfless and sacrificial. This means being open to new life.
Rom.1:26-27 – sexual acts without the possibility of procreation is sinful. Self-giving love is life-giving love, or the love is a lie. The unitive and procreative elements of marital love can never be divided, or the marital love is also divided, and God is left out of the marriage.
1 Cor. 6:19-20 – the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; thus, we must glorify God in our bodies by being open to His will.
1 Cor. 7:5 – this verse supports the practice of natural family planning (“NFP”). Married couples should not refuse each other except perhaps by agreement for a season, naturally.
Eph. 5:25 – Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, by giving his entire body to her and holding nothing back. With contraception, husbands tell their wives, I love you except your fertility, and you can have me except for my fertility. This love is a lie because it is self-centered, and not self-giving and life-giving.
Eph. 5:29-31; Phil. 3:2 – mutilating the flesh (e.g., surgery to prevent conception) is gravely sinful. Many Protestant churches reject this most basic moral truth.
1 Tim. 2:15 – childbearing is considered a “work” through which women may be saved by God’s grace.
Deut. 22:13-21 – these verses also show that God condemns pre-marital intercourse. The living expression of God’s creative love is reserved for a sacramental marriage between one man and one woman.
Rev. 9:21; 21:8; 22:15; Gal. 5:20 – these verses mention the word “sorcery.” The Greek word is “pharmakeia” which includes abortifacient potions such as birth control pills. These pharmakeia are mortally sinful. Moreover, chemical contraception does not necessarily prevent conception, but may actually kill the child in the womb after conception has occurred (by preventing the baby from attaching to the uterine wall). Contraception is a lie that has deceived millions, but the Church is holding her arms open wide to welcome back her children who have strayed from the truth.
source
Gen. 28:3 – Isaac’s prayer over Jacob shows that fertility and procreation are considered blessings from God.
Exodus 23:25-26; Deut. 7:13-14 – God promises blessings which include no miscarriages or barrenness. Children are blessings from God, and married couples must always be open to God’s plan for new life with every act of marital intimacy.
Lev.18:22-23;20:13 – wasting seed with non-generative sexual acts warrants death. Many Protestant churches, which have all strayed from the Catholic Church, reject this fundamental truth (few Protestants and Catholics realize that contraception was condemned by all of Christianity – and other religions – until the Anglican church permitted it in certain cases at the Lambeth conference in 1930. This opened the floodgates of error).
Lev. 21:17,20 – crushed testicles are called a defect and a blemish before God. God reveals that deliberate sterilization and any other methods which prevent conception are intrinsically evil.
Deut. 23:1 – whoever has crushed testicles or is castrated cannot enter the assembly. Contraception is objectively sinful and contrary, not only to God’s Revelation, but the moral and natural law.
Deut. 25:11-12 – there is punishment for potential damage to the testicles, for such damage puts new life at risk. It, of course, follows that vasectomies, which are done with willful consent, are gravely contrary to the natural law.
1 Chron. 25:5 – God exalts His people by blessing them with many children. When married couples contracept, they are declaring “not your will God, but my will be done.”
Psalm 127:3-5 – children are a gift of favor from God and blessed is a full quiver. Married couples must always be open to God’s precious gift of life. Contraception, which shows a disregard for human life, has lead to the great evils of abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide.
Hosea 9:11; Jer. 18:21 – God punishes Israel by preventing pregnancy. Contraception is a curse, and married couples who use contraception are putting themselves under the same curse.
Mal. 2:14 – marriage is not a contract (which is a mere exchange of property or services). It is a covenant, which means a supernatural exchange of persons. Just as God is three in one, so are a husband and wife, who become one flesh and bring forth new life, three in one. Marital love is a reflection of the Blessed Trinity.
Mal. 2:15 – What does God desire? Godly offspring. What is contraception? A deliberate act against God’s will. With contraception, a couple declares, “God may want an eternal being created with our union, but we say no.” Contraception is a grave act of selfishness.
Matt. 19:5-6 – Jesus said a husband and wife shall become one. They are no longer two, but one, just as God is three persons, yet one. The expression of authentic marital love reintegrates our bodies and souls to God, and restores us to our original virginal state (perfect integration of body and soul) before God.
