God's Design

(Note: On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical entitled "Humanae Vitae", which stressed the Catholic Church's stand on the issue of contraception. The said document/ letter listed down the Vatican's arguments for its opposition to birth control. The complete encyclical can be viewed at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html.)

….Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
-from the ENCYCLICAL LETTER HUMANAE VITAE OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF PAUL VI TO HIS VENERABLE BROTHERS THE PATRIARCHS, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE, TO THE CLERGY AND FAITHFUL OF THE WHOLE CATHOLIC WORLD, AND TO ALL MEN OF GOOD WILL,ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH

What if tomorrow, a large meteor suddenly passes through the Solar System, fortunately not colliding with the earth but leaving a trail of radioactive matter that causes all of the earth’s inhabitants to become sterile? If that happens all, young men would inevitably cease to think of sex as an act of procreation. In such a situation, should all young men be deprived of sexual knowledge lest they forget the reverence due to a woman? Would it be fair to assume that just because a man sees sex as anything other than an act of procreation, he is doomed to be a chauvinist pig who reduces a woman to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires?

Clearly, the church is afraid. It fears that contraception may cause men to disrespect women. But the problem with the church is that it fears what it should not and promotes what it should fear. Women are far more respected today, in the era of contraception, than in ancient times, when women were coldly regarded as mere bearers of children. When biblical proofs for the evils of contraception are sought, most Christian leaders are quick to refer to the 38th chapter of Genesis, which tells the story of Onan, a man who was killed by Yahweh after practicing the contraceptive act of withdrawal (i.e. “spilling the seed”). But before the withdrawal, whom did Onan have sex with and why? He had to do the act with Tamar, the wife of Onan’s brother Er, after the latter had been killed by Yahweh himself. Apparently, to preserve the family’s honor, Onan had been tasked to sire a child with his deceased brother’s widow. Did it matter whether or not Tamar had feelings for Onan? Hardly. Whether Tamar liked it or not, she had to have intercourse with her dead husband’s brother, simply because she had been widowed. The intercourse had to happen not because of love but because of the need to procreate. Is that what the church wants? A society which sees women more as bearers of children than as human beings who have the right to love and express that love in the most passionate ways? The church is concerned that contraception may promote a culture that disrespects women but unbelievably, it is not even worried that its stand against contraception may revive a culture that relegates women to being mere instruments of men’s desire to please God and procreate!

Which brings me to my next question. Do couples really go against God’s design when they have sex without effecting procreation? Below is another excerpt from the Humanae Vitae.

….If [men] further reflect, they must also recognize that an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will.

Let’s talk about nature. It is natural for a man to get sick. But if a brilliant doctor can find a way to alter the course of nature and prevent a man from becoming ill, why should anyone stop him? It is natural for a sick man to die. But if someone could be bright enough to save an ill person from death, why should anyone prevent him from reaching the sick man? It is natural for buildings to crumble during an earthquake. But if a brilliant engineer could design edifices which could stand the wrath of earthquakes, why stop him from realizing those designs? It is natural for a man to get wet in the rain, but if he chooses to seek shelter, if he chooses only to be cooled and not to be cleansed by the rain, why should anyone compel him to do otherwise? It is natural for a couple to have an offspring after coitus. But if someone could find a way to let an impoverished couple express their love for each other in the most passionate way without conceiving an innocent child who would be forced to inherit his parents’ poverty, why should anyone keep him from doing so? If a man can offer his wife the sacred gift of sexual enjoyment without forcing her to go through nine months of a pregnancy that may cost her her life, why stop him?

In this world, there is nothing more natural than the humans’ capacity to think and decide. It must be central in God’s design that we maintain our capacity to improve our fate and the world around us. To use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will. Now is a time when the human intellect has made it possible for parents to space the births of their children in such a way that each child would not be deprived of the love, attention and education that he deserves, when couples could relish the sacred gift of sex without affecting the spacing of children’s births. If we refuse to benefit from our own intellect, even when benefiting from it does not bring harm to our fellow men, we are wasting God’s precious gift. We are rendering useless an instrument that was meant to make things better for us and for our children.

Why deprive ourselves? Why suffer? Below is another excerpt from the Humanae Vitae. In the following paragraph, the justifications for allowing the use of natural family planning methods in lieu of artificial methods are presented.

Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.

When I was a child, I often wondered what would happen to our souls if one day someone makes charity impossible. Priests never grew tired of telling us to commit acts of charity because such acts please God. So I thought, what if there comes a time when the world runs out of beggars to give alms to? What if the world runs out of sick people to cure? What if the world runs out of weak people to help? Would God be far less happy now that His beloved children are no longer committing acts of charity? Certainly not. Because He does not ask us to commit acts of charity just for the sake of pleasing Him. We are asked to commit such acts because he wants us to make our fellow men happy. He wants us to save our fellow men from suffering.

We Catholics believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save mankind. But if there is no need to save mankind, would God the Father want to send His Son to suffer on earth? Would he want to let his Son suffer for the sake of suffering alone? I don’t think so. When men choose to suffer to save mankind, to make life far less painful to the ones they love or to make sure that no one else suffers after them, they are committing acts of holiness. But if they choose to suffer even when there is no one to benefit from their suffering, they are committing acts of foolishness. They are wasting their time. Time that could have been better spent helping their fellow men.

Christ carried the cross because He didn’t want us to suffer. Because He wanted us to be happy. And if the chance to experience happiness is staring us in the face, and grabbing that chance would cause no harm to anyone, would He be happy to see us letting go of that chance? Would He be happy to know that we are depriving ourselves of happiness? If a man and his wife have the opportunity to offer each other happiness through sex, why stop them? Why deprive them of happiness? Why force them to abstain from sex? They need to give proof of a true and authentic love? If so, why must he proof come in the form of suffering? Is suffering a pre-requisite to happiness?

Which brings me back to a point I made earlier. If one day the world runs out of people who need charity, should we please God by forcing people to need charity? If the world runs out of beggars to give alms to, should we turn some of our fellow men into beggars so that there would be beggars we could give alms to? If the world runs out of sick people, should we make people sick so that there would be sick people to heal? Do we need to see people suffer before they could be recipients of our good deeds? Does a person have to become a beggar before we can give him a wonderful gift? Does a person have to be sick before we can show him how much we care for him? Does a person have to be lonely before he could deserve to feel our embrace? Do couples have to be sexually deprived first before they could attain happiness through sex?

We are God’s beautiful creations. We are more than just biological machines designed to reproduce and multiply. We are complex beings who deserve to be happy and are endowed with the intellectual power to create our own paths towards happiness. And when we utilize our intellect to search for happiness, we are only conforming to God’s design.

We are blessed with the capability to produce and nurture children. But our children are not born into this world just to serve as sources of our parental bliss. And neither are they golden eggs that we lay to please our creator. They are humans who deserve to be happy and be saved from sufferings. And when parents use their intelligence, as well as the technologies created through the efforts of the most intelligent men and women to ensure that their children would not be deprived of all the love, attention, education and happiness they deserve, they are only conforming to God’s complex but brilliant design.