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CHRISTIAN MORALITY
Irreconcilable Concepts of the Human Person and of Human Sexuality
by William E. May, Ph.D.
In his magnificent Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris consortio) Pope John Paul II perceptively noted the following:
In the light of the experience of many couples and the data provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: it is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality (no. 32).
Many persons who practice contraception - and many who practice periodic continence - perhaps are not consciously aware of the profound differences between these two ways of regulating conception, but these differences are real and they are profound. Moreover, they are clearly set forth in the philosophy/theology underlying the practice of contraception and the quite different philosophy/theology underlying the practice of NFP. This paper will focus on the understanding of human sexuality and of the human person underlying the ideology of contraception and to contrast this dualistic view with the holistic understanding of the human person and of human sexuality central to the teaching of the Church and to the proper understanding of natural family planning. The moral differences between contraception and the practice of periodic continence are also profound, as Pope John Paul II emphasizes in the passage cited from Familiaris consortio. Here, however, it will not be possible to consider these, important as they are.
1. The Understanding of the Human Person and of Human Sexuality Underlying Contraception
A. Human Fertility: Subpersonal in Nature
A key idea in the defense of contraception is that human dominion over physical nature, willed by God, justifies and indeed requires the use of contraceptives, particularly by married couples, to prevent irresponsible pregnancies. The authors of the celebrated "Majority Report" of the Papal Commission on the Regulation of Natality used this line of argumentation.1 They noted that, in the matter at hand, namely contraception,
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 end of the institution of matrimony in the conditions of actual life, than if he would abandon himself to chance.2
Elsewhere these same authors say: "It is proper to man, created to the image of God, to use what is given in physical nature in a way that he may develop it to its full significance with a view to the good of the whole person."3
According to this idea, the biological fertility of human persons is essentially something physical or biological, not personal, in nature, something that we share with other animals who propagate themselves through biological reproduction. Like other biological givens it needs, so these authors contend, "to be assumed into the human sphere and regulated within it,"4 that is, brought under the control of reason. Evidently, according to this understanding, our fertility, since it must be "assumed into the human sphere," must be subpersonal and subhuman; were it already such there would be no need for it to be "assumed."
The person, according to this idea, is not meant to be the slave of his biology, to have his choices determined by the rules and conditions set in physiology. Quite to the contrary, the biological givens confronting the person are to be controlled and regulated by the person's intelligence and freedom. It is intelligent and reasonable for married persons to use their biological fertility when they want to conceive children and when they are willing and able to care for them. It is likewise reasonable, so this line of argument runs, for married persons (and others) to choose to express their love for one another in the genital act at times when it would not be responsible for a pregnancy to occur. At such times it is reasonable for the couple to use contraceptives to suppress the biological processes of fertility and thereby avoid an undesirable and irresponsible pregnancy.5
B. The Human and Personal Meaning of Human Sexuality
A closely related point in the defense of contraception is the idea that the human and personal meaning of human sexuality consists in its relational, amative, unitive dimension and not in its reproductive or procreative dimension. Its essence, precisely as human and personal, is to unite persons, to enable them to break out of their shell of loneliness and enter into a deeply intimate, affectionate union with others.
Proponents of this view of human sexuality grant that there is a procreative or reproductive aspect to sexuality, but they regard this as merely a biological given, part of the subpersonal world of nature under the dominion of the person. The relational, amative, unitive dimension of human sexuality is for them its truly personal and human meaning. It thus follows, they claim, that it is only natural and morally proper to inhibit or impede or damage the biological aspect-the subpersonal aspect-of sexuality if its flourishing impedes participation in its truly human and personal aspect, i.e., in its relational, amative meaning.
