In the church today there is a fragmentation and polarization of ethics which has taken place in the wake of the 1968 publication of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. There are many different opinions about the biological, sociological, and philosophical facts surrounding human sexuality. There is also a variety of approaches to sexual ethics in general. These influences combine to make it impossible to construct concrete moral statements with intellectual honesty. In a world hungry for answers, I feel almost paralyzed in my ability to help guide people to a fuller living out of the truth in this area. Without any clear signposts it is difficult to know which road to go down.
André Guindon is correct in his assessment that the real solution to the complexity of sexual ethics lays in a radically new approach to sexual ethics in general - of taking the personalist perspective seriously and dealing with sexual ethics on that basis rather than on an act-centered basis. Yet I struggle to propose this approach wholeheartedly in ministry because it seems to go against official magisterial teachings, positions I am supposed to represent by my position within the Catholic church, but positions which seem at best quirky and at worst morally reprehensible.
This paper attempts to provide a deeper understanding of magisterial teachings on sexual ethics on their own terms in order to find a way out of this intellectual fog. To achieve this, it returns to the source of the controversy, Humanae Vitae, and attempts to understand the rational mind set of its author(s). Most of the current literature supportive of Humanae Vitae simply rehashes its arguments with some small elaborations. Most of the current literature critical of Humanae Vitae seems to dismiss it as hopelessly naive or wildly off base, leveling critiques that are so obvious that it is hard to believe that Paul VI did not already take them into account when he wrote the document. My belief is that there is a basic philosophical reason for Humanae Vitae's approach to sexual ethics which is unstated in the document, under-appreciated in the ensuing debates, yet critically determinative nonetheless.
Humanae Vitae supports its absolute moral ban of contraception with many different arguments. There are arguments from scripture, from tradition, from a theology of marriage, and from an understanding of sexual intercourse as a physical language as well as hints of a basic philosophical and theological analysis of the "marital act." Many of these individual arguments have been taken up by later authors. Much ink has been spilled and the arguments have been refuted, refined, reworked and ultimately have settled on two sides of a distinct line; those who believe the conclusions of Humanae Vitae and those who do not. These two camps seem to have polarized to such an extent that no further discussion is possible: there are simply parallel monologues.
Amidst the debates over this teaching, one thing is clear and agreed to by all sides: Humanae Vitae treats human sexual ethics differently than moral ethics in any other area. For instance, it is common in Catholic moral theology to allow changing natural processes in order to serve a greater good. For instance, a redwood tree has its own reason for being, yet it can be morally acceptable to subvert that, cut the tree down and use it to make a deck for one's house. Humanae Vitae, though, holds that "each and every conjugal act remain ordered in itself to the procreation of human life" (par. 11). There is not the same leeway here to use conjugal acts in the service of human good in general as there is for other natural processes. Even the taking of a human life has more moral leeway than using contraception. Critics contend that this distinction is at the heart of the error in this teaching. In their view sexual ethics should be dealt with in the same manner as any other ethics. Supporters hold to this distinction using characteristic phrases but without explanation. This paper does not seek to provide a comprehensive analysis of Humanae Vitae nor even to explore its natural law approach. The purpose of this paper is to detail a philosophical/theological understanding of how acts involving human genital organs are fundamentally different than any other physical acts and to see the ramifications of this in moral analysis. The analysis will be based on that of Thomas Aquinas, since this is almost universally acknowledged as the approach favored in this document. I believe that this is a central component of the debate over Humanae Vitae and thus needs to be made explicit.
A key to understanding the nature of human sexual acts is that they are linked to procreation, the coming to be of another human person. In Catholic thought, procreation is crucially different than animal reproduction. From the first line of Humanae Vitae:
The most serious duty of transmitting human life, for which married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, has always been a source of great joys to them, even if sometimes accompanied by not a few difficulties and by distress. (par. 1)
What is implied here in the use of the term "collaborate?" Human beings collaborate with God in the transmitting of human life in a much more immediate sense than do animals in reproduction. In reproduction, everything that goes into a new life comes immediately from the parents. In procreation, the parents supply the material ingredients, but God directly supplies an immaterial ingredient also. Thus God is directly involved in the creation of every new human life in a way that God is not in the creation of new animal life.
