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:Hi, I’m glad to have your input and thoughts on the topic.
:You say that you don’t think Christians must have 10-15 children. Of course they don’t, and few Orthodox will argue that they do. But it does not follow that Christian couples should have some recourse to birth control in so-called “grave circumstances”. Married Christians do not have some kind of “right” to as much sex as they want for all their lives ''and'' a right to limit the number of children. The sense of “rights” is perhaps a dead end. The only important question seems to be: what is the ideal form of sex. ? What kind of sex is most perfect, most natural, most good, and most beautiful? As Christians, we are called to the perfect - anything less is to miss the mark. That an ideal is hard to attain does not make it any less of an ideal. And as you’ve beautifully put it, that idea of a man and woman both delighting in creation and delighting in the openness of this act toward creating new life, is what makes this kind of sex its ideal form. Any attempt to sunder the two degrades the act, either by isolating the unitive aspect and excluding the procreative by contraceptive techniques, or by isolating the procreative and excluding the unitive in artificial insemination or IVF.
:In this sense, the Catholic “Theology of Body” resonates strongly with me. However, it falls short when it twists on itself in order to justify Natural Family Planning, which necessarily involves the preferment of sterile sex to that sex which unites the unitive and procreative. NFP is sometimes justified as different to “artificial contraception” in that it uses the body’s “natural mechanisms” to have sterile sex. However, would this not equally justify anal sex or coitus interruptus? Surely, it is the approach to sex that matters – one’s intentions and sense of what sex’s telos is? Surely NFP does not essentially differ from “artificial contraception” in this regard?
:I’m sorry if I didn’t address your list questions directly. Please redirect my attention if you think I skipped over a crucial point in your argument.
:As a long aside, I think that one has to recognise that the Sin of Onan is at least relevant to this discussion insofar as Fathers treat the sin as an example of disordered sex. As a result, I’d like to say a few things here regarding what’s written in the main article (although I’m aware it’s not your interest, please indulge me as it relates to the topic). Jerome, for example clearly sees Onan’s sin as a perversion of sex for its exclusion of the procreative aspect of sex. While Origen is claimed in the main article on this page to have not interpreted the passage as a condemnation of contraception, he certainly doesn’t imply that Onan was killed for disobedience to God regarding the levirate. Rather in his one-sentence interpretation of the passage he says: “Everyone who sows (speiron) in the flesh, and buries the works of the flesh in the earth, is similar to Onan, for which reason they shall be killed.” While this is not an explicit interpretation of Onan’s sin as regarding disordered sex, it is fairly implicit - within Origen’s figurative interpretation is an assumption that Onan himself was killed for improper “sowing” of his seed per se. Chrysostom is also claimed in the main article to have not interpreted it as a condemnation of contraception. This is strictly true. However, like Origen, he certainly does not imply that Onan’s death is due to his refusing to do God’s will regarding the levirate, and abstains from going into much detail about what exactly Onan’s sin was. He merely says that God killed both Onan and Er because they were “poniros“ (i.e. evil), using the same word for both Onan and Er and potentially implying that their sin was similar - consistent with an interpretation that they were both killed for perverse sex. As for Ephrem’s commentary on the passage, I can’t say anything of it as I don’t have access to it. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he eschewed any commentary on the gritty detail of Genesis 38, as that wasn’t his style. I’d be interested to see the translated Latin text which was referenced on the main page. --[[User:Gmharvey|Gmharvey]] ([[User talk:Gmharvey|talk]]) 15:15, August 31, 2018 (UTC)