A representative illustration of this way of understanding human sexuality (and also of understanding the status of human fertility) is given by the noted author Ashley Montagu in his book Sex, Man, and Society. With many contemporaries Montagu thinks that the emergence of new contraceptive technologies, in particular, the Pill, is a truly liberating event in human history, enabling human persons to free the personal and human purposes of human sexuality and of genital sex from the tyranny of biological and physiological processes. Montagu well expresses the view, common to the defense of contraception, that the Pill and other contraceptive techniques make it
possible to render every individual of reproductive age completely responsible for both his sexual and his reproductive behavior. It is necessary to be unequivocally clear concerning the distinction between sexual behavior and reproductive behavior. Sexual behavior may have no purpose other than pleasure ... without the slightest intent of reproducing, or it may be indulged in for both pleasure and reproduction.6
Note how here Montagu separates "reproductive" and "sexual" behavior. The bond linking reproduction and sexual intercourse is severed, not only in deed (through contraception) but in thought.7 What is most important to note about this view of human sexuality is that according to it the human and personal meaning of sexuality is found in its relational, amative character, its ability to enable human persons to break out of their loneliness and enter into a relationship of intimate affection with another.
Roman Catholic defenders of contraception, although they do not go quite so far as to sever totally the bonds linking the procreative and amative or unitive meanings of sexuality as do Montagu and other secular humanist champions of the practice, nonetheless agree that this is indeed the human and personal meaning of human sexuality and that its procreative meaning is, as such, subpersonal. For them, as the noted Louvain theologian Louis Janssens, one of their leading lights, put the matter: "the most profound meaning of human sexuality is that it is a relational reality, having a special significance for the person in his relationships."8
C. The Understanding of the Human Person
Corresponding to these understandings of human fertility and human sexuality, the concept of the human person central to the ideology of contraception is that of a conscious subject aware of itself as a self and capable of relating to other selves. On this understanding of the human person not all living members of the human species, accordingly, are persons. For instance, unborn children, although biologically members of the human species, are not yet persons - certainly not persons in the same sense or to an equal degree as their mothers. In addition, those who are in an alleged persistent vegetative state have lost their personality and are living vegetables.
One can see that this understanding of the human person and of human sexuality is dualistic. It regards our sexual organs and fertility as mere biological functions which persons can use for different purposes. It considers genital acts as physiological processes which can be used "to make babies" or "to make love," regarding the latter as the free, human, and personal end and the latter as an aspect of biological nature and made personal and human only by being consciously chosen and willed.
This understanding of human fertility, sexuality, and the person claims to liberate the person from biological laws, in order to free him for the enjoyment and service of personal and interpersonal values. What it really does is alienate the human person from his bodily reality.9
This way of understanding human persons also regards human bodily life merely as a useful good, a good for the person, not as a noble good, a good of the person. Bodily life, on this view, can become a burden for the person. Indeed, as one well-known Catholic advocate of contraception contends, in judging whether treatments are to be given we must judge the quality of expected life because, as he says, "it is the kind of, the quality of the life thus saved (painful, poverty-stricken and deprived, away from home and friends, oppresive) that establishes the means as extraordinary. That type of life would be an excessive hardship for the individual."10 Thus to deprive the person of bodily life, i.e., to kill him, may at times be to do good and not evil.
One can see how this understanding of the human person, fundamental to the ideology of contraception, has given birth to, or at least has surely been the midwife of, the "culture of death" described by John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium vitae.11
2. The Understanding of Human Sexuality and the Human Person underlying NFP
A. The Understanding of Human Fertility
The practice of NFP is rooted in an understanding of human fertility not as something subhuman and subpersonal but rather as an integral dimension or aspect of the being of the human person. Human fertility, or the life-giving, procreative meaning of human sexuality is not something purely biological, something of itself subhuman and subpersonal, but is rather a power of the person and thus personal in nature and value, sharing in the dignity of the person. It is not a "reproductive" function because the generating of new human life is not an act of "reproducing" comparable to the act of manufacturing or reproducing tables or cars. A human person, to whom existence is given through the exercise of this personal sexual power, is not a product inferior to its producers but is rather a person, equal in dignity to and one in nature with its parents. The sexual power making this act possible is not a function of organs distinct from the person but a power or dimension of the person, enabling the person to participate in God's power of giving life to new human persons.
