Transcript

Praised be Jesus Christ.

Welcome to our introductory lecture on Catholic moral theology.

We were talking the last time about where Catholic morality finds itself situated among the various moral methodologies that are used out there, and we were saying that it does not fall under the category of a subjectivist or relativist approach to moral theory, because we believe that some actions simply are intrinsically, that is in and of themselves, wrong and therefore we may never do them regardless of the circumstances.

Whereas the subjectivists were saying that, uh, there were no acts wrong in and of themselves, but they were, uh, they became good or bad according to the consequences or according to some other norm against which they were judged.

And we were saying that another approach is out of legalism, in which, uh, an individual does a moral act because of the weight of the law, because the law has been imposed upon him and one feels that constrained to act in accord with the law.

But we were saying the Catholic moral approach generally, uh, is expressive of that tradition, uh, within our past that is associated with names like Aristotle and Socrates and Plato and Seneca.

Uh, that what we call the natural law approach.

Before I was talking about the ethic of the good.

The reason I was talking about the ethic of the good, that is our moral life is driven by a love for the good and the pursuit of it and the happiness that accompanies it.

The reason I tend to refer to our moral tradition as the ethic of the good is because there is such misunderstanding about the terminology of natural law.

The natural law tradition is very deeply embedded within Catholic moral thought.

One of the great difficulties we face today is that there is a terrible misunderstanding as to what the natural law is.

And so we're going to consider the natural law, the natural moral law, uh, this hour, and try to distinguish it from the laws of nature that some people get, uh, confused about.

There, there are critics of Catholicism who suggest that we can't do morality in accord with the natural law for two reasons.

There, there are those who think we are so depraved because of our sinfulness, like the classical Protestants, who are so depraved because of our sinfulness, that our intellect can't give us any guidance, nor can our nature, our dispositions, provide us with any help in coming to know about the way in which we ought to act.

We have to rely entirely upon God's Word simply to tell us, because we can't trust, uh, our own nature anymore.

Th- that's, that's one criticism that we receive.

But there's another criticism that accuses us Catholics of, how should I put it, almost worshiping nature and of, uh, thinking that we have to surrender ourselves to the laws of biology.

And there are those who accuse us of opposing contraception, for example, uh, because contraception goes against just the natural flow of things, the natural order of things.

And so they say Catholics are, this is what these dissidents, uh, or dissenters call traditional Catholic moral theology, that it is biologist, or it is physicalist.

These are terms that these authors have coined, uh, to level their accusations against traditional Catholic moral theology, but it results from a misunderstanding of the natural law.

They think the traditional Catholic teaching on the natural law means that we must surrender ourselves to these biological urges and processes and impulses.

But we're going to see that that's not what the natural law actually means.

We were saying that we're able to look at the human person himself to gain some understanding of what will lead to his fulfillment.

The pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world from the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, says that married couples, any married couple, should be able to base certain moral judgments on their own understanding of the human person, and the conciliar document reads, Objective criteria must be used by married couples in directing their acts for the transmission of life.

Objective criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human action.

Well, what is the nature of the human person?

We were saying before that it is the nature of the human person to act reasonably.

This is what separates us from the rest of God's creation, that sets us apart of his physicary- physical creation.

The angels also have, have intellect, but in terms of the world around us, we are set apart, uh, completely by our, our intellect, by our reason.

Now, if we're going to talk about the natural law, we have to define our terms, and let's look first to the notion of law.

What is a law?

Wh- A- Again, the initial reaction to this is that it is a rule that is imposed upon us.

It is something who, which is placed upon us and restricts us and constrains us, uh, and that it reflects the will of the lawgiver or the person who is imposing it upon us.However, St. Thomas Aquinas, that great theologian of the Middle Ages, the Dominican theologian priest, tells us that law is principally something pertaining to reason.

Now, it's understood most adequately if we see it related not to the will, but rather to the intellect.

Law is a creation of the intellect, something produced, St. Thomas tells us.