Matt. 19:6; Eph. 5:31 – contraception prevents God’s ability to “join” together. Just as Christ’s love for the Church is selfless and sacrificial, and a husband and wife reflect this union, so a husband and wife’s love for each other must also be selfless and sacrificial. This means being open to new life.
Rom.1:26-27 – sexual acts without the possibility of procreation is sinful. Self-giving love is life-giving love, or the love is a lie. The unitive and procreative elements of marital love can never be divided, or the marital love is also divided, and God is left out of the marriage.
1 Cor. 6:19-20 – the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; thus, we must glorify God in our bodies by being open to His will.
1 Cor. 7:5 – this verse supports the practice of natural family planning (“NFP”). Married couples should not refuse each other except perhaps by agreement for a season, naturally.
Eph. 5:25 – Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, by giving his entire body to her and holding nothing back. With contraception, husbands tell their wives, I love you except your fertility, and you can have me except for my fertility. This love is a lie because it is self-centered, and not self-giving and life-giving.
Eph. 5:29-31; Phil. 3:2 – mutilating the flesh (e.g., surgery to prevent conception) is gravely sinful. Many Protestant churches reject this most basic moral truth.
1 Tim. 2:15 – childbearing is considered a “work” through which women may be saved by God’s grace.
Deut. 22:13-21 – these verses also show that God condemns pre-marital intercourse. The living expression of God’s creative love is reserved for a sacramental marriage between one man and one woman.
Rev. 9:21; 21:8; 22:15; Gal. 5:20 – these verses mention the word “sorcery.” The Greek word is “pharmakeia” which includes abortifacient potions such as birth control pills. These pharmakeia are mortally sinful. Moreover, chemical contraception does not necessarily prevent conception, but may actually kill the child in the womb after conception has occurred (by preventing the baby from attaching to the uterine wall). Contraception is a lie that has deceived millions, but the Church is holding her arms open wide to welcome back her children who have strayed from the truth.
source
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Does God’s word say that we must have a tribe of children? In Bible times it was reasonable to have a number of children to care for their parents in their old age....they were able to grow their own food and keep their own livestock. But what about in today’s age? With the cost of living so high and climbing....and poverty spreading to even once wealthy nations, causing homelessness....does God want us to bring children into the world that we cannot care for adequately?
1 Tim 5:8 says....
“Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith.”
To me that suggests that we should have only as many children as we can feed and care for.
But there is no mandate to have children.....it’s a personal choice.
1 Tim 5:8 says....
“Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith.”
To me that suggests that we should have only as many children as we can feed and care for.
But there is no mandate to have children.....it’s a personal choice.
Deborah_
Well-Known Member
In patriarchal times, this was undoubtedly true. Now that the earth is straining under a population of billions, we need to control our fertility to a level where the population stabilises.
"Must"?
I really think that this interpretation misses the point.
Castration does a lot more than prevent procreation - it's total emasculation! This interpretation reduces a man to being just a sperm factory.
There are many different ways to use contraception. Most couples use it to space out pregnancies, not prevent them altogether. As to "defying God's will", all methods of contraception have a failure rate, and I know several Christian couples who have bowed to God's will and had an unplanned child when their contraception failed.
Paul is talking about circumcision here! Do you really think that all surgery is sinful?
The word describes magical potions (some of which did have physical effects). These were totally unrelated to modern scientific medicines.
Also, there is a persistent myth that oral ("chemical") contraception causes abortions. This is untrue. The copper coil (IUD) can cause failure of implantation, but other methods very rarely, if at all. Successful pregnancies in women who have carried on taking their pills are well documented. Even the "morning-after pill" is only effective before fertilisation has occurred.
What are we to make of this? Is the use of contraception a terrible sin, that God considers punishable by death? I would say not, because if the use of contraception is so evil in itself, why is there no law against it elsewhere in the Old Testament?
No decision to have sex, or to use contraception, takes place in a vacuum. There is always a context to the choices that we make; which is why most churches leave the issue of contraception to individual conscience.
The sin of Onan
The Bible has next to nothing to say on the subject of contraception. At the beginning, of course, and again after the Flood, God commanded the human race to “be fruitful and increase in number and…
deborahsbiblestudies.wordpress.com
In patriarchal times, this was undoubtedly true. Now that the earth is straining under a population of billions, we need to control our fertility to a level where the population stabilises.
"Must"?
I really think that this interpretation misses the point.