Thus the Fathers of Vatican II rightly said that "human sexuality and the human faculty of generating life wonderfully surpass the dispositions of lower forms of life."12
B. The Understanding of Human Sexuality
NFP is rooted in an understanding of human sexuality as integrally unitive and procreative and of the conjugal act as one that is not only open to the communication of a special, unique kind of love, marital love, but open also to the gift of human life. As a sexual act, the marital act symbolizes the integral meaning of human sexuality as procreative and unitive or amative, understanding both these dimensions or aspects as personal and human.
This understanding of human sexuality is also rooted in a recognition of and respect for the complementary character of male and female sexuality. As sexual beings men and women are called both to give and to receive, but they do so in asymmetrical and complementary ways. Male sexuality is a giving in a receiving sort of way, and female sexuality is a receiving in a giving sort of way. Male sexuality symbolizes the superabundance of being inasmuch as the male produces millions of sperm which he can give to his wife in the intimacy of the marital act, while she, as it were, symbolizes the depth and grandeur of being inasmuch as her womb is the proper ground where new human life can take root and develop in an atmosphere of nurturing love.
The marital act beautifully expresses this way of understanding human sexuality as integrally procreative and unitive and as manifesting the complementary sexuality of male and female. The marital act, precisely as marital, is meant to be an expression of marital love and also the kind of act fit to receive the gift of a new human life that gives flesh to that unique love. Moreover, in this uniquely personal act of which husband and wife are co-principles, the husband is uniquely capable of giving himself to his wife and, in giving himself to her, receiving her in a loving way, while she is uniquely capable of receiving him lovingly into her body, her person, and in doing so of giving herself unreservedly to him.
In addition, men and women "give and receive" each other genitally in this way, of course, only if they are husband and wife and have made each other, by giving themselves to each other and receiving each other irrevocably in marriage, capable of such giving and receiving. Their act of marital union is not merely a "sex act"-after all, fornicators and adulterers can engage in sex-but it is a "marital act" because it is an expression of and consummation of their one flesh unity. The marital act, in short, unites two irreplaceable and nonsubtitutable persons of differing and complementary sexuality. Acts of fornication and adultery, on the other hand, simply join two individuals who are in principle replaceable, substitutable, and disposable.13
In short, NFP is rooted in an understanding of human sexuality which regards both the unitive and the procreative meanings of sexuality as human and personal and as inherently, integrally interrelated, meant to go together. Moreover, it understands male and female sexuality as complementary in nature and the genital expression of human sexuality as fitting, proper, and noble only within the covenant of marriage.
C. The Understanding of the Human Person
It should be clear from what has already been said that NFP or practice of periodic continence is rooted in an understanding of the human person that repudiates dualism, making the "conscious subject" the person and treating the body as an instrument that the "person" uses. NFP holds, with Genesis, that when God created "Man," He did not create a conscious subject to whom He added a body as an afterthought, a body that could be "used" now for one purpose, now for another. No, when God created "Man," "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:28), beings bodily and sexual in nature. Moreover, when God became man He did not become merely a "conscious subject" to which a body was added. No, when God became man He "became flesh" (sarx egeneto, John 1:14).
In other words, NFP is grounded in the truth that human persons are bodily persons, not spirit persons. True, the soul that animates and vivifies the body is spiritual and transcends the limits of matter, but the human person is not a soul using a body but a unitary being composed of body and soul and what makes the body to be human and personal is the soul animating it. NFP is thus grounded in the belief that every living member of the human species is a person, every living human body is a person, not a thing. Thus unborn human babies, who are undeniably living human bodies, newborn babies who are not consciously aware of themselves as selves, and individuals suffering from maladies that prevent them from being consciously aware of themselves as selves, are nonetheless truly persons and as such bearers of inviolable rights, among them the right not to be killed by others or used as guinea pigs in experiments of no value to them. NFP, in other words, holds that human bodily life is a good of the person, not merely a good for the person. Although human lives may be burdened, at times heavily, human life itself, including bodily life, is a precious, inestimable good, participating in the incalculable goodness of the person.
