It’s a lot simpler than you are making it out to be, and the objection to Anscombe does not rely on the object of intercourse being procreation per-se. Whether a couple uses sterile periods, or for example uses a condom, the object of act is the same. Put somewhat indelicately, the man is shooting at a barrier that separates the sperm from the ovum. In one case the barrier is inside the woman, but the difference there is purely optics or aesthetics, not substance. Furthermore, it does not matter that the couple did not cause the woman to be sterile, just as it doesn’t matter that they are not responsible for the natural impermeability of rubber. We can look at intent then. Whether the couple selects a sterile time, takes a pill earlier in the day, or puts on a condom, they are doing something to render their act infertile. However, in the right circumstances sterile intercourse is a good act (which even the Catholic Church acknowledges now by promoting NFP). By using artificial contraception the couple, in the right circumstances, merely does something to enable one good act instead of another. There was no obligation to do the other act at that specific time though. What Anscombe doesn’t seem to understand is that most of the time natural intercourse is not the kind of act by which life is transmitted, but is the same kind of act as when using artificial (non-abortifacient) contraception.

You’ve been consistently evasive, and have failed to make any coherent case for the Catholic position on this. There is simply nothing of merit there - the Catholic thinking on this topic, other than the basics that can be inferred from the New Testament, consists of special purpose arguments designed to get to a desired position, not to find the truth. Now an Emperor’s New Clothes dynamic has set in, as so many are afraid of admitting the obvious.

Totally open doesn’t mean everything all the time, just as all gifts are not to be grasped for indiscriminately. If not having sex at all, withholding completely, for a time is licit for sufficiently good reason then giving partly, withholding only one aspect, must also be licit. This partial withholding would also only require a reason of equal or lesser gravity.

So then the fact that the sexual faculty exists to preserve humanity was a red herring? Why exactly would using a faculty in a manner other than its purpose be wrong? Note that contraception doesn’t actually do anything against life, as before conception there is no life, so “subvert” is a misleading term. At worst it prevents life that would have been possible, but then so does abstinence. With the right intent and circumstances contraception allows one good act instead of another that could have been done. You’re still faced with the treadmill - by your way of thinking it would be subversive as well.

You’re being evasive. The reproductive system does exist to preserve humanity, but how exactly does that make individual instances of impeding it wrong? If you’re going to take a consequentialist approach then we’ll have to look at abstinence, recourse to infertile periods, and celibacy.

So then how exactly is sex different, and why exactly would impeding procreation be wrong? Say somebody invented a diet pill that you could take when about to eat, and it would block all calories and nutrition from that meal. Do you seriously believe the Church would label it intrinsically evil?

@EamonnClark @LukeDashjr @LemonySwirls @CricketSurfing @HippieReligious That’s a common assertion, but can you explain in your own words why it must be true? Also, which “marriage act”? There are at least two that look the same but are very different. Finally, are treadmills wrong for impeding the running act from what it does by its own power?

@EamonnClark @HippieReligious The Catholic Church has gotten itself tied in so many knots on the topic of contraception that it just needs to shut up for a few centuries. Basic New Testament Biblical sexual morality is all that’s necessary - just look to conservative Protestants for guidance.

Either the Church is clueless, or is being dishonest. NFP is simply contraception, and no more open to life than any other technique. To address a common misconception, the abstinence part is not the contraceptive part - it is when the couple actively leverages the woman’s biology to have sex and frustrate conception. Whether a condom or the body is keeping sperm and ovum separate is really irrelevant - one is arguably more natural but that’s an appeal to optics or aesthetics, not substance. It may look different or feel different, but it is actually the same kind of act. Some will say that NFP is different because it is “natural” or “works with God’s natural cycle”. They always go silent though when asked if playing baseball under artificial lights is intrinsically evil for violating said cycles. The abstinence part is potentially morally problematic if it interferes with rendering the marital debt as St. Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 7. This is where the concern should be focused. Since God’s design for human sex is naturally contraceptive most of the time, and separates the ends, it is difficult to say this is intrinsically evil. This is why some fight against the truth that NFP is simply contraception, as with it being allowed the whole rickety case against contraception in principle collapses. Looking at this truth from another angle, the time of an act is not merely part of the circumstances if it changes the object of the act. As an example, a man is at the shooting range. He can fire at the target, or by waiting until somebody is downrange checking the target dramatically alter the act and make it murder. Being somewhat indelicate, by altering the time the couple chooses to have intercourse the husband is shooting at an ovum or at nothing. Different acts. One is contraceptive, even if naturally. If contraception with a condom is a disordered act so is having sex when when the woman is infertile. They are fundamentally the same, the difference is merely in what is visible to the eye.