Castration does a lot more than prevent procreation - it's total emasculation! This interpretation reduces a man to being just a sperm factory.
There are many different ways to use contraception. Most couples use it to space out pregnancies, not prevent them altogether. As to "defying God's will", all methods of contraception have a failure rate, and I know several Christian couples who have bowed to God's will and had an unplanned child when their contraception failed.
Paul is talking about circumcision here! Do you really think that all surgery is sinful?
The word describes magical potions (some of which did have physical effects). These were totally unrelated to modern scientific medicines.
Also, there is a persistent myth that oral ("chemical") contraception causes abortions. This is untrue. The copper coil (IUD) can cause failure of implantation, but other methods very rarely, if at all. Successful pregnancies in women who have carried on taking their pills are well documented. Even the "morning-after pill" is only effective before fertilisation has occurred.
What are we to make of this? Is the use of contraception a terrible sin, that God considers punishable by death? I would say not, because if the use of contraception is so evil in itself, why is there no law against it elsewhere in the Old Testament?
No decision to have sex, or to use contraception, takes place in a vacuum. There is always a context to the choices that we make; which is why most churches leave the issue of contraception to individual conscience.
The sin of Onan
The Bible has next to nothing to say on the subject of contraception. At the beginning, of course, and again after the Flood, God commanded the human race to “be fruitful and increase in number and…
The fact is that raising children is EXPENSIVE and very time consuming to the point that a couple may be unable to provide a minimum standard of care to all.
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
1. Your use of OT examples god gave to Israel and make them apply to the church is wrong. we are not under the law.
2. Using pharamkeia this way is wrong. Using your logic then, a person on a heart prescription medication is practicing sorcery.
3. Women are not "saved" in any part through childbearing. they are delivered in child bearing. Female mortality in these days was very high in giving birth.
4. redefining the verses you did in the NT is simply using private interpretation which is condemned.
5. If god did not want people to use any contraception, He didn't have to go through these mystic riddles and need someone to "interpret" for believers.
6. A married couple indeed must have children. but nowhere does it say how many. Teh sexual act is forst and foremost for the couple to join and enjoy. then it is to bear godly seed. How many children is between God and the couple.
7. If you feel you must have as many children as possible- that is a choice between you, your spouse and god. But do not make it a law for everyone else for it is nt in Scripture.
Let us not be hard on our brother in Christ. I believe he was generous in sharing his feedback, even if I didn't necessarily agree that many of the verses that he shared were not applicable to my question. By the way, I appreciate your feedback too. Thank you!
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
You rwelcome.
I was not seeking to be harsh with him. that is just how I tend to write everytime I answer a pst. I have many threads and answer sometimes as many as 3 dozen responses so I tend to be succinct and to the point. On a screen it can appear to come off as harsh, but it is not.
Illuminator
Well-Known Member
It's a touchy subject. Most people are contracepting. Catholics are just as guilty as anybody else but it needs to be explained why it's wrong. God wants us to be happy and fulfilled, which is precisely why He designed things the way they are.
Catholics believe that sexuality has a fundamental purpose, decreed by God: procreation. Many Christians — who are fully willing to abide by what the Bible teaches — do not understand why the Bible teaches what it does about sex, even if they accept that it teaches certain things that have been normative in Christian cultures, to more-or-less degrees. They have no clue why certain things are prohibited, and other things required.
Moreover, having never been taught, many do not even dimly understand the distinctive Catholic teachings on sex, such as the prohibition of contraception.
Likewise, secularists and atheists and agnostics who ultimately don’t care what the Bible teaches, because they deny that it is revelation, and believe various myths about its nature and origins, want to hear non-biblical, non-religious secular, purely logical rationales for why we believe that certain sexual activities are wrong. This is my task as an apologist.
The Catholic Church teaches that it is a grave sin to deliberately separate sexuality from procreation, because the latter is its most essential purpose. (not that everybody follows it, which is the problem)
God created sex for this purpose, and for unity. Within its proper sphere, marriage between a man and a woman, he also established that spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment. He created it for the deep fulfillment of human beings. Whatever is prohibited by Him is meant to foster this fulfillment, not to make people miserable and “incomplete”, etc.
We believe that when people follow the design that God has for sexuality, that they are the happiest, and that families and society prosper and flourish as a result (and indeed, this is sociologically demonstrable). To the extent that they do not follow the guidelines, the opposite will be the result.
