“No, it’s the nonsensical drivel taught by Rome”.
No—I don’t agree with that premise at all.
While there is a lot to consider in the spiritual and philosophical value and also the various points of the NFP in practice, I would like, for the moment, to begin with Scriptual and practical thoughts re: NFP. There is more, but I will get to other aspects according to the time I have today. But for now:
Our contemporary language commonly refers to the physical expression of love as “having sex”. Scriptural language refers to human physical love as “knowing” (i.e.: Luke 1:34). The expression of “having” in man/woman relationships often conveys a sort of temporary possession—a type of “having” which has in it the quality of taking. The Scriptural “knowing” conveys a fullness of possession, so complete as to “blur” a distinction of beings and to be truly one by immersion, so to speak, into the personhood of the other.
The espression of “having’ seems to imply a personalized desire, while the expression of “knowing” conveys the self-donated “knowing-ness” of love. “Having” can leave one alone and unfulfilled. “Knowing” calls forth total self-donation, which is the fountain that never runs dry and cements a mysteriously eternal unity of two in one flesh.
Artificial contraception disrupts this unity. Even more disconcerting, it is nature-changing. The human body is “wondrously and magnificantly made” (Ps 138-139), but if pharmeceutical contraception is used, the very nature of the body as God designed, created and gave, is changed. (St. Paul refers to it in the Greek “pharmakeia”—meaning occult medicine) To change and alter the body in this way is to alter that which God made according to His own divine plan (Gen.1:27). Such a technology and/or practice to change the sexual nature given and designed by God is presumptuos to say the least. The same principle holds true for any unnatural “barriers” or cutting of the life-giving source in man.
To allow the body to remain in repose, intact with all of its potential remaining as created, is one thing. To alter its natural functions, render it sterile by human design and intent for the purpose of muting or destroying its unitive-creative essence is another thing altogether.
Without contraception, husband and wife give to each other unconditionally, just as Christ gave to His Bride, the Church. The fertility which they share is the life-giving dimension of their covenant and it finds its expression in the love-giving dimension of that covenant. Whether the couple chooses to use the full creative power of their love, which may, if God chooses, bring into the world new life destined for heaven—of whether they choose to forego making love to each other for a brief period of days because a pregnancy must necessarily be postponed for a while and therfore they draw apart for a while (1Cor.7:15)—they are, in either case, living their covenant as God does with His people. In either situation they are sharing the Master’s way, as a shadow, human reality of the Divine: “this is my body which will be given up for you”.
Covenant is the principle of gift-and-response that haunts the Christian conscience down the corridors of time.
Through God our Father and Creator we have received life. This life has been made eternal for us through Jesus, the Lord, Who gave totally of Himself, because He loved us.
This is God’s covenant with us: life and love.
From Genesis to Revelation, God refers to His love for His people in terms of the nuptials. (to mention only a few: Isaiah, Hosea, Song of Solomon, Matthew 23 and 25, Ephesians 5:22-23, Revelation19). Jesus worked his first public miracle at a wedding feast. In marriage we are convenanted in Christ Jesus as signs to the world of His unconditional life-giving and love-giving. We fulfill this covenant in a holy manner when we leave our marriages open—unobstructed and unbroken unity—to both life and love.
I’ll leave off this thread by writing that I agree with the substance of your post - God and Israel, Christ and Church, both used the metaphor of husband and wife. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman, children may come from it. I simply don’t buy into the legalistic prohibition on responsible family planning by Rome. No one yet has admitted to the condemnation by Rome of sex acts, inside of marriage, resulting in orgasm that is non-procreative, actual or potential. Rome’s position is not scriptural and contrary to reason and nature. Again, more power to the folks who are gratified by various methods of birth control they deem ‘natural.’