“Received Opinion” Strikes Again
Pope Benedict frustrates yet again with his recent comments in Africa sustaining the Church’s ban of all forms of contraception, in this particular case the use of condoms in the fight against AIDs. I can’t help but wonder why Thomist scholars don’t take apart the “received opinion” of the Church’s use of natural law to condemn contraception. Probably don’t want to lose their jobs or are tired of beating a dead horse. It appears to me to be an utter and complete misreading.
I’ve found only one article, from 1965, which contains a common sense statement of the application of natural law to contraception.
Contraception and the Logical Structure of the Thomist Natural Law Theory
Richard H. Beis
Ethics, Vol. 75, No. 4. (Jul., 1965), pp. 277-284.
Here’s the full article. And here are some excerpts:
Consequently, no consideration relevant to the realization of human nature, for example, the world population problem, financial inability to support more children, psychological and physical health of the marriage partners, etc., is extrinsic to the determination of the moral goodness or evil of contraception in terms of Thomist natural law. On the contrary, such considerations are necessarily included in that determination. …
…
It is, therefore, evident from what has been said that the same reasons used to justify rhythm-medical, eugenic, economic, and social (to quote the Pope!) may also justify contraception. For, since we are concerned here with the moral structure of human sexuality-and not simply its biological structure-in the case of contraception, as in the case of rhythm, such natural reasons may lead one to the conclusion that his nature under these conditions can only achieve greater realization through the practice of contraception whereas to pursue the opposite course of action would be to frustrate such realization.
…
We have seen, then, that the claimed demonstration of the intrinsic evil of contraception in terms of Thomist natural law is, in fact, no demonstration at all. For no convincing argumentation, either of an analytical or of an empirical sort, has been offered in terms of the logical requirements of that theory. Second, we have seen that the very argument used to show the “intrinsic evil” of contraception, presumably in terms of Thomist natural laws, that is, the argument from the intrinsic finality of the act, in fact, introduces a logical inconsistency into Thomist natural law. For by such argumentation a kind of Kantian, deontological absolute is inconsistently introduced into Thomist teleology. Finally, we saw that in terms of the logical requirements of Thomist natural law itself the practice of contraception, as the practice of rhythm, may even be demanded. Perhaps these conclusions, while new, will not seem too surprising if we will but recall that for St. Thomas Aquinas, as opposed to Immanuel Kant, morality is made for man-not man for morality.
Tags: natural law