A rock, lying on the ground, is only a physical reality. There is nothing "behind it," no other hidden reality or dimension linked to its existence (cf. ST I, 84, 1). The same is true for a plant. It has a soul, an animating and unifying principle, but there are no indications that this principle goes beyond the physical existence of the plant. When one physically experiences the plant, one experiences all there is of the plant (cf. ST I, 75, 3). If one were to physically destroy it, there would be nothing left. Human beings, however, have a more complex reality. Not only do we have a soul, an animating and unifying principle, we have the ability to know. This power of understanding seems to go beyond physical limitations (ST I, 75, 2 and ST I, 84, 2). If knowledge were only physical, it would be limited by physical constraints. This does not appear to be true. Thinking appears to be limited by physical constraints, but knowing does not (ST I, 84, 7). All abilities of a living being are grounded in the soul. Human souls, being intellectual, must therefore be immaterial.
This belief in the immateriality of the human soul affects our understanding of how a new human life can come into being. When we see a plant or an (non-sentient) animal reproduce, we see that each parent has contributed something physical to the offspring. Since the new life has a merely material existence, we find no reason to doubt that this physical begetting tells the whole story. One physical thing has transformed into another physical thing, sperm and egg have united into embryo which grows into a new autonomous life. We see transformations of physical things all the time.
The human soul is immaterial. Any actually existing immaterial reality cannot cease to exist, since there is nothing that can cause it to corrupt (ST I, 75, 2 & 6). For the same reason an immaterial soul cannot be divided into multiple souls. A new physical human body comes from an egg and a sperm, a part of each parent. A new human soul in its immateriality cannot come from parts of the parents' souls; they are not the kind of things that can be divided. For the same reason a new human soul cannot come from the transmutation of another immaterial soul. A new human soul must therefore be uniquely created out of nothing, for we have run out of other possibilities (ST I, 90, 2). Only God can create something from nothing (ST I, 45 5). Every other thing creates by transforming what already exists into something else (ST I, 90, 3). In this way God must be directly involved in the creation of each new human person, as directly involved as the mother and father. This is why human beings are said to "collaborate" with God in the creation of new human life.
When human beings collaborate with God, philosophy has clearly moved into the realm of theology since it involves the work of God and the relationship between God and humanity. The important argument here is that God directly creates each human soul. We come to this understanding from recognition that human souls, being immaterial, require divine intervention in their creation. This conclusion could perhaps also be supported through a study of revelation but this would be outside the scope of this paper. It would be an interesting exercise for the future and would perhaps be much more useful for contemporary Christians.
In Casti Connubii, Pius XI spoke of human beings "cooperating" with God in procreation. "How great a gift of divine goodness and how remarkable a fruit of marriage are children born by the omnipotent power of God through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock" (3). It is by God's power that children are born, not by some innate power in human parents themselves. The human parents merely cooperate in the creation of their child. Later he said, "Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God" (4). This seems to be a complete embracing of this philosophical approach and a paradigmatic image of its ramifications. God in heaven creates children and hands them to parents who, if they disturb this process at all, are directly refusing a gift of God and frustrating and insulting the Creator. Since God is the active party in this picture, any human action can only be interpreted as being for or against God, not as neutral.
This understanding of God's role in procreation is followed early on by John Paul II. In 1960, before the publication of Humanae Vitae and before he was pope he wrote:
A man and a woman by means of procreation, by taking part in bringing a new human being into the world, at the same time participate in their own fashion in the work of creation. They can therefore look upon themselves as the rational co-creators of a new human being. ...The essence of the human person is therefore - in the Church's teaching - the work of God himself. (qtd. in Smith 239)
Clearly, God is the primary creator of "a new human being" and we are co-creators with God. This is more than saying that God is the primary creator of humanity in the abstract. It implies that God is the direct creator of each and every new human being as outlined in the preceding philosophical analysis.