@realchrismanion @FrHilderbrand It’s been three hours @realchrismanion, and you’re strangely silent. Is it possible that for years you’ve been parroting things you don’t understand, and linking documents that don’t actually help you? A little humility and honest study of the issues might be in order for you.

To your since deleted, but correct, comment that life begins at conception, that’s why we should never link abortion and contraception. That blurs the line that is absolutely fundamental to the pro-life effort — life begins at conception. The former is murder and a great evil. The latter is something entirely different, categorical opposition to which is derived from centuries of poorly-reasoned innovation on Biblical standards of sexual morality. The Left desperately wants to associate the two under the umbrella of “reproductive rights” for women, something that well meaning (usually Catholic) pro-lifers facilitate when they can't get beyond their excessive focus on sex. This is an example of a weak defense of one supposed but erroneous moral principle damaging the defense of valid ones, particularly if enemies can link them. A military analogy might be helpful. If you're trying to defend a city, the last thing you should do is waste resources on an indefensible outlying position. It will get overrun, and the enemy will have momentum coming after your next line of defense. This is exactly what has happened. Griswold led to Roe as restrictions on contraception were indefensible, then the Left was able to establish a false link to abortion, use similar reasoning, and win again. In short, opposition to non-abortifacient contraception is not a legitimate pro-life issue. Not only does it blur the clear line that life begins at conception, but it introduces all sorts of fallacious and specious arguments that only damage the credibility of those who propose them, thus making ending abortion more difficult.

@inquisitorforce That’s because opposition to contraception isn’t a legitimate pro-life issue.

The problem with Janet Smith is that she favors social consequentialist and “mentality” arguments. The latter are weak as you are relying on a distinction that you have not established and assuming things you cannot possibly know about what people you are not acquainted with are thinking. As to the former, morality is an individual responsibility, you cannot make collective generalizations. This leads to a social consequentialist argument indistinguishable from that made by gun controllers and temperance advocates, and the same blunder that Pope Paul VI made in section 17 of Humanae Vitae. Now to her credit, her understanding of natural law is similar to that of St. Paul and she doesn’t fall into the teleological traps that ensnare some others like Edward Feser and Elizabeth Anscombe, but then she makes totally inappropriate leaps from solid principles to the claims she wants to make. Her stock spiel on why NFP is supposedly different from other barrier methods also evidences a poor understanding of moral philosophy. One of her ex students commented on one of these forums that Janet Smith is a nice person, but not a strong mind. That comes through in her writing.

@realchrismanion @FrHilderbrand You’ve been presented with a strong (probably air tight; it’s never been successfully refuted) case that Humanae Vitae is not the truth. Can you defend the encyclical or not?

Can you make a solid case that any of the following is incorrect? Humanae Vitae is an example of muddled moral reasoning deserving much of the criticism it has received, definitely impairs Church authority, and makes other catechesis suspect as well. Unfortunately it gets taken seriously in some quarters as an Emperor's New Clothes dynamic has taken hold amongst those who feel compelled to defend the encyclical. This becomes obvious in section 11, where Pope Paul VI says “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life”. He fails to realize that intercourse when the woman is infertile has no relationship to the procreation of human life. It is a different kind of act than when fertile, and is the same kind of act as when, for example, using a condom. The object, intent, and relevant circumstances of the acts are the same. Valid reasoning thus dictates that if intercourse during infertile periods is allowed, then so must other non-abortive contraceptive techniques. Consider then section 12. The claimed inseparability for every sexual act of the unitive and procreative aspects does not follow, and he begs the question slipping in the word “essential” into “if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved...”. This inseparability idea is a 20th century invention that has no basis, nor can it, as Nature through God’s design separates the ends most of the time. Then sections 14 and 15 conflict. In 14 he says “Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary”, equating sterilization to abortion in gravity. But then in 15 he says “the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever”, where he says it could be OK if the intent is right. If a deliberate act that frustrates conception at a future time is intrinsically evil, how can it actually be acceptable if the intent is good? Double effect does not apply here, as the supposed evil could be easily avoided. Next, consider the morally meretricious arguments in section 17. Compare to similar ones a few Protestants make for prohibition of alcohol. Saying that something can be used for ill doesn't mean it is inherently evil. This is basic - Pope Paul made the same blunder that gun controllers and temperance advocates make. Finally in section 21 Pope Paul misses the fact that in real life and real marriages self-discipline means pushing aside distractions to have more sex, not less. His thinking is predicated on the assumption that sex is inherently selfish, demonstrating the framework of a celibate man without a clue. So just the time when the Church needed all its moral authority he wasted ammunition by taking a poor shot at the wrong target. More effective would have been a return to the New Testament approach to relationships between the sexes, re-emphasizing their different roles including wives' submission to their husbands, and an attack on the errors of feminism. Unfortunately though he was lacking the courage, the intellectual horsepower, or both.

