Let's consider a standard Catholic objection to "artificial" birth control:
During our second year at seminary, however, Kimberly discovered the lie that was at the root of our married life. In research for an ethics course, she found that, until 1930, Christian churches-without exception-condemned contraception in the strongest terms. The Protestant reformers, whom we revered, went so far as to call it "murder". Scott Hahn, "A Life in the Language of Love–Birth Control and Contraception".
That's a popular Catholic trope which gets cited time and again.
i) From the standpoint of Protestant epistemology, that's an illicit argument from authority. Traditional opposition to contraception doesn't make the tradition true. That's a circular appeal.
ii) Some denominations (e.g. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy) foster groupthink. You're supposed to believe whatever your religious superiors tell you. In that case, a consensus of opinion is just a synonym for groupthink.
There's an elementary distinction between, say, people who independently arrive at the same conclusion, and people who think alike because they relinquish their judgment to a second party. For instance, cults may have great internal unity, but that's groupthink; that's unity based on rubber-stamping whatever the cult leader says. And that's the nature of very authoritarian, topdown religious institutions.
iii) One of the virtues of Protestant theology is that we are free to revise traditional errors.
iv) Before the advent of modern science in reference to understanding the reproductive system, contraceptive technologies and pharmaceuticals, was there a meaningful distinction between contraception and abortion? Traditional opposition to contraception might well be justified at a time when "contraception" was really an attempt to induce abortion.
But it's anachronistic to apply that to the contemporary situation.The modern scientific ability to distinguish between conception, contraception, and abortion provides new information and creates new possibilities that did not exist before then. Absent relevant medical knowledge to distinguish between conception, contraception, and abortion, as well as lack of technology or pharmaceuticals which could be that discriminating, it made sense to support a blanket ban.
To take a comparison, if a farmer doesn't know how much pesticide will kill all the insects, he will play it safe by using more rather than less to buy himself a margin of error.
v) I'm simply responding to Catholic apologists on their own terms. There are people who think there's something impressive and disturbing about the fact that there's been a shift in Protestant theology regarding the permissibility of artificial contraception. I'm pointing out that the Catholic appeal to prior consensus ignores the basis of consensus. If the grounds for opposing something shift, then opposition may logically shift, inasmuch as the original basis for opposition is now defunct.
The mere fact that a belief is prevalent doesn't create any presumption that it's true. And even if it was justified at the time, that can be due to considerations which are now obsolete. If traditional opposition to contraception was based on the information and resources at the time, which has been rendered obsolete by subsequent developments, then the traditional position now operates on a faulty premise.
Couple of things here:
ReplyDelete1) The main reason why artificial contraception is mortally sinful is because it excludes the primary purpose of the martial relations, which is conceiving children (there are of course other purposes, such as growing in mutual love, but they are secondary). God might want to bring children, but man using artificial contraception says "no" to God. To say that primary reason why the Catholic Church always condemned contraception is because it was likened to abortion is misrepresentation of Catholic teaching on that matter.
2) The problem with Lambert conference and 180 degree shift of Protestantism on that matter has to do not so much with contraception itself, but with epistemology. If Protestantism was wrong for so long about this important issue and now it allegedly discovered truth, what other teachings are you wrong about now that will need "update" in the future? Theoretically anything can be changed after the guise of "revising traditional errors" (is that not what Matthew Vines, David Gushee and others like them claim?). And how do you know your change was from error to truth and not the other way around? Of course, without infallible Magisterium no one can say anything with certainy, every teaching is merely a private interpretation of this or that individual (even if he is right on a specific issue, it remains a private interpretation which has no more authority than other, erroneous private interpretations). This is why Scot McKnight was right when he admitted that there is no such thing as "Scripture alone" in Protestantism, there are always two sources of authority: Scripture and intepretation of it by individual believer or his Church/denomination. At the end of the day, Protestantism is epistemologically indefensible.
Arvinger
Delete"1) The main reason why artificial contraception is mortally sinful is because it excludes the primary purpose of the martial relations, which is conceiving children (there are of course other purposes, such as growing in mutual love, but they are secondary)."
Why should I accept your pronouncement that there's a primary purpose for marital relations, and that's it?
By your logic, couples should refrain from sex once the wife becomes pregnant. And postmenopausal women should refrain from sex.
"God might want to bring children, but man using artificial contraception says 'no' to God."
By that logic, natural family planning is mortally sinful inasmuch as it strikes to have sex without pregnancy rather than using sex in order to become pregnant.
"To say that primary reason why the Catholic Church always condemned contraception is because it was likened to abortion is misrepresentation of Catholic teaching on that matter."
That wasn't the argument.
"2) The problem with Lambert conference and 180 degree shift of Protestantism on that matter has to do not so much with contraception itself, but with epistemology. If Protestantism was wrong for so long about this important issue and now it allegedly discovered truth, what other teachings are you wrong about now that will need 'update' in the future?"
DeleteThe argument isn't that it was wrong at the time. To the contrary, if it previously impossible to distinguish between conception, contraception, and pregnancy, so that techniques or pharmaceuticals could not contract rather than abort, then the policy was right, given the state of medical science at the time.
"Theoretically anything can be changed after the guise of 'revising traditional errors' (is that not what Matthew Vines, David Gushee and others like them claim?)."
Scripture uniformly condemns homosexuality, and grounds that condemnation in God's design for human nature. By contrast, Scripture never condemned artificial contraception.
"And how do you know your change was from error to truth and not the other way around?"
For reasons I gave.
"Of course, without infallible Magisterium no one can say anything with certainy, every teaching is merely a private interpretation of this or that individual (even if he is right on a specific issue, it remains a private interpretation which has no more authority than other, erroneous private interpretations)."
i) In which case you can't say anything with certainty about the existence of an allegedly infallible Magisterium. In your merely private opinion, there's an infallible Magisterium.
ii) Interpretations needn't be authoritative to be true. The salient distinction is between true and false, not private and "authoritative".