"Take a look at the iconoclast issue. If the lay people had blindly followed the Patriarch, there would been no resolution to it."
That's a good example. The rejection of the Calvinist leanings of the Pat. Cyril Lucaris is another. Indeed, given the history of heretical hierarchs in the East, The Church would not have survived without a system wherein the laity acted as the guardians of Orthodoxy. It is precisely this system which gives Orthodoxy its well known theological and ecclesiological conservatism.
So here's the most common thing I HEAR from my friends who bow out of the race..... who decide that their quiver is 'full enough' and opt for vasectomy, etc....
-----the last birth or two were really hard on the mother... the doctors really warned about trying to have any more children, etc----
There are some real issues to explore here..... is it biblically permissible to opt for sterilization when there are legitimate health concerns? This is very similar to the emotional plea of rape/incest and abortion. Is it OK to kill a person if they are the result of rape/incest? This is a moral absolute.... NO.
But is God's plan for procreation present a moral absolute? Is it absolutely forbidden to play with God's procreative plan? To substitute OUR OWN PLAN for his?
Good questions. I know my wife and I don't interfere with God's plan for OUR procreation, but I can't say that I wouldn't suspend it if there were LEGITIMATE health concerns. Are bowing to these concerns a lack of faith? Is the Lord capable of closing the womb? Of course....
Hard questions.
Still, I think that this card(the 'hard on the mother' card) is played WAY TOO MUCH. And why? Because no one will argue with you on that one!
OK.... being a doctor myself(doctor of pharmacy) I am acutely aware of the fact that women are always advised to stop having more children by their doctors. Our obstetricians always seem to. Thankfully we have not had health concerns, and our Lord has blessed us with healthy children.
Also, women are almost ALWAYS put on birth control right after giving birth because 'it's not healthy to have children too close together'. (DON'T use the minipill while nursing... it is perhaps the WORST abortifacient oral contraceptive that you can take)
Our western society and its SELFISH DESIRES pushes childless families and families with just one or two children because they want it all...
Beware of the love of self.