Catholic sexuality is not anti-woman, anti-pleasure, anti-homosexual (persons), anti-natural desire. That’s how it's too often construed, because its nature or rationale isn't properly comprehended. God isn't against sex. He invented it. He described our relationship to Him as like a marriage.
In minimally graphic language, the Catholic view is that complete sexual fulfillment (including pleasure, which is not forbidden!) must occur in the act of love with one’s spouse of the opposite sex: that one is committed to for life, and that the couple must be open to life and possible conception. Sexual acts engaged in apart from this circumstance are wrong and sinful.
Contraception (deliberately thwarting a possible conception and engaging in sexuality under those circumstances) is wrong because it has an essentially “contralife will”: it insists on separating what ought not be separated (sexuality from possible conception, or being “open” to conception).
The Church teaches that a couple can space births and decide to postpone children or have no more children, for appropriately serious reasons of health, emotional factors and finances. This is what Natural Family Planning is about. The difference is that the practicing Catholic abstains from sexuality during the woman’s fertile periods, if they have legitimate reasons not to conceive a child.
Nor does the Church teach that every couple must have a dozen children. It acknowledges that a couple can plan sensibly regarding number of children and when to have them. But it does insist on sufficiently serious reasons for not having more children.
Blessed Pope Paul VI, in his landmark 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, predicted several dire consequences for society and individuals, should contraception be widely practiced. They have all come true. Ideas and behaviors indeed have consequences. He could see the bad things on the horizon because he understood why contraception was wrong in the first place, and hence, would produce terrible fruits. Now we are living with those.
I'd like to suggest one way that we can defend this viewpoint from natural law, in an entirely non-religious, non-biblical way. We can better understand the Catholic prohibition of all forms of non-procreative sexuality by making an analogy to other organs and functions of the human body. Human beings instinctively believe that certain things are unnatural and shouldn't be separated.
My favorite example of this is taste buds and nutrition, in conjunction with eating. The “normal” understanding is that food should be enjoyed for its taste and also utilized for nutritional / health purposes. Both are, or should be present. We prove that this is what we believe, without thinking much about it, by our reactions to those who violate it.
So, for example, if a person completely separated the pleasure of taste from eating and insisted on eating bark, insects, rotten food (that still held nutritional value), we would consider that exceedingly strange and odd (as we do, the stereotypes of “sexually repressed” Puritans and Victorians).
Why? Well, it’s because we believe that food ought to be enjoyed while nourishing us. Taste buds have no relation to nutrition whatsoever. They are purely for sensory pleasure, and everyone believes that the pleasure shouldn't be separated from the nutritional aspect of food.
On the other extreme (the analogy to contraception), we have the junk food junkie. We think a person who exclusively eats Twinkies, chocolate-covered cherries, and cotton candy, or suchlike, is quite bizarre and not even remotely responsible about his or her diet. And that is because we know that food must have nutritional value, which is, in fact, its fundamental purpose, beyond merely enjoying its taste. Both have to be together.
This teaching does not mean that a married couple cannot engage in sexual activities when conception is not possible (such as the infertile periods for a woman or after her menopause). What is prohibited is a deliberate thwarting of a possible conception during fertile periods.
Many Catholics have never had the above reasoning and rationales explained to them. This often leads, sadly, to highly caricatured, stereotypical perceptions of Catholic teaching, including silly allusions to repressed nuns and dictatorial priests (and by extension, God Himself), who allegedly want everyone else to be as miserable as they supposedly are.
Satan's lies! God wants us to be happy and fulfilled, which is precisely why He designed things the way they are.
source
Catholics believe that sexuality has a fundamental purpose, decreed by God: procreation. Many Christians — who are fully willing to abide by what the Bible teaches — do not understand why the Bible teaches what it does about sex, even if they accept that it teaches certain things that have been normative in Christian cultures, to more-or-less degrees. They have no clue why certain things are prohibited, and other things required.
Moreover, having never been taught, many do not even dimly understand the distinctive Catholic teachings on sex, such as the prohibition of contraception.
Likewise, secularists and atheists and agnostics who ultimately don’t care what the Bible teaches, because they deny that it is revelation, and believe various myths about its nature and origins, want to hear non-biblical, non-religious secular, purely logical rationales for why we believe that certain sexual activities are wrong. This is my task as an apologist.
