Section — Clark, New Questions, Old Answers
Final Synthesis
The fundamental questions to ask in the analysis of NFP are: what is the motivation for avoiding conceiving more children? – what is the motivation for this particular conjugal act? The preceptive data that has been presented thus far in searching out how to answer these questions correctly can be summarized by the following axiomatic principles.
First, the debt is to be paid according to the reasonability of the request according to circumstance in proportion to insistence upon it (in keeping with the normal human dynamic of communication about debts in general), regardless of any intention for procreation, lack of intention for procreation, or intention against procreation on the part of either spouse. No pre-arranged agreement of periodic continence short of mutually consensual vows of temporary or permanent continence would suffice to excuse one from this obligation, according to the general moral conditions regarding vows. In other words, if the spouse does not want to practice NFP, he or she does not have to and has a claim over his or her spouse according to the structure of the legal debt of conjugal goods.
Second, apart from the intention to conceive, the debt may only be requested for the sake of the easing of concupiscence not otherwise reasonably alleviated due to the risk of unchastity or gnawing distraction from rational goods, in proportion to the strength and urgency of that need vis-à-vis the strength of one’s intention not to pursue procreation (“not intending” or “intending not to”), any danger or inconvenience which is intrinsic (i.e. health) or extrinsic (i.e. social or economic difficulties) to conception which may occur in proportion with conception’s real likelihood (of an individual child, of twins, etc.), and the likelihood of such danger or inconvenience really obtaining. All this is to say that one may use marriage only to calm one’s desires as long as it is sufficiently honest, generous, and prudent to do so.148 Social or affective goods may be willed beyond the relief of concupiscence but do not suffice of themselves to excuse the act. 148 This author rejects the hypothesis that health alone would excuse the use of marriage. While concupiscence might not be relieved in another reasonable way, it is not plausible that health could not be pursued in some other way. This seems to render it sufficiently secondary or extrinsic so as not to be an excusing good, unlike the relief of concupiscence, the justice of the payment of the debt, or the primary end of the act used, namely, procreation.
Third, intentionally delaying the relaxation of concupiscence to the infertile periods is acceptable in proportion to the need for such relief, whether that need and its delay until infertility is actual (“one-off”) or habitual, and in proportion to the legitimacy of avoiding pregnancy. In other words, one may use NFP and anticipate sexual acts over some amount of time so long as it is really foreseen to be necessary for one’s need to relieve concupiscence.
Fourth, the legitimacy of avoiding pregnancy is measurable in accord with the spiritual goods which replace children (i.e. continence used to free one for prayer or the apostolate), and to the extent that one’s socioeconomic status or fundamental way of life is seriously threatened by conception strictly speaking. Just as one is bound to give alms in general, here and there (as opposed to being obliged to give in a specific case, which would then constitute an obligation of material assistance from justice rather than from charity), so too one is bound to have children generally within a marriage, “here and there.”149 Intentionally avoiding this in the long-term requires a proportionate justification, just as the long-term refusal to give alms requires a proportionate justification, and the longer the intention endures, and the stronger the intention is, the more serious the justification must be.150 149 McHugh and Callan recommend having at least four children as a general rule. See #2622 – in this section they share their summary of Pius XII’s teaching on NFP and also discuss the debate on the positive duty to have children. 150 To the untrained moralist, the continued use of the word “proportion” might give the impression that the position being presented is “proportionalist,” that is, somehow connected to the moral philosophy which is called “proportionalism.” This is not correct. For a brief explanation and condemnation of proportionalism, see Pope St. John Paull II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), §75, §79, etc.
The simple summary of these four points could be expressed in the following way. “Give your spouse his or her due, be realistic about your own sexual needs independent of trying to conceive, only plan to use infertile periods for acts if really necessary, and try to have children unless it will clearly be harmful.”
It is not reasonable to say that a person would need to consider all of these thing individually and deliberately in each decision to make use of marriage, nor is it to be expected that one considers all these things perfectly well when they are averted to. Rather, one must simply form his or her conscience well, developing a taste for the true good according to the dictates of practical wisdom. This takes maturity of mind and virtue. In other words, one must “grow up and sincerely try to figure it out.”