It's something produced by reason directing actions.

And then he goes on and gives us a classical definition of the law.

It is found in the Summa Theologica, the Prima Secundae, the first part of the second part, 94.

St. Thomas writes, Law is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good made by him who has care of the community and promulgate it.

In other words, we have an individual who is responsible for the good of the community.

He sees what's necessary for the community to achieve flourishing, and so he formulates precepts or directives to enable people to live together in harmony so that they all might flourish and that individually, they might attain their respective happiness.

Now, here we see that the law is a produc- a product of the intellect, okay, which is going to direct behavior so that we know how we might, uh, most ably achieve our own end and our own happiness.

Now, Thomas writes that it is due to the fact that one wills the end that the reason issues its commands as regards things ordained to the end.

Now, we know that we live in an order which has been created by God.

We know that our ultimate end is God Himself.

Our intellects can come to this insight.

And we know that God has created things with a purpose, that His mind directs all things according to their created ends.

And this act of God ordering all things in the cosmos to their created end is what we refer to as the eternal law.

The eternal law is the mind of God ordering all things to their created ends, and all of creation shows forth the glory of God as they reflect His mind and His purpose.

So St. Thomas starts with an understanding of the law found within human communities, uh, with which everyone is familiar.

He first comes to a sound understanding of what law is as an ordinance of the reason, uh, directing the actions of the community, and then he applies this to God, the Creator, ordering the whole cosmos toward their specific ends for which He has created them, because, Thomas tells us, All things belong to God Himself, for the directing of anything to the end concerns him to whom the end belongs.

Okay?

All things are ordered toward God.

All things are ordered to showing forth His glory, and so we can say that all things are ultimately directed to God and therefore have meaning and purpose which can be found and which can be discovered through the use of our intellect.

Now, we Catholics certainly believe that the intellect was wounded, the whole person was wounded in original sin, that first sin of our first parents, of our, the primordial sin, as our Holy Father calls this, which has resulted in a disordering and a rebellion of our senses so that no longer does the mind readily, um, direct the actions of, of the lower passions.

A disorder's been introduced.

But we don't believe that man's nature was obliterated in that primordial rebellious act.

It's been wounded, but the mind is still able to see and perceive those ends for which God has created us.

Now, you can see here the language of ends all the time, purposefulness, teleology.

We were talking about that in the first hour.

This approach to the moral life, this approach to the law is a teleological one.

That is, the law makes sense as we see it ordering people toward their end, which is their perfection.

Now, Thomas goes on in reflecting on the natural law and says, Whatever can be ruled by reason is contained under the law of reason.

Now, there are certain things that happen to us about which we don't reflect.

Uh, there are certain things that take place within the body.

For example, once a month, uh, a woman goes through her natural period in, in the fertility cycle.

Menstruation takes place.

She doesn't reflect on this.

She doesn't think about it.

She doesn't bring it about, uh, by her mind.

She's not, quote unquote, responsible for it.

So St. Thomas says, you know, we're only required to govern by reason those things which are subject to reason.

So whatever can be ruled by reason is contained under the law of reason.

So the law has to do with freely chosen human actions.

Now, St. Thomas had said earlier the fact that one wills the end- issues- the commands are issued regarding things ordained to the end.

We will to be with God, right?

That is our desire, our deepest hope, and so we begin choosing actions which are going to order us to the attainment of that end.

Now Thomas goes on, As in man, reason rules and commands the other powers, so all the natural inclinations belonging to the other powers must needs be directed according to reason.

Wherefore, it is universally right for all men that their inclinations should be directed according to reason.

Now we'll reflect on that passage from Saint Thomas when we come back after this break.

We're discussing a very interesting subject and that is the natural law and, an- we're trying to get a proper understanding of this teaching because it's traditional to the Catholic Church and yet it's so terribly misunderstood.

As I was saying before, people usually think of the law as something which is imposed upon us by the will of the lawgiver, and we want to come to a sound understanding of the law as being rather an ordinance of the reason directive of human behavior which helps us, indeed even enables us, to achieve the end or the goal that we have chosen for ourselves.

