I’m writing this to make it both clear to myself and others as there is a great deal of misunderstanding when it comes to understanding Catholic dogma, especially is regard to sex and marriage.  Let’s face it – nobody really seems to know how or why Catholics have an attitude that is almost polar opposite to the modern, liberal sensibilities of today.  Most just seem to think it is a result of institutional belligerence, intolerance and arrogance.  But there is always a philosophy behind these things.

Why do they oppose contraception?

Why do they oppose gay marriage?

What on Earth is an annulment?

 

It all starts with Aristotle.  Like any cultural phenomenon, Christianity inherited the history of the people from whom it came.  Half was Judaism, and half was Hellenism (the historical term for what is generally known as ‘Western’ – that is Greek culture since Alexander the Great).

It is Aristotle’s ethical philosophy that has had the greatest influence on Christian thought, but which is also reflected in the Jewish religion.

His ethics stems from his philosophy on Causality (Teleology) – that deals with design and purpose.  Briefly, he tells us that everything has four different types of ‘causes’:

-          The Material Cause (e.g. the material cause of a table is wood)

-          The Formal Cause (simply put the idea of an object)

-          The Efficient Cause (that which brings about an object e.g. an artist to a picture)

-          The Final Cause (the teleos, the purpose, the end of something e.g. the purpose of an eye is to see).

Are you with us?  Don’t worry, I am only putting this in context – you won’t have to remember all of this.

How does this relate to ethics?  Aristotle argued that everything that is done is done with a goal in mind – A Final Cause.  This goal is ‘good’ because “good has rightly been defined as the object of all endeavor.”  See?  If we define ‘good’ as something that we are trying to achieve, then anything we do that has a Final Cause must be good (in a rather esoteric sense, not what you’d find in your concise dictionary).  If that’s not clear, try looking it up – I am after all attempting to explain Aristotle’s ethics and Catholic dogma in a single blog – bare with me.

But is there a universal ‘good’, or Highest Good?  What are we all aiming for?  Aristotle decides that the Highest Good is “happiness”, which is more profound than it sounds – for what is happiness?  Humans, he decides are rational beings who have a Rational Soul.  Rationality therefore is our Final Cause and is therefore what makes us happy.  I am not going to go into exactly what he means by Rationality, but at the very least, it is what differs us from the animals – it is beyond mere pleasure, fame or amusement.

 

Now Christianity.

The Final Cause of the sexual act is procreation.  The sperm and the egg are in existence in order that they may, through the normal passage of nature, come together to create new life.  This is a Final Cause, and therefore ‘good’.  Anything that attempts to hinder this therefore is not good, or, to use Christian language, Morally Wrong.

This fairly simple definition manages to sweep away a large amount of activities that nowadays are considered to be neither right nor wrong, but simply ‘normal’.

-          Contraception is Morally Wrong because it is a willful attempt to hinder the passage of the sperm and prevent fertilization of the egg.

-          Any activity whereby sperm is prevented from achieving its Final Cause is wrong – so that would be any sexual activity that involves the male climax happening outside of the female’s vagina.

-          This includes masturbation, oral sex (where climax happens outside the vagina) and of course anal sex, in particular homosexual sex.

An oft used phrase in Catholic writings is ‘natural law’ as it is the Catholic belief that Natural Law and God’s Law are twinned.  God created the world, and with it all the Final Causes of its objects – the Final Causes of objects are in practice their nature.  So the Catholic complaint that certain activities are ‘unnatural’ is not just the cry of a die-hard conservative who is afraid of change, it is the cry of someone who believes that by being unnatural you are behaving wrongly because you are going against God.

 

There we go!  That wasn’t so difficult was it?

 

Now, in a separate, but connected issue is the question of extra-marital sex.  Why is it so important that Christians do not have sex outside of marriage?

What is the Final Cause of marriage?  Love?  Really?  Because although that has been the romantic notion of marriage for most of living memory, in practice the desirability or possibility of marrying for love is a modern concept.  Through out history, in practically every culture the institution of marriage has been dictated by politics, economics and society, very rarely love.  Why is that?  Because marriage’s Final Cause has been the creation of a secure environment within which children can be born and raised.

This is why women very often married men who were much older (that is financially secure), that is why certain rich men have been able to have more than one wife (they are capable of supporting them) and that is why in the interests of peace, rival factions are brought together by marriage.  Love enables a marriage to work well, but it is not the Final Cause of marriage.

For Christians, the institution of Marriage and the family is the most perfect condition into which children can enter the world.  It is seen as reflective of Natural Law (God’s Law) as well as being expressly stated by God himself in the Bible.  But was not just the Christians who thought this – the Jews believed this and so did the Romans, Persians and Egyptians.  In all of these cultures, children born outside of wed-lock were ‘illegitimate’ – that is, there is nothing wrong with the child, but because they were not born within the marriage, they cannot legitimately claim the privileges that it brings which in most cases meant the inheritance.  This was chiefly to protect the rights of the wife (as it was usually the husband who cheated) ensuring that it was her children who were next in line and not the mistress’s. 

So Marital bliss are the circumstances under which the Christian God wishes humans to bring their children into the world.  Sex, whose Final Cause is procreation should therefore only be conducted within this institution.

 

It is clear now what is forbidden within Catholic/Christian dogma.

-          No sex without the possibility of procreation

-          No sex outside marriage

And also

-          Marriage is an institution whose Final Cause is for the protection and care of offspring.  Without the possibility of children, there is no marriage.

 

This is why, under Catholic law, a marriage can be declared null and void if, for whatever reason, the possibility of children is somehow compromised.  That is what an Annulment is.  An Annulment does not say that the marriage is now over, it says that is never happened.  If a woman decides, after getting married that she wants to have a child, and the husband says that he does not want a child, she has grounds for an Annulment because according to Catholics, a marriage is not a marriage if children are not part of the equation.  Part of the definition of the Sacrament of Marriage is that there must exist the possibility of procreation.

 

And that is why Catholics argue that homosexuals cannot get married.  It is not that they deny that homosexuals can love each other, or that their relationship is false – it is simply that ‘marriage’ can only exist where there is the possibility of procreation.  There is no possibility with homosexual marriages.  The problem they have with the argument for homosexual marriage is that it redefines marriage into something that is not what they believe.

 

That’s my understanding of the whole thing anyway.  If there’re any roaming priests/theologians who’d like to correct me on any of this, please comment.  But I think I’ve got at least a bit of it down.  Of course, there are other issues attached.  But that’s all I’ve got at the moment.  But bloody hell, it's better than Yahoo Answers.

 

Oh, and if you do want to comment on this and have a little debate, you’re more than welcome.  Can I just say (I know what can happen on things like this), please keep your emotions in check.  I will be moderating the comments as I don’t want some flame-war to start between commenters.  It’s not cool.  The Dude Abides.