Janet Smith notes that as pope, John Paul II never explicitly denied this opinion (242) although his support of Humanae Vitae flows rather from the intrinsic connection between the unitive and procreative aspects of conjugal love and the personalist approach this engenders. John Paul II has, in fact, made support of Humanae Vitae on these terms a pillar of his papacy (McClory 152). In her analysis, Smith uses all of John Paul's writings equally, with no distinction of time (HV 8, footnote 21) and thus does not leave room to note the development in John Paul's thought. In reality, John Paul's shift of emphasis seems to be so complete that as pope he never speaks about human parents being co-creators with God with the same force. The only reference given by Smith supporting this approach during John Paul's tenure as pope is the following: "Procreation is rooted in creation, and every time, in a sense, reproduces its mystery" (255). The addition of the phrase "in a sense" certainly changes the implied level of God's creative presence in procreation. In the understanding of the quote from 1960, following the previous philosophical analysis, God acts directly in procreation, not "in a sense." This indicates a development in John Paul's thought despite what Smith believes.
The position of the conciliar document Gaudium et Spes is also more ambiguous, perhaps pointedly so (McClory 130), but could be construed as agreeing with this understanding. It reminds parents that their proper role is to "transmit human life" (par. 50) to their offspring, although it is unclear as to whether they transmit it from themselves or directly from God. Later it notes that the human "faculty of reproduction wondrously surpass[es] the endowments of lower forms of life" (par. 51). The way in which it surpasses it, is not specified. It could be through the more direct action of God or simply because human procreation is united to love.
Pope John XXIII set up the Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births to study the issue of regulating the number of births and to determine if a change in Catholic understanding was called for. He died before it convened, but the commission was reconvened by his successor, Paul VI. After three years of work, the commission gave its recommendation to the pope through a short report entitled "Responsible Parenthood," accompanied by volumes of information containing explanations, meeting notes, and summaries. Four of the members of the committee dissented and rewrote a working document of the commission, entitled "State of the Question: The Doctrine of the Church and its Authority" and gave it to Paul VI separately. These reports were supposed to remain secret, but instead were published in the National Catholic Reporter on April 19, 1967. They became known as the Majority Report and the Minority Report. Together, they give a good insight into the state of the question as Paul VI had it. It is important to note that Humanae Vitae follows the conservative Minority Report against the Majority Report. In fact, the Majority Report was dismissed out of hand without rebuttal of its argumentation (Hoyt 23).
The Minority Report notes that the church's ban on contraception could not have been based on any scholastic philosophical position since it was first put forth several hundred years before scholastic theology was worked out. It goes on to say that:
[The teachings of the church] attribute a special inviolability to this act and to the generative process precisely because they are generative of new human life, and life is not under man's dominion. It is not because of some philosophy which would make the physical order of nature as such the criterion of the morality of human acts. (Hoyt 34)
The unique character of conjugal acts has something to do with the fact that they deal directly with specifically human life. Yet there must be more. Even the taking of a human life is not treated so absolutely by Catholic ethics (for instance, in the cases of war and capital punishment). Admitting that the argumentation supporting the ban cannot be "clear and cogent based on reason alone" (34) the document still indicates a solution:
The substratum of this teaching would seem to presuppose various Christian conceptions concerning the nature of God and of man, the union of the soul and the body which creates one human person, God as the Supreme Lord of human life, the special creation of each individual human soul. (35)
The fact that God creates each individual soul in the divine image makes each human life in some sense inviolable. Thus the issue of contraception is "analogous to the inviolability of human life itself" (34). The fact that God acts directly in the creation of each individual human soul must be what causes the further injunction that makes contraception absolutely wrong.
The Majority Report of the commission makes very little reference to this area. When it does, it refutes this understanding. It forwards its arguments about the necessity of change in our understanding of contraception through other reasoning. Yet it is not ignorant of this line of reasoning. In taking up the arguments from natural law it responds: "The sources of life, just as existent life itself, are not more of God than is the totality of created nature, of which he is the Creator" (68-9). Also, "The sources of life are persons in and through their voluntary and responsible conjugal acts" (70). Clearly, this goes against our analysis where God is seen as a direct source of each human soul, in this at least on par with the biological parents as a source of life. It is directly refuted that God is acting in procreation in a way that is qualitatively or quantitatively different than the way God acts in the world in general. Remember, however, that this report was largely ignored by Paul VI in his final version of Humanae Vitae.