Something must be said about if and when an unjustified decision to refrain from having children and continuing to use marriage in the context of periodic continence becomes grave sin. It is not a question which admits of a clear answer, as the foregoing analysis would be enough to imply. However, it is clear that the couple who is capable of having children and who has not given up their conjugal rights or their use for the sake of spiritual goods has a duty to procreate, as offspring is the primary good of marriage. Gaudium et Spes summarizes this principle in the following way: “Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love. Thus they will fulfil their task with human and Christian responsibility, and, with docile reverence toward God, will make decisions by common counsel and effort.”151 St. Thomas also speaks about the vice of “insensibility” (the immoderate aversion to pleasures of touch, including sexual pleasure,) as including a failure to fulfill one’s duty to procreate.152 In fact, given the inclination toward conjugal acts, we see that nature and the moral structure of the use of conjugal acts which has been explained in the preceding pages also generally inclines couples to intend to have children, or else be continually falling into venial sin. To be fully free to use conjugal acts indicates habitually having an intention towards procreation. 151 Gaudium et Spes, §50; later in the same paragraph, as quoted earlier, the text speaks of the “duty to procreate.” 152 ST II-II, q. 142, a. 1, resp.; ad. 2: “Whatever is contrary to the natural order is vicious. Now nature has introduced pleasure into the operations that are necessary for man’s life. Wherefore the natural order requires that man should make use of these pleasures, in so far as they are necessary for man’s well-being, as regards the preservation either of the individual or of the species. Accordingly, if anyone were to reject pleasure to the extent of omitting things that are necessary for nature’s preservation, he would sin, as acting counter to the order of nature. And this pertains to the vice of insensibility . . . Since man cannot use his reason without his sensitive powers. which need a bodily organ. as stated in I:84:7; I:84:8, man needs to sustain his body in order that he may use his reason. Now the body is sustained by means of operations that afford pleasure: wherefore the good of reason cannot be in a man if he abstain from all pleasures. Yet this need for using pleasures of the body will be greater or less, according as man needs more or less the powers of his body in accomplishing the act of reason. Wherefore it is commendable for those who undertake the duty of giving themselves to contemplation, and of imparting to others a spiritual good, by a kind of spiritual procreation, as it were, to abstain from many pleasures, but not for those who are in duty bound to bodily occupations and carnal procreation.”
Given all this, it is difficult to see how an objectively and clearly unjustified avoidance of having children, whether due to a lack of constraining conditions or there being no proportionately taxing pursuit of higher spiritual goods, and then having frequent and intentionally infertile recreational sexual activity for the duration of several years, perhaps three or four, can be without grave guilt.153 It is not that many venial sins accrue together to make one mortal sin, for this is impossible. Rather, it reveals and confirms that one is so without the kind of generosity proper to one’s state in life that one is spiteful of or at least ungrateful toward the One Who instituted that which is being abused – because by now, at this point, one could should know for sure that God wants one to set out to do this very important and serious thing which is being neglected, and instead one chooses to “fool around.” However, opinions on this may vary. Here we begin to see the blurrier lines of moral science. It becomes even less clear when we ask whether the same analysis holds true of prolonged ongoing continence in conditions which would not justify spacing births when continence is used not for spiritual goods but merely to avoid having children, or even because a couple is simply not interested in having children and also has little interest in conjugal acts. It seems that the less frequently conjugal acts are used in infertile times, especially illicitly (and most of all unnaturally), the more lenient the judgment on the amount of time until there is grave matter on account of a failure to attempt to produce children. Perhaps seven or eight years would suffice for grave matter for those practicing total continence for the sake of pursuing personal hobbies or to accrue wealth beyond what is necessary for their station in life.154 153 McHugh and Callan discuss several opinions on this topic in #2622. Of course, in line with the basic jurisprudence of the confessional, couples who have acted in such a way and are convicted in conscience that they have committed grave sin ought to manifest this in an appropriate way in their next confession, even if such sin has already been forgiven through sufficiently blameless ignorance in past sincere confessions. 154 Dr. Griese’s opinion is quite similar. See Rhythm in Marriage and Christian Morality, p. 54-56.