Now we know that we have, within ourselves, basic inclinations.

We've talked about these before.

We have an inclination to knowledge.

We want to know things.

Uh, we have an inclination toward the consumption of food.

Um, young men have inclinations toward young women and vice versa.

The- these are just built into us.

Uh, our mothers didn't have to teach us to head to the dining room table or the kitchen table when we got hungry.

I mean, th- the smell of the food just drew us there.

Th- these are built into us.

Now, we don't have any, um, control, if you will, over certain things that can't be governed by the reason, as I was saying before, but we can act in accord with these inclinations but we don't surrender ourselves to them.

Rather, we see that these inclinations that we have themselves become disciplined, if you will, chastened, directed so that they can help us achieve the goal that we really want, and this is the role that reason plays.

Reason sees the end toward which our inclination is ordered, let's say, again, the consumption of food which we will consume to sustain our bodies, and the intellect understands that this means balanced meals, wholesome food, not overeating, not eating too little.

So as we were going out last time, we were reading this passage from Saint Thomas, As in man, reason rules and commands the other powers, so all the natural inclinations belonging to the other powers must needs be directed according to reason.

Wherefore, it is universally right for all men that their inclinations should be directed according to reason.

Now you see, we as human beings understand the ends toward which our inclinations are ordered.

The lower animals don't.

Now they too are disposed toward certain ends because all of God's created order is teleological.

It is purposeful.

It is directed toward ends.

We had, uh, we had two boxers one time, Max and Maggie, and Max was the older and we got Maggie as a pup, and as Maggie got older, lo and behold, she went into heat.

She was able to have a baby and or babies, and Max responded to this.

Now he didn't think about it, okay?

Uh, t- instinctively, he responded to Maggie being ready to have babies.

Well, my wife didn't want us to breed the dogs yet because it wasn't good, she was too young, it was the first time she had gone through heat, and so we just simply decided to keep the dogs apart.

Well, we had no idea how difficult it was going to be in a house with nine children to keep two dogs apart when the female was in heat.

It was no easy matter.

We had to keep Max chained, uh, to- to a post in the basement.

Uh, one of our daughters had the female dog up in her room behind closed doors and all night they would howl and they would bark and they would scratch and they, they were trying to be drawn to one another and, uh, and obviously we had to- to let them out every so often to get some exercise.

We had to try to keep them behind doors and it's just chaos, pandemonium in the house.

Uh, we couldn't reason with them.

They wouldn't listen to us.

We tried to tell Maggie that she was too young, it wasn't, uh, time to have babies yet.

Nothing worked and we went, we went for the longest time and managed to- to keep them apart with little sleep on our part, and then one day I heard a scream from my daughter and I went running up and there were Max and Maggie in the marital embrace and shortly thereafter we had eight little boxer puppies.

Now we would say that Max and Maggie acted in accord with the creative mind of God.

God had created Max and Maggie male and female so that they would have puppies, right?

And that's what they did.

They didn't think about it.

They didn't reflect on it.

They simply did it, right?

And, uh, and- and in fact after the, uh, the puppies grew a little bit, um, my wife sold all the puppies and the two dogs to bring order back in our house and bought our one daughter a cello.

But I mean, that's how human beings can react to this situation in a way which animals can't, right?But we are animals too.

God has also created us to be drawn to members of the opposite sex, and actually, in many respects, for the same reason.

That is, to come together, to bond, and to engender new life, to have children, to establish families.

But the difference between us as rational creatures and these lower animals is that we know and understand the ends toward which our inclinations are ordered.

So if a young man is a, uh, a, a bodyguard down at the, uh, at the Jersey shore, and he sees an attractive young woman going down the beach, he, as the animal that he is, as God's created him to be, not in a pejorative sense, not in a bad sense here, but he's drawn to her.

He's attracted to her.

But he understands the nature of his attraction.