Conclusion
From the foregoing analysis the truth of Pope John Paul II's claim that contraception and respect for the rhythm of the cycle are rooted, ultimately, in irreconcilable concepts of the human person ought to be manifest. The ideology underlying contraception has bred the "culture of death" as facilitated the acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, and the denial of personhood to many living human beings. The reverence for the human person as a bodily being radically different in kind from other animals because he is more than bodily is at the heart of respect for the rhythm of the cycle, for the complementarity of male and female. The slogan of those championing contraception is that "no unwanted child ought ever to be born," and to achieve this goal contraception and abortion as a back-up are required. The truth underlying the practice of periodic continence is that all human beings, including unborn children, the comatose, and severely brain damaged, are to be wanted and loved. And they will be wanted and loved only when men and women respect their dignity as sexual persons and refuse to dishonor themselves by debasing sexual behavior and by a willingness to prevent human life from beginning by resorting to contraception.
Dr. William E. May is the Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Washington, D.C.
End Notes
1 There were actually three documents in the so-called "Majority Report." Of these the two most central for our purposes here are those called in English "The Question Is Not Closed" and "On Responsible Parenthood." Both are found in The Birth Control Debate, ed. Robert Hoyt (Kansas City, MO: National Catholic Reporter, 1969).
2 "The Question Is Not Closed," p. 69.
3 "On Responsible Parenthood," p. 87.
4 "The Question Is Not Closed," p. 71.
5 This argument is closely linked to the claim that the Catholic Church's teaching on the immorality of contraception is dehumanizing because it identifies moral norms with biological laws. Thus one Catholic champion of contraception, Daniel Maguire, writes as follows: "Birth control [contraception] was, for a very long time, impeded by a physicalistic ethic that left moral man to the mercy of his biology. He had no choice but to conform to the rhythms of his physical nature and to accept its determinations obediently" ("The Freedom to Die," in New Theology # 10, eds. Martin Marty and Dean Peerman (New York: Macmillan, 1973), p. 188.
6 Ashley Montagu, Sex, Man, and Society (New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1969), pp. 13-14.
7 Commenting on the understanding of human sexuality advocated by Montagu and others, George Gilder has perceptively written as follows: "...the members of the sex coalition go well beyond a mere search for better contraceptives. They are not satisfied merely to control the biological tie between intercourse and childbirth. They also want to eliminate the psychological and symbolic connections. They may reluctantly acknowledge that in a sense procreation is the most important current role of intercourse-and certainly the key evolutionary purpose. They also may recognize its role in inducing males to join and support families. But they foresee a time when artificial means may be employed for human reproduction. By far the most frequent and durably long-term use of sex, they would say, is the fulfillment of the physical and psychological need for orgasmic pleasure and the communication of affection. For these purposes, sex is most adaptable if it is not connected with procreation, if it is regarded as a completely separate mode of activity." Sexual Suicide (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), p. 34.
8 Louis Janssens, "Considerations on Humanae Vitae," Louvain Studies, 1 (1969) 249.
9 On this point see the brilliant essay of Germain Grisez, "Dualism and the New Morality," Atti del Congresso Internazionale (Roma-Napoli, 17-25 Aprile 1974) Tommaso d'Aquino nel Suo Settimo Centenario, Vol. 5, L'Agire Morale, ed. Marcelino Zalba, S.J. (Napoli: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane, 1977).
10 Richard A. McCormick, S.J., How Brave a New World? Dilemmas in Bioethics (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978), p. 347.
11 See Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium vitae, chapter 1.
12 Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, n. 51.
13 For a development of the ideas summarized here see my Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), chapter two, "Marriage and the Complementarity of Male and Female."