I refer you to the thread above :
Posted on 12/28/2007 9:19:39 AM PST by Huber
Very interesting.
It`s interesting, indeed.
Some thoughts:
it seems to me that the concept of a “disorder of will” and the concept of “unnatural acts” look very similar. Both postulate a deviation from a “normality” which looks quite ordered randomly. If one says that an (sexual) act is “unnatural” he must be able to explain why driving a car should not be unnatural - after all there grow no cars in nature... and so the clean “unnaturalness” of an act can not be a premise of evilness.
So what could be such a premise? Causing damage, I suggest. If one voluntary causes damage and has not the intention to avoid a bigger damage while doing (for example: to hustle someone on the street so he gets injured seems to be an act of causing damage, but what if should save the “victim” from being knocked down by a truck?) I might call this “intrinsically evil”. But from this point of view even the abdication of contraception could be evil: imagine a really poor family with a lot of kids. Every added kid would make the situation worse. So, if the parents want to give their kids at least a half way lucky life, they renounce yet another baby. Trads would say “oh, no problem, you must simply renounce sex too”, but we all know this is not realistic, isn`t it? So in this situation contraception will be good and no contraception will be bad, for the latter causes damage...
One word to your Hiroshima-example: some people say that the bomb was good because without it there would have been many more victims. I dunno if this is right (and just as well how such results are generated), but: most of the Hirsohsima victims were civilians - in a conventional war could be less civilians and mostly soldiers, and thats a disparity I think soldiers must assume to be killed in a war rather than civilians.
thx for the food for thought!
my attention span is poor today, and this is lengthy.
What is this person saying of cases where a couple have tried to follow church teaching (ie...following nfp guidelines)- have found it ineffective and unreliable.
The couple cannot keep having a baby every year, and abstinence/celibacy is not an option.
Both of your responses reflect a humanistic and to some degree materialistic viewpoint on what the author sees as an issue of faith. It is materialistic in the sense that the good that is being considered is the material wellbeing and comfort of the couple and more broadly, the family, rather than its spiritual well-being and God’s will. First of all, abstinence/celibacy is always an option if we believe that we have free will and are not simply hapless victims of biology. Secondly, who is to say what value there is in a human life? Even (and often especially) a life in poverty and suffering can bear fruit that we cannot preconceive. Lastly, we usually only grow when faced with adversity, and as we know, a larger than “convenient” family certainly provides its fair share of adversity!
It’s not adversity, it’s opportunity!
(On a related point, if it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t penance :-).
FYI
Good point!
:-).
I was just reading an article about Ecuador in the Human Life International newsletter, and it mentioned a seminarian there who has 21 siblings. (And they don’t practice polygamy in Ecuador!)
Objections to the points the author of this article makes tend to suggest that the teaching is wrong because it is difficult. I sympathize - there are points of morality where I’m a total failure! - but it’s not a rational objection; truth doesn’t become falsehood because the truth makes difficult demands of us.
Santo Subito!
“FYI”
FWIW, I think this article is a prime example of why Christianity, at least traditional Apostolic Christianity, is dying in the West.
bump
I think you might be conflating two different definitions of "unnatural" here.
There is no moral judgment whatsoever against things that are man-made or man-designed or artificial or synthetic as opposed to naturally-occurring, organic, etc. Everything human beings do is unnatural to the extent that is rises above the instinctual behavior of the ape.
In moral reasoning, "unnatural" has a different meaning: it would mean going against that which perfects human nature. Of course,that would kick off a huge discussion about "OK, what does perfect human nature?" but in broad terms, human perfection holds to a certain order: spiritual, moral, intellectual, affective, physical. You're going for wholeness, but if that is not perfectly possible, then you go for the higher stuff at the expense of the lower.
As far as the Hiroshima example goes:
1. The Japanese had dispersed a significant proportion of their military production through the use of small, home-scale factories and workshops. Other, non-production activities in support of the military were also conducted in the homes of non-military Japanese citizens. The end result of this was the serious blurring of the distinction between military and civilian persons in the population of Hiroshima and other Japanese cities by the final months of the war. As a practical matter, it was not possible to distinguish a “civilian” from a “soldier” in Japan by 1945; the entire Japanese population was directly or indirectly engaged in supporting the war.
2. Hiroshima as a target is notable only for the novel nature of the weapon used to destroy it. The people killed during the spring 1945 non-nuclear firebombing campaign against Tokyo and other Japanese cities were no less dead than those killed by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
3. It is probably always wrong to kill innocent people, even by accident, and even in time of war. However, the alternative — surrender in the face of aggression — is likely equally evil. I have therefore always held it as a matter of faith that the Just Judge will forgive those soldiers, sailors, and other fighting men who have (without ill intent) taken innocent lives in their effort to defens the innocent from an aggressor.
I agree. (You seem to have read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb.")
bump for later
I don't accept his premise of the rationale for bombing the Japanese cities. Sounds like he is regurgitating what he learned from a liberal professor, and has never developed the ability to research and reason for himself.
The rationale for placing cities on the list included selecting cities that had little prior bomb damage so that an assessment of the effects of the various types of bombs could be made.
As far as casualties from the blast and resulting fires went, the numbers were not appreciably different than from conventional fire bomb raids.
Nagasaki was a significant military target (much more so, than Dresden, for example). And Kokura was also a significant naval and armaments making center.
“It is materialistic in the sense that the good that is being considered is the material wellbeing and comfort of the couple and more broadly, the family, rather than its spiritual well-being and God’s will.”
That is one way to look at it I suppose.
But even scripture says husbands and wives are not to deny each other for long periods of time.
If the claim is that a celibate/mostly abstinent marriage is good for the spirituality of the couple -then I remain skeptical.
I remember reading a question posed to a priest by a homosexual man struggling with following church teaching but still wanting companionship.
He asked the priest if it would be sinful if he lived with another man “as a brother”.
The priest answered that it was not sinful to do this but also it was not wise to tempt each other like that.
I remember reading that answer and thinking -ok so God wants married couples to live together in celibacy? “tempting” each other? Or should my husband and I separate for 3 weeks out of every month?
“First of all, abstinence/celibacy is always an option if we believe that we have free will and are not simply hapless victims of biology.”
I simply do not believe abstinence/celibacy in a marriage is something that can realistically managed by most couples without severe trouble resulting from it.
That is not to say there are not some strong saintly souls who may be able to handle it...but most of us don’t fit into that category.
” Secondly, who is to say what value there is in a human life?”
I never suggested I could or could’t say what value there is in a human life.
“Lastly, we usually only grow when faced with adversity, and as we know, a larger than “convenient” family certainly provides its fair share of adversity!”
yes...and too many pregnancies can also result in dangers to physical health - and cause a person to become so overwhelmed they find they aren’t being as good a parent as their children deserve.
Expand on that thought, please?
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