He knows why, and he knows that ultimately, this mutual attraction is to lead to friendship, that it's to lead to, as our Holy Father says, A communion between the two.

But our Holy Father also tells us that in the complementarity between men and women, that the communion never remains simply communion, but rather, blossoms forth into community, that a child arises from the love expressed between the man and the woman.

There we see the difference between the lower animals and human beings.

Our boxer dogs were subject to the bio- biological laws of nature.

We too, insofar as we are animals, are also subject to the biological laws of nature.

But we don't surrender ourselves to those inclinations, those appetites as the lower animals do, because we see and know the ends toward which they are ordered, and, and w- we consequently bring our passions and our appetites and our inclinations under the control of our intellect.

Why?

So that we can make the kinds of choices which will enable us to achieve the end that we really want.

So in terms of a young man and a young woman, what they're really drawn to, uh, in, in the other person, uh, is a quality which is very attractive in the other, the possession of which will eventually lead to their happiness.

In other words, what they're really seeking in the other is happiness.

And we know that true happiness can be there only as they are faithful to one another, as they, uh, in terms of husband and wife, as they establish an exclusive relationship, as they are open to new life and, and bring children into the world and establish a family.

Now, this is what the natural law is all about.

There's a way in which we can say that our boxer dogs were not subject to the natural law.

They're subject to the eternal law.

They acted in conformity with the mind of God, which orders all things to their created ends, but they didn't act in accord with the natural law, because the natural law, Saint Thomas tells us, is the rational creature's conscious participation in the eternal law.

Our simply having these dispositions and inclinations and appetites are expressive of God's creative intellect and will, and we can come to know and to understand, as I've said before, the ends toward which those inclinations are ordered.

So we are able to share in God's providence, in God's direction, in the ends for which God has created us, so that we can say that when we are acting in accord with our reason, when we are acting reasonably, when we are making the kinds of choices which are appropriate to helping us attain our end that we are pursuing, then we can say that we are acting in accord with the natural law.

Sometimes it might be better to refer to, uh, this phenomenon as the natural moral law to avoid any confusion of the natural law with the laws of nature.

Our two boxer dogs, you see, were subject to the laws of nature.

They were driven by biological laws.

Human beings, on the other hand, are not.

They are aware of the biological laws, and the moral life then is led by making the right kinds of choices so that we can attain the ends that we are truly seeking and that we truly want.

Now, as I say, this teaching is often misunderstood.

Um, so often when the church speaks of the natural law, people think that this means that we have to just conform, uh, to our biological processes.

I, I hope I've explained that, uh, to some of your satisfaction.

But another thing we have to realize is that the natural law does reflect God's will for us, and it's not subject or open to change.

Um, I had, um, a, a homosexual was telling me one time, uh, he said, You know, you misunderstand us gays.

He said, You have to realize that the only thing we want is to be able to have a spouse, another man that would live to with us and be true to us, and we wanna be able to have children, and we wanna be able to have a family and, and, and to raise those children.

And I said to this man, You know, those are very, very nice sentiments, but don't you think that God has a plan for the way in which a family is to come into being? it was an interesting response, he said, I used to but I don't anymore.

Well, the reason he didn't anymore is because if God did have a plan and the choices that he wanted to make, this homosexual man wanted to be able to make, i- if they didn't conform to God's plan then he was simply going to try to bring about another plan.

Okay?

So you see, we can't change the natural law, that's another thing we have to be aware of.

The natural law is objective, it reflects the mind of God, it manifests the purposes for which God has created us.

But we are not finding ourselves in the situation where our freedom is in any way restricted, rather our awareness of the ends and purposes for which God has created us enables us to make choices.

It enables us to be truly free.

If we can't make the choices to either, uh, marry someone and raise a family, we can't make a choice to refrain from marriage and become a priest or become a nun, uh, we can't make a choice to, um, decide on some kind of profession like teaching, uh, or, or like working for the gas company or like becoming an attorney, we can't make those kinds of choices unless we have some understanding of the ends for which God has created us and an awareness of how some choices that we make are going to help us achieve those ends.