John Noonan was an advisor to the commission on the history of the doctrines concerning contraception. His 1965, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists was influential in the commission's deliberations. In the last chapter of the 1986 version, he summarizes the opinions that were in circulation during the formulation of Humanae Vitae. Here he notes a typical Thomistic rebuttal of a call to change the doctrine: "The act of coitus is sacred, is invested with a nonhuman immunity. It is sacramental for Christians and non-Christians alike. Why is it thus? Because by means of it God permits two human beings to join in the creative task of producing human life" (530). This is an almost exact repetition of the Thomistic arguments listed above. He goes on to say that this understanding could be supported by Christian tradition only if one isolated the teaching from its reasons and contexts (531). The specifics of the arguments had changed so drastically over the centuries that this understanding was certainly inadequate, yet in fact Paul VI chose to follow exactly this reasoning.
Humanae Vitae itself has several additional references which support the Thomistic interpretation. In par. 8 the document repeats that we "collaborate with God in the generation and education of new lives." More explicitly, par. 13 indicates this understanding when it quotes John XXIII, "Human life is sacred, ...from its inception it reveals the creating hand of God." Inception of human life does not "speak of" God's creative power, it "reveals" it. This strong statement can only be understood with a philosophical underpinning similar to the one developed above.
Humanae Vitae links this direct involvement by God in procreation to moral imperatives in this statement:
To use this divine gift [of conjugal love] destroying, even if only partially, its meaning and its purpose is to contradict also the plan of God and His will. On the other hand, to make use of the gift of conjugal love while respecting the laws of the generative process means to acknowledge oneself not to be the arbiter of the sources of human life, but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. In fact, just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, with particular reason, he has no such dominion over his generative faculties as such, because of their intrinsic ordination towards raising up life, of which God is the principle. (par. 13)
In the opinion of Humanae Vitae, acts involving human genital organs are objectively different from any other physical acts in that they are by nature linked to the direct creative action of God in the world. This is "the mysterious tangential point between the created universe of being and God's creative love" (Carlo Caffara qtd. in Smith 104). This point of connection is unique. Any direct attempt to limit this connection would be against nature and contrary to God's will.
Through creation ex nihilo of the human soul, God is the immediate source of each human life. Biological parents participate with God in bringing about new human life. Any sexual use of our genital organs is objectively participating in this process, whether or not one acknowledges this or is even aware of it (Carlo Caffara qtd. in Smith 104). As Gaudium et Spes puts this:
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with responsible transmission of life, it is not enough to take only the good intention and the evaluation of motives into account; the objective criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human action, criteria which respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. (par. 51)
As noted above, the paradigmatic image for God's operating in this way is that of human parents receiving children from the hand of God. With this understanding, how could we morally do anything but accept? Framing the question this way leads almost directly to the answer. As Janet Smith says, "Any argument based on this understanding of human life would object to contraception as an act that serves to shut God out of an arena designated by Him as the special locus for His creative action" (103).
This quote from Smith wonderfully sums up this approach taken up in Humanae Vitae and later by countless other supporters. It seems obvious after one understands God's unique creative gesture in procreation. If one, however, denies the uniqueness of God's action in procreation the issue changes dramatically. An example of this would be the majority of the members of the Pontifical Birth Control Commission. In direct opposition to this understanding, the Majority Report states:
The sources of life, just as existent life itself, are not more of God than is the totality of created nature, of which he is the Creator. The very dignity of man created to the image of God consists in this: that God wished man to share in his dominion. God has left man in the hands of his own counsel. To take his own or another's life is a sin not because life is under the exclusive dominion of God but because it is contrary to right reason unless there is a question of a good of a higher order. ...In the matter at hand, then, there is a certain change in the mind of contemporary man. He feels that he is more conformed to his rational nature, created by God with liberty and responsibility, when he uses his skill to intervene in the biological processes of nature so that he can achieve the ends of the institution of matrimony in the conditions of actual life, than if he would abandon himself to chance. (68-9).
