Tag Archives: Contraception

The Folly of Mind Over Matter

Culture, Sin, , , , , , ,

In Book I of Paradise Lost, Satan, examining his situation in hell, remarks that “the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” On its face, this line expresses a profound truth about the nature of the mind. Often when someone has a totally different worldview than us, one might say that “they live in a different reality.” The truth is that we all are tempted by this sentiment in the same way that many naive readers, such as Saul Alinsky, are tempted to read Satan as the heroic figure in Paradise Lost. After all, perhaps we are like gods, and perhaps, therefore, we do have the right to define heaven and hell for ourselves. It seems to be the conclusion that many have reached, so we should at least spend some time giving it thought.

What we will examine in this article is not just the idea that our minds can help us cope with or even heal suffering, as seen in the placebo effect, but, instead, the philosophy behind the saying “mind over matter.” Namely, the idea that by becoming arbiters of our own experience we can become arbiters of reality.

Giving the Devil His Due

In the spirit of intellectual honesty, we will begin by looking at the truth of “mind over matter.” When faced with extreme circumstances a man’s attitude towards those circumstances makes a world of difference. As Viktor Frankl observes in Man’s Search for Meaning, one’s attitude towards the brutality of the camps were what made the difference between a saint and a monster. It is rather astonishing that the same set of circumstances produced saints such as St. Maximilian Kolbe, and monsters such as the kapos1 who were often crueler than the guards themselves. For Kolbe and the countless other heroes and saints of the concentration camps, the suffering was seen as something that could be received with courage and could even be sanctifying. However, for the prisoners who became cruel, the suffering became a justification for them to behave as they pleased. While their minds did not change the reality of the circumstances they found themselves in, for the heroes of the camps it was their mindset which changed their experience from tragic to sanctifying.

The Limits

There is, however, a limit to this power. One’s mind can determine attitude and experience, but it cannot change the reality itself. There is tremendous danger in thinking so. Modern thinking has become infected with this idea. Take for example the use of the term “manifesting”. While this term is often used in an ironic way, there are, unfortunately, far too many examples of people who take it seriously. On a more serious note, the contraceptive pill represents a far more established version of this same fatal idea. It is “medicine” that no longer attempts to restore the body to its natural function, but instead is man’s attempt to determine how the body ought to work for himself. The debates over gay marriage and transgenderism suffer from the same problem. Oftentimes, those who oppose either of these are called bigots, but that misunderstands the argument. We are not arguing that we would prefer gay marriage, and transgenderism to not exist, but that the terms do not describe reality. Marriage is the exclusive, permanent, and procreative union of a man and woman regardless of what anyone says, and we simply wish to recognize that. Similarly, transgenderism is not a word that describes a real phenomenon, because transgender is not a real category. This does not mean that people who claim to be transgender do not exist as activists will often say we are claiming, but that these people are, sadly, mistaken about who they are.

Reality Reasserts Itself

These attempts to alter reality with one’s mind do not just affect the individual either. They have real consequences. Babies are sold to “married” men to grow up without mothers. Women alter their hormones to such a degree that it changes who they are attracted to. Children are handed over to butchers, otherwise known as gender-affirmation surgeons, to affirm the delusions of adults. Language itself is no longer a means of communication, but is simply a vehicle for imposing one’s own mind. I do not mean to point these realities out in a hyperbolic way, but far too often we euphemize grave evils away.

Returning now to Paradise Lost, one may be tempted to think that Satan’s words in Book I represent the triumphant spirit of a rebel, but that would require neglecting his tragic observation later in the poem. In Book IV he realizes that the mind cannot make hell into heaven, and that hell now follows him wherever he goes: “Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.” In many ways, this is the tragedy of human history. Since the beginning, man has tried to set himself up as a god, and the consequences have always been disastrous. The truth is that God is God, and we are not. There is no amount of technology, wealth, or power that will change that fact. Reality must be accepted, or it will impose itself. It is not optional. The mind that thinks it can impose itself on reality is driven to madness, as is evident from the paragraph above. God bestowed a beautiful gift and dignity on humanity by giving us minds, but if we wish to usurp Him with those minds we will not find enlightenment and intellectual freedom. Instead we will find madness and despair.