In other words, are appropriate to those ends and some choices are not.

For example, i- uh, the, the, well, I'll explain, uh, s- a couple more examples of these when we come back after this break.

We've been talking about the natural law, and we've said that it pertains particularly to the intellect and that its directive of human actions, uh, that enable those, enables the, the actor, the person to achieve the end or the goal which he wants.

So the, the actions which we choose have to be appropriate to the attainment of the end.

That is th- there's an in- what we say an intrinsic teleology, there, there's a meaningfulness built right into the act itself that is going to help the individual attain the end.

Uh, I had mentioned earlier the homosexual that just wanted to set up a family with another homosexual.

Well, it doesn't take much reflection to see that the sorts of actions that homosexuals engage in are not within themselves ordered toward the actualization of what it is they are seeking, which is the establishment of a family with children.

Okay?

They're incapable of doing it themselves.

So we, we can see right there on the face of it that there is an inappropriate to those kinds of behaviors if the end that the individual is seeking is marriage and family, all right?

And that's how the intellect helps us make the right kinds of choices, and as I say, when we're making the right kinds of choices, we are acting in accord with the natural law.

As Saint Thomas tells us, This is the first precept of law: That good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.

Saint Thomas goes on and says, All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this, so that whatever the practical reason apprehends as man's good belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.

Now, you see how broad Saint Thomas' definition is there.

Uh, I was saying earlier that there are a lot of, uh, people who misunderstand the church's teac- teaching on the natural law because they usually hear it used in refer to matters such as contraception, so they think it, it's a biological law or that it deals, uh, merely with sexual matters.

But no, the church insists that the natural law also guides nations with regard to their, their affairs, their international affairs, that all of our conscious chosen behavior as we make choices for the good are reflective of the natural law.

Saint Thomas speaks about it so broadly.

Okay?

The first precept being that good is to be done, that, that th- as we pursue the good, whatever that is, you see, um, that we act in accord with our nature so that that good truly might be attained, and if we're acting in that way then we say that we are acting in accord with precepts of the natural law.

Now, this is natural to us.

All human beings have this disposition toward the good because this is the way in which God has created us.

The ultimate good is God Himself.

The Holy Father in his beautiful encyclical on moral theology entitled Veritatis Splendor tells the story of the y- of the, uh, the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus because he wants to know what he must do in order to be good, he is seeking the good, and Jesus directs him to the good telling him that the ultimate choice he has to make is God Himself because God is all good.

You remember one time someone addressed Jesus as, Good, good teacher, and Jesus said, Why do you call me good?

There is no one good but God.

Now, Jesus was not saying that He was not good because He was God, but He was trying to draw our attention to the fact that as human beings seek fulfillment and happiness, what they ultimately are seeking is God, and God has created all of us for himself, which means that everyone can become aware of this basic inclination within him toward the good.

St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that those who were sinning were not free from guilt even though they had never heard God's law because they should've known from what was written in their hearts.

We read in the very first chapter, The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the irreligious and perverse spirit of men, who, in this perversity of theirs, in their sending, sinning, hinder the truth.

Well, the truth is open to everyone.

In fact, whatever can be known about God is clear to them.

God Himself made it so.

Since the creation of the world in visible realities, God's eternal power and divinity have become visible, recognized through the things He has made.

Therefore, these men were without excuse.

St. Paul tells us that, that we all can know basically what is right and what is wrong.

And St. Thomas in our tradition has said that what we find in the Ten Commandments are expressions of the natural law.

Whether we look to the ancient Babylonian code, the Code of Hammurabi, whether we look to o- other ancient pagan religions, we find all of them having rules against adultery, against murder, against theft, against bearing false witness against neighbors.

This isn't something that just belonged to the Jewish people and now just belongs to us as Christians, but it belongs to all people by virtue of their having been created by God for Himself.

So this is what we refer to, again, as the natural law.

