Contraceptives and sin

I think I would agree that abstinence is better for Christians than contraception. But would you say it’s a mortal sin like RCC does that puts your soul in jeopardy? I wouldn’t. I can think of a million reasons to use artificial contraception. You get cancer and don’t want to get pregnant while you’re being blasted with chemo, or you have some sort of other illness that will lead to a very high risk pregnancy. You’ve tried your hardest with NFP and end up with 5 kids because your wife has a very irregular cycle and can’t afford having one more. You live in the middle of a war torn country where everyone is starving. In short, it’s more about the situation you’re in and the reason why you use it. So it’s not an evil sin if you’re using it for a legitimate reason.

 

One issue you have to remember with Rome is, they give themselves the ability to declare new sins (from something that wasn't a sin before); or to make things that used to be sins, not so any more.

That's a very different situation from us, where we don't arrogate to ourselves the ability to declare or undeclare what constitutes a sin. We're kind of stuck to what was and is forever sinful, based on things that can't really change from epoch to epoch.

So that's one of the reasons I'd agree with you that while contraception is highly discouraged, that's different from it being a sin, because we can't make contraception into a sin just to discourage people from doing it. Rome on the other hand thinks it can make something into a sin to discourage it; and the unmake it later once it's no longer needed. Since we can't do that, we're bound by eternal criteria and therefore contraception isn't a sin.

However not everything that isn't sin is permitted. For example going against natural law is not a sin, but is also not a good. Thus we can say that contraception isn't a good under normal conditions, because it goes against natural law (however it can be a good under extraordinary conditions, such as health etc).

As a default, it is to be avoided in the Christian community, but we can't make it into a sin simply because we don't believe the Church has the capacity to make and unmake what qualifies as a sin.

 

I agree it should be discouraged but not made into an evil sin, especially since scripture doesn’t directly touch on it. That was pretty much my question. Is it inherently a sin.
What you say about Rome is very true. It seems they don’t understand they can convince people of things without threatening them with mortal sin. Instead of discouraging contraception they make up a new mortal sin. Instead of just teaching the immaculate conception they force people to believe it under penalty of mortal sin (and all their other 200 dogmas). They see church attendance declining on sundays and make it a mortal sin to miss mass on sundays instead of encouraging attendance like normal people. It’s such an overbearing institution. And the worst part is a lot of times they have to do it because 90% of Catholics don’t really care and do whatever they want.
They also change things that they said are sin previously like you said. I think the worst one by far has to be hippy Francis and the death penalty. When Luther argued it was a sin to kill heretics (basically killing people for a religious thought crime) the RCC doubled down and said it was not a sin. Now since like 2015 they teach it’s inadmissible to even put terrorists on death row. Yet staunch RCs will swear up and down it’s not a change in doctrine! Or worse, it is a change in doctrine, and doctrines defined by an infallible institution can change! How is this church the largest branch of Christianity? Its beyond me

 

Their new stance on capital punishment is completely nonsensical.

 

I always thought the death penalty was a matter of personal conscience and very much a political opinion. It’s sad the current pope has let his own political leanings become doctrines to the RCs now.

 

They act like it’s something completely against God when in fact it’s sanctioned in both Testaments and the Church throughout history has supported the State’s right to use it.

 

Their excuse is “times change.” Apparently governments are put there by God (as scripture tells us) and given the sword of judgement (as scripture tells us) but they shouldn’t use their power, because the pope feels like it. They have departed from 2000 years of Christian tradition. It’s sad to see RCs scrambling to support the new RCC sanctioned heresy, when it’s contradictory to scripture, tradition, and frankly, common sense.

 

If you don't know, we should all be praying for you to receive the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The correct question would have been, "To whom?"

 

Rom 14:22 Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.
Rom 14:23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

 

Ah, arrogant Revivalist hubris at its finest. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that. If you talk to God, you’re religious; if God talks to you, you’re psychotic.

 

You never hear that quiet, gentle voice of the Greater One coming from inside of you, do you?

When the Apostles spoke in tongues, were they psychotic? When Jesus said (Matt. 10:19-20) that the Holy Spirit will give us things to say, was He encouraging us to engage in psychotic behavior? Why ever would people pray to God for direction in their lives, if there were no real hope of hearing from Him?

John 9:41

 

I agree but you linked ensoulment to the start of the heart beat. If we link ensoulment to when X happens in development it becomes a moveable feast. We do not know all there is to know about the development of the embryo/foetus. New knowledge is regulalry published in the literature. Consquently, if we link ensoulment to when a developmental stage is reached when that happens may change when we learn more about foetal development.

Even if we say ensoulment happens when the foetus is, say, 10.5 weeks old, how do we know when it happens? What is our source for saying this is when God gives us a soul.

 

We need to have a verifiable method. In traditional Christendom, that method was the movement of the fetus, which indicated that it now could move, and had more than just vegetative state. Ie. was alive in the fullest form, rather than being potentially alive.

I’m not arguing for or against that, merely saying that this was their heuristic method. We can adopt that or update with a better method.

This is a complicated question so I’m not saying that amateurs like us can settle it; but I do think this is where the solution has to reside. The question of the soul is not optional in these discussions, despite being omitted in 99% of modern conversations on the topic.

 

I agree wholeheartedly the soul is important. It's that we have to save! The point I'm trying to make is (1) when does ensoulment occur and (2) how do we know? It varies when the foetus starts to move and when the mother notices. Either we have to say we do not know when ensoulment occurs or we do. If the latter, when and by what reasoning do we come to that conclusion? It may even be that Anglicanism has never had an opinion on when ensoulment occurs and that is why, thus far, no one has clearly stated the classical Anglican position on this.

 

I would suspect, given that even The Offences Against the Person act of 1828 isn’t widely cited, that our true classical positions on this are simply not known. The huge shadow of 1.2bil Roman Catholicism overshadows everything.

I’d bet you that we have centuries of jurists and theologians making rulings and decisions for hundreds of years on this, but they’re hidden and obscured by the modernism wars which eclipsed all else from our attention.

We have Blackstone, Coke, the greatest jurists in the history of Christianity. But yeah let’s listen to what Pope Francis has to say yet again, because he has a bigger megaphone.

 

The only noise I ever hear coming from inside me is my stomach when it's time to eat.

I don't believe in "speaking in tongues", not in the sense that phrase gets used today in charismatic circles, anyway. The account in Acts is clear that the "ability to speak in other languages" meant that "we hear, each of us, in our own native language...in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power" (Acts 2:4-11 NRSV). The miracle was in the minds of the hearers, not the uttered words of the speakers (which seems awfully consistent with Revivalism's 'inward vs. outward' contrast, doesn't it?). It wasn't a bunch of people in a megachurch speaking gibberish. It was Galileans speaking Aramaic but with their words being heard in Greek by those who speak Greek, the Arab speakers being heard in Farsi by Farsi speakers, etc. I've never understood why "speaking in tongues", as charismatics understand it, is even a thing. It's got nothing to do with what Acts was talking about.

 

You want a verifiable method? How about a positive result on a pregnancy test?

 

I think many Roman Catholics only like or admire Francis simply because he's the pope. It won't be due to the fact they understand their own faith. Roman Catholicism does not teach the pope can do anything. It's only Francis, his groupies and Catholics ignorant of their own faith who blindly follow him that think the pope can do anything. Mind you to be fair I think on this particular issue he has only followed his predecessors. I don't think he's made any weird pronouncements on abortion. He's still got time though.