@realchrismanion @FrHilderbrand Do you actually understand Humanae Vitae, and can you defend it in detail? If not, you ought not be talking about what you don’t know.

@realchrismanion @FrHilderbrand Preaching Humanae Vitae is a bad idea, for however well-intentioned, it is an irredeemably flawed work. Contraception is a red-herring, and foolish pronouncements related to it just impair the moral authority the Church needs to resist actual evils in today’s society.

What you are missing is that the word “sex” actually covers two very distinct kinds of act. One when the couple is fertile, and one when not. The latter naturally has no relationship to procreation and no generative potential, and is the same kind of act as when using non-abortifacient contraception. The objects, intents, and relevant circumstances are the same. Since God designed humans this way to separate sex from children most of the time it is impossible to say this is intrinsically evil. This is why some fight against the truth that NFP is simply contraception, as with it being allowed the whole rickety case against contraception in principle collapses. Think carefully before you object. NFP is contraception, and no more open to life than any other technique. You have been convinced of a common misconception, but the abstinence part is not the contraceptive part - it is when the couple actively leverages the woman’s biology to have sex and frustrate conception. Whether a condom or the body is keeping sperm and ovum separate is really irrelevant - one is arguably more natural but that’s an appeal to optics or aesthetics, not substance. It may look different or feel different, but it is actually the same kind of act. Some will say that NFP is different because it is “natural” or “works with God’s natural cycle”. They always go silent though when asked if playing baseball under artificial lights is intrinsically evil for violating said cycles. The abstinence part is potentially morally problematic if it interferes with rendering the marital debt as St. Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 7. This is where the concern should be focused.

What you’re missing is that intercourse using artificial contraception is a natural act, even if artificially assisted. This is in principle no different than reading at night under artificial light. More generally, for a the natural law approach to work you’d have to show that the end of each sexual act is procreation, and that deliberately frustrating this end is wrong. To the first requirement, while there is nothing wrong in principle with “animal sex” ordered towards procreation, since God’s design for human sex is naturally contraceptive most of the time, and separates the ends (which is why NFP is effective contraception), it is difficult to say that the end of each act is procreation. In humans at least, sex when the woman is fertile is a different kind of act with a different end than when not, but in the right circumstances (marriage) neither is wrong. The key point here then is that sex when using “artificial” contraception is the same kind of act as when the woman is infertile, so you cannot draw a distinction. For the second, it is difficult to demonstrate that frustrating the end of an act, or of a natural function, is necessarily wrong. If it were then treadmills would have to be forbidden. There’s a philosopher, Edward Feser, who tries to make this case called the “perverted faculty” argument, but bases everything on assertions ex-nihilo and falls flat on his face when counter examples like treadmills are raised.

Neither are condoms totally reliable. The claimed effectiveness of NFP in frustrating conception is higher than that of many other contraceptive methods though, so it is really less open to life. You also don’t know if a couple using a less reliable contraceptive technique is open to life should it fail. In each case the expected sterility of the act cannot be guaranteed, and the degree of openness to life is not so much in the act itself, but in what the couple does should the unexpected happen. That is an entirely separate issue, unless you can claim to know the thoughts of all other people.