Now, we use language in a way in which we are not always clear about what we mean.

One of the reasons, uh, people become confused about the laws of nature is because we're using the word law here in only an anal- in an an- what's called an analogical sense.

An analogy is where you take two things which are different, but they have something in common, and you try to gain some knowledge of the other thing which you don't know by, by, uh, looking to what's similar to what you do know.

And, uh, when we talk about biological laws, we're really using law there, as I say, in an analogous sense.

Uh, I have this pencil, for example, that I can hold up over my hand.

I can let go of the pencil and it'll drop.

I pick it up.

I let go, it drops again.

I could keep doing this for the rest of the hour, and that pencil would keep falling into my hand.

Now someone will look at that and say, My goodness, it looks as though that pencil is obeying some kind of command.

And indeed, we use that kind of language to say that the pencil is obeying, what?

The law of gravity.

The law of gravity.

But think about that language for a minute.

This pencil is obeying the laws of gravity?

How can an inanimate object obey anything?

And it certainly can't direct its own actions in accord with a directive of the intellect, okay, which is, which is what law is.

So when we use the term laws of nature, we are merely describing something that happens over and over again and say it happens with such, um, regularity a- and, and such predictability, uh, that it appears that this thing is following a law, okay?

And, and so we talk about a pencil obeying the law of gravity.

But we see here that laws of nature are merely descriptive.

In other words, they describe what takes place over and over again.

But a real law isn't descriptive, but rather prescriptive.

In other words, a true law prescribes what action we are to take.

So, the laws of nature are descriptive, but the natural law, the moral law is prescriptive.

It prescribes certain actions to do or to refrain from doing so as to help us attain the end of human happiness which we are seeking in its various, um, manifestations.

Now, again, we have to see that, that we seek not just any end, but rather a good end, and this is where the intellect, again, helps us to distinguish, uh, between what might be simply a false good attracting us and a true good.

And God has provided us with the ability to do that through the use of our intellect and the virtue which is applied to the practical intellect which has become, um, well-disciplined to choose true goods, to see and to choose true goods, directive of our actions, is known as the virtue of prudence.

So, prudence is an intellectual virtue- uh, because it is able to see the true nature of things, it is able to see things as they truly are, which is necessary if we're going to be making a moral choice.

But prudence is also a moral virtue, because it is it doesn't just stop with knowing what is true, but it is going to enable us to choose the right goods, which will enable us to attain to the ultimate good, uh, which is God Himself, and those what we call, uh, subordinate goods, which we seek in this life which don't bring us to the fullness, uh, of love which is God Himself.

Prudence is also called the mother of all of the virtues, because it's prudence which enables us to see and understand those goods toward which our lower appetites are ordered.

For example, the appetite to food and to sex and to drink.

The perfecting of that lowest appetite in accord with the light of the intellect, that is in accord with the natural law, the perfecting of that disposition and incl- inclination is known as the virtue of temperance.

But it must be subordinated to the insights of the intellectual virtue of the prude- of, uh, known as prudence.

Now, we see that under the dictates of an enlightened will, okay, of, of the clear vision of the practical intellect, as we make the right kinds of choices, we become integrated in our person, so that th- the dispositions, the drives, the appetites that we have in pursuing the good help to form us into a harmonious whole, and that's when we talk about an individual having integrity.

It means that they are one, that they are all ordered, and they are ordered because it is the intellect directing them to the goods which will bring about their greatest fulfillment, and this is what the natural law is all about.

There's a way in which we can actually say that we formulate ourselves the precepts of the natural law, uh, as we seek the good.

Th- the law isn't out there, something that's imposed upon us.

We were talking just moments ago about the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments themselves are of the natural order.

No matter what society you study, they will all have the same kind of rules directive of human behavior.

St. Thomas says this is true for all except the third commandment which specifies that it's the Sabbath day on which God ought to be worshiped and honored, but the precept of the natural law that can be found in the third commandment is the fact that we all, as human beings, should be worshiping and praising God.