The Catholic Church teaches that it is a grave sin to deliberately separate sexuality from procreation, because the latter is its most essential purpose. (not that everybody follows it, which is the problem)
God created sex for this purpose, and for unity. Within its proper sphere, marriage between a man and a woman, he also established that spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment. He created it for the deep fulfillment of human beings. Whatever is prohibited by Him is meant to foster this fulfillment, not to make people miserable and “incomplete”, etc.
We believe that when people follow the design that God has for sexuality, that they are the happiest, and that families and society prosper and flourish as a result (and indeed, this is sociologically demonstrable). To the extent that they do not follow the guidelines, the opposite will be the result.
Catholic sexuality is not anti-woman, anti-pleasure, anti-homosexual (persons), anti-natural desire. That’s how it's too often construed, because its nature or rationale isn't properly comprehended. God isn't against sex. He invented it. He described our relationship to Him as like a marriage.
In minimally graphic language, the Catholic view is that complete sexual fulfillment (including pleasure, which is not forbidden!) must occur in the act of love with one’s spouse of the opposite sex: that one is committed to for life, and that the couple must be open to life and possible conception. Sexual acts engaged in apart from this circumstance are wrong and sinful.
Contraception (deliberately thwarting a possible conception and engaging in sexuality under those circumstances) is wrong because it has an essentially “contralife will”: it insists on separating what ought not be separated (sexuality from possible conception, or being “open” to conception).
The Church teaches that a couple can space births and decide to postpone children or have no more children, for appropriately serious reasons of health, emotional factors and finances. This is what Natural Family Planning is about. The difference is that the practicing Catholic abstains from sexuality during the woman’s fertile periods, if they have legitimate reasons not to conceive a child.
Nor does the Church teach that every couple must have a dozen children. It acknowledges that a couple can plan sensibly regarding number of children and when to have them. But it does insist on sufficiently serious reasons for not having more children.
Blessed Pope Paul VI, in his landmark 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, predicted several dire consequences for society and individuals, should contraception be widely practiced. They have all come true. Ideas and behaviors indeed have consequences. He could see the bad things on the horizon because he understood why contraception was wrong in the first place, and hence, would produce terrible fruits. Now we are living with those.
I'd like to suggest one way that we can defend this viewpoint from natural law, in an entirely non-religious, non-biblical way. We can better understand the Catholic prohibition of all forms of non-procreative sexuality by making an analogy to other organs and functions of the human body. Human beings instinctively believe that certain things are unnatural and shouldn't be separated.
My favorite example of this is taste buds and nutrition, in conjunction with eating. The “normal” understanding is that food should be enjoyed for its taste and also utilized for nutritional / health purposes. Both are, or should be present. We prove that this is what we believe, without thinking much about it, by our reactions to those who violate it.
So, for example, if a person completely separated the pleasure of taste from eating and insisted on eating bark, insects, rotten food (that still held nutritional value), we would consider that exceedingly strange and odd (as we do, the stereotypes of “sexually repressed” Puritans and Victorians).
Why? Well, it’s because we believe that food ought to be enjoyed while nourishing us. Taste buds have no relation to nutrition whatsoever. They are purely for sensory pleasure, and everyone believes that the pleasure shouldn't be separated from the nutritional aspect of food.
On the other extreme (the analogy to contraception), we have the junk food junkie. We think a person who exclusively eats Twinkies, chocolate-covered cherries, and cotton candy, or suchlike, is quite bizarre and not even remotely responsible about his or her diet. And that is because we know that food must have nutritional value, which is, in fact, its fundamental purpose, beyond merely enjoying its taste. Both have to be together.
This teaching does not mean that a married couple cannot engage in sexual activities when conception is not possible (such as the infertile periods for a woman or after her menopause). What is prohibited is a deliberate thwarting of a possible conception during fertile periods.
Many Catholics have never had the above reasoning and rationales explained to them. This often leads, sadly, to highly caricatured, stereotypical perceptions of Catholic teaching, including silly allusions to repressed nuns and dictatorial priests (and by extension, God Himself), who allegedly want everyone else to be as miserable as they supposedly are.
Satan's lies! God wants us to be happy and fulfilled, which is precisely why He designed things the way they are.
source
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