In this understanding, the working of God in the creation of a new human life is not seen over and against the working of God in the rest of the created universe, it is identified with it. Thus it follows that we should deal ethically with areas concerning human sexuality the same way as we deal with other areas, holding forth that we were created in the image and likeness of God and therefore given the great burden of responsibility to use our full faculties in taking care of and perfecting nature.
In both Humanae Vitae and the Minority Report, we can see the direct linkage between one's views about the uniqueness of procreation and the ethics of contraception. In point of fact, this standpoint by itself seems determinative. Philosophically, though, it seems tenuous to use the level of God's operation in the world to indicate the surety of God's will. Even granted that procreation is the sole tangential point between God's direct creative presence and the world, it is a leap of logic to make the further claim that therefore God's will is more fixed in this area. Human will is not determined in this way, and there are no other indications that God's will operates in this fashion. In any case, God's action in procreation seems to follow upon human action and human biological activity (which itself follows upon a recognition of goodness placed in the world by God) and it is unclear what God's will would be in response to an non-fecund human action. This tight linking between conjugal relations and God's will seems to be more the result of our paradigmatic image of children coming from the hand of God than from any independent theological reasoning.
In the end, I think the determinative theological question in Humanae Vitae was not the nature of human sexuality. It was about whether or not the pope was willing or able to change this long-standing teaching. As Robert Hoyt noted shortly after the document's release: "In the wake of the encyclical, then, the central argument is no longer about birth control or sex or 'nature,' but over the authority of the church and its role in instructing men's consciences" (13). The Minority Report of the commission agrees with this framing of the issue. When the report asks the crucial question as to why the church cannot change this teaching it replies, "because the Catholic church, instituted by Christ to show men a secure way to eternal life, could not have so wrongly erred during all those centuries of history" (Hoyt 37). I find this statement and its mind set absurd. It was directly refuted in the Majority Report (67). Should we have used the same reasoning to keep our teaching about slavery from changing? Certainly that issue caused more suffering in the world than contraception ever did. We may be THE CHURCH INSTITUTED BY GOD FOR ALL TIMES FOR THE SALVATION OF THE WORLD, but I think as an institution we still take ourselves too seriously. This is epitomized for me by a small exchange from the last session of the Birth Control Commission conveyed by McClory on page one. Marcelino Zalba S.J. asked, "What then with the millions we have sent to hell, if these norms were not valid?" Patty Crowley replied, "Father Zalba, do you really believe that God has carried out all your orders?"
In all of the debates which have followed the publication of Humanae Vitae, each party seems to have approached its analysis with a preset opinion, interpreting the data to fit a conclusion already decided. This is apologetics at its worst. An honest, open discussion of God's role in procreation has the real possibility of opening up the mystery of God's intimate creative presence in all of creation. It could reveal much not only about sexual ethics but about sacramental theology as well. But I am not convinced that anyone is really interested in the discussion. All sides are stuck in cacophonous monologues. To be in discussion, one has to be willing to change one's mind. In this debate this was well stated by one person involved: "The debates convinced me more of the intrinsic danger in irreformable statements than of the intrinsic evil in contraception" (Hoyt 19).
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Online: http://www.knight.org/advent/summa/ 1995.
Vatican Council II. "Gaudium et Spes." Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents. Ed. Austin Flannery. New York: Costello, 1981. 903-1001. Online: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v4.html
Guindon, André. "Sexual Acts or Sexual Lifestyles? A Methodological Problem in Sexual Ethics." Eglise et Théologie 18 (1987): 315-340.
Hoyt, Robert. The Birth Control Debate. Kansas City, MO: National Catholic Reporter, 1968.
McClory, Robert. Turning Point. New York: Crossroads, 1995.
Noonan, John. Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986.
Paul VI. Humanae Vitae. Online: http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/papal/paul.vi/humanae-vitae.html
Pius XI. Casti Connubii. Online: http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/papal/pius.xi/casti.connubii
Smith, Janet E. Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later. Washington: Catholic UP, 1991.
Scott Steinkerchner, O.P. is a member of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) completing his theological studies at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis, Missouri. Responses to the article are welcome! email: scott@mac.domcentral.org.
Submitted 11/28/96, approximately 8 pages.