So that, too, is of the natural law, about which we'll talk further in a moment.

Yes, the God, uh, who loves us has bestowed on us certain inclinations and appetites which themselves bring about our flourishing.

So we are very blessed to have this capacity to know and understand the ends for which we have been created.

In other words, we're so blessed to be able to have the natural law, and we can see that the natural law helps us avoid, uh, falling into subjectivism, because it insists that there are uh, there is an objective human nature and it is from that human nature that we're going to be able to derive the, the prescriptions, if you will, uh, for our lives and the way in which we can lead wholesome and healthy lives.

The approach of the natural law helps us enter into dialogue with other peoples who may not share our particular religious beliefs.

The natural law doctrine of the Catholic Church tells us that the church's basic moral teachings, whether it has to do with euthanasia, whether it has to do with contraception, whether it has to do with the ways in which one wages war, that these moral prescriptions or moral teachings on the part of the church apply to everybody and everybody is bound to them.

It might be surprising to some people to learn that contraception is not considered immoral just for Catholics by the church, but rather it is seen as being against the dignity of all human beings, uh, to practice this.

Why?

Well, here, I, I can't uh, this is not a lecture on, on sexual morality or on contraception and, and this is a very complicated, uh, question, but I hope that perhaps with a, with a brief reflection on this, uh, we might be able to, to understand better this distinction between the, uh, the laws of nature and the natural moral law.

A lot of people think th- the church teaches that contraception is wrong because it's artificial.

People think that the church is opposed to birth control because people are using latex, th- they're using condoms, or they're using foam, or they're ingesting chemicals, um, a- and, and so we even talk all the time about the immorality of artificial contraception.And people think that the church says that periodic abstinence for married couples i- i- in marriage, if they have an obligation not to have a child at, at a particular time in their marriage, that they can still enjoy marital relations, but if they shouldn't be having a child, then they simply avoid marital relations at the time when the wife is fertile.

This is known as periodic abstinence, and it's also known as natural family planning, and if it's done with the right motives and for the right end, uh, this can be considered moral.

Now, people tend to think then that contraception is wrong because it's artificial and periodic abstinence is moral because it's natural, but this would make us pray to this very narrow understanding of the natural law, and not only is it a narrow understanding of it, it's a false understanding of it, because the natural law doesn't have to do with artificial versus natural.

It doesn't have to do with, um, uh, matters that, that deal simply with, with biology.

The natural law has to do with what's reasonable, and it's because contraception is fundamentally an unreasonable act that the church says that it's immoral.

If it is our nature as rational creatures, if it's our nature to act reasonably in accord with our nature and we don't, then we act beneath the dignity of our nature, and this is what is wrong with contraception.

Well, how can we understand this?

If we look at men and women, we can see the inclinations that they have toward one another and we can understand what those inclinations mean in terms of the ends toward which they are ordered.

We've talked about this before.

We can make sense of the marital act by understanding the ends toward which a marital act is ordered, and the marital act is ordered toward what the church has called a remedy for concupiscence, or it, it allows us to, to release our sexual, um, uh, drives and, and to enjoy one another bodily, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Uh, the marital act can also be understood in terms of the mutual support that husband and wife give to one another, uh, the fidelity between the spouses, but it principally can be understood in terms of the child which arises out of it.

And if you, if you want to explain someone what the meaning of the marital act is in terms of its end, that end or goal which ultimately makes sense of it, that end or goal which explains most adequately on the natural level why human beings are divided between male and female, that end which most adequately explains that is the child.

So the child makes sense of the marital act.

Not only that, but these ends of bodily pleasure, the ends of mutual support, uh, the friendship that's expressed in, in the marital act, and also the child, they not only explain the marital act, they make it possible.

I was saying before that T.S. Eliot had said, The end is where we begin.

We can't even go someplace unless we have an idea of where we are going.

We can't even perform an action unless you understand what the action is for, what the end or purpose of the action is.

And when it comes to conjugal intercourse, we see that the end of that is the engendering of children, the establishment of the family, w- which is going to bind husband and wife together even more firmly, uh, in their friendship with one another.

And if one contracepts, one performs some kind of action which is directed against the very meaning of conjugal intercourse.

It doesn't matter what one does, whether one uses the pill or a condom or a diaphragm.

One is placing an act other than the marital act, and this contraceptive act has no end, no purpose, no meaning than to keep the child or the procreative good from coming into being.

In other words, that end of the marital act which ultimately makes sense of it is being denied.

Consequently, contraception is beneath our dignity.

It's, it's an unreasonable kind of act.

It, it undermines the basis for our freedom even, because we can't even act, uh, unless we have some understanding of and openness, uh, uh, toward the end, uh, toward which the, the conjugal act is ordered.

So, it's not the artificiality of contraception which makes it immoral and it's not the quote unquote naturalness of natural family planning or periodic abstinence which makes it moral.

Rather, it is the fact that the one act, contraception, goes contrary to the very nature of the conjugal act or marital act itself, and therefore, uh, you have human beings acting contrary to their very natures.

It's an unreasonable act.

Whereas on the other hand, uh, the married couple which avoids sexual relations, uh, when the wife is fertile and they shouldn't be having a child then, that couple doesn't have to act against one of the ends or goods, uh, of, of the marriage act.

They simply refrain from acting altogether.

Now you can see here, I hope, uh, the fact that we're not talking about the natural law in terms of simply what is natural as opposed to that which is artificial-Time and again we, we have to see that we are understanding moral behavior as being directed by the intellect.

We're talking about reasonable behavior.

And this is how we can understand the way in which the natural law works in our lives and why we would be able, ourselves, in a sense, to be the ones who formulate the precepts of the natural law.

That is, the prescriptions for our actions.

The reason the prescription of the moral law, the norm of the moral law will be the same for me as it will be for you and it will be for our neighbor, is we all share the same human nature.

And if we are going to be acting in accord with our human nature, uh, the result will be that there will be certain actions which will always be prescribed for us to do, and most particularly, there will be some kinds of actions which we may never do because they would do violence to us as persons.

Uh, they would do violence to our dignity.

Now, it is true that people can be confused about what the precepts of the natural law really are.

St. Thomas says the further we descend from the general principles, that good is always to be done and evil avoided, and descend further, um, from the broad principles that we find in the Ten Commandments, that we are to do no murder, uh, we are not to commit adultery, we are not to bear false witness, when we get down to the concrete situation, sometimes it isn't always that easy to know what the right course of action should be in accord with the natural law.

And on that level, there can be some confusion.

Uh, for example, it could be in, in some societies where, um, a woman going to the beach and, and wearing a bathing costume that went down to her ankles, uh, could be considered immoral if people were not accustomed to seeing that kind of behavior.

Now, it's, it's not that wearing a bathing suit like this, uh, in and of itself is immoral.

Uh, what's wrong is that one are not to be doing anything that would be inciting the passions in others.

Well, in some, in some societies that would, that would mean, uh, even going to the beach, I suspect, in, in bloomers down to their ankles, uh, whereas in other societies, uh, that wouldn't be the case.

So the, there's a certain way in which the precepts of the natural law are applied in concrete situations so that it might look as though there were differences in the precepts of the natural law.

Uh, but this isn't the case.

Uh, the, the concrete application might vary from one circumstance to another, but the general norms of the moral law itself, of the natural law, will be the same because God has created us all, St. Thomas says, as though members of one body.

And he's not talking about the body of the church there, he's talking about the body of humanity.

And since we share a common humanity and since we all seek the same things by virtue of the fact that God has instilled certain inclinations in us, uh, all of us will be able to understand the, the directives and the precepts of the natural law wh- act- which will actually be leading to our perfection and, and our fulfillment.

And of course, we in the church are very blessed by having divine revelation which helps us to underman- understand more fully the ends toward which God is calling us.