  1. Prisoners who collaborated with the guards ↩︎

Guest Post: On Trinitarian Symbolism in the Family

Family, Guest Post, Trinity, , , , ,

By Connor Szurgot

When speaking of the Blessed Trinity, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself.” (CCC 234) Beyond even that epic and truly awe-some reality is the reality that, since every cause is in some way in its effect, all of created reality is in some way Trinitarian. One of the clearest examples of this Trinitarian symbolism in created reality is the family. As such, the devil seeks to attack the Blessed Trinity through His image: the family.

A Community of Persons, United by Love

Through the mystery of the Trinity is not able to be fully comprehended by man, certain facts about the mystery can be understood. Some of those facts are: 1) There is one Divine nature, 2) there are three distinct Divine Persons in the Godhead, 3) each of these Divine Persons is co-equal, co-eternal, and fully God, 4) each of the Divine Persons is only differentiated from the others by their relations to the other Persons. These relations are as follows: 1) the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, eternally begets the Son, the second Person of the Trinity and 2) the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Without delving too deep into this mystery, it is important to understand that all three Persons are united in love. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and this eternal perfect love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.

With that understanding established, it is not hard to see how the family images this. A man and women love each other so much as to give themselves to each other in the life-long bond of matrimony and the fruit of their married love is a child. What unites them in the child on a material level are their shared genes. (Indeed, the father and the mother are in a way now more completely united since the child is the product of both of them.) Yet, beyond the material level, the are united in mutual love, one for another. Also, each member is distinct in their role within the family. They are a community of persons, united in love, that images the community of Persons, united in eternal love.

The First Attack: Gender Theory

Progressive gender theory advances the idea that men and women are the same. This positions leads to two conclusions: 1) to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ has no actual meaning and 2) that one can switch between being a man or a woman at will because what you are is defined only by what you think you are. In addition to the obvious absurdity of this claim, a problem with this is shown by a passage from Genesis, “So God made man in his own image, made him in the image of God. Man and woman both, he created them.” (Gen. 1:27) Notice two things: 1) that God clearly created two distinct sexes and 2) that He created them in the image of God. Clearly, the complementarity of man and woman are supposed to reveal, in a subtle way, something about the Trinity.

The complementary of man and woman is supposed to model the relationship of the Father and the Son. The Father (the man) eternally loves and gives Himself to the Son (the woman) Who receives Him and gives Himself back in return. The man is the giver in the relationship while the woman receives him and gives herself back in return. The natural inclinations in man and woman show this to be true and to attempt to defy this is not only to make oneself miserable, but to destroy this image of the Trinity in man.

The Second Attack: Divorce

Divorce is the first of these three attacks that has found its way into mainstream acceptance among Protestant Christian circles. This is strange since Christ is very clear that, “[husband and wife] are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matt. 19:6) This practice attacks the Trinity by destroying the Love that binds the Father and the Son together, the Holy Spirit. When a man and woman give themselves to each other in marriage, something new is created even before they step away from the altar. The objective reality of their marriage comes into being and exists in a way that is separate, but dependent on the two people in the marriage. This dependency is not upon the will of the two people joined, but upon their lives. Their marriage will objectively exist until death do they part.

When a couple divorces, they tear apart and divide what God has created to be the symbol of His Unity in the Trinity: the family. The painful effects of such a rupture are often far reaching. It can be particularly damaging to the children of their marriage, who have lost what was supposed to be their image of complete and unconditional love—their image of God on earth.

The Third Attack: Contraception

The second attack of the three that has broken through the walls of the broader Christian kingdom and proceeded to pillage and destroy the interior of that kingdom is contraception. At the beginning of Creation, God gave all animals the blessing of the ability to produce another being like itself. Only in man, however, can we call this blessing procreation instead of reproduction. Only man has been given the privilege of assisting God in the creation of new souls. It is a privilege so important and sacred that it has always been entrusted to two people and marked with a degree of pleasure befitting the goodness of such an act. Moreover, it is a power which makes man truly God-like in the love which motivates it. To will to bring into existence a creature that you will care for and sacrifice for and who has done nothing for you, is indeed incapable of doing anything for you at the beginning, is an act imaging the love that drove God in the act of creation.

The act of contraception, however, opposes the image of the Trinity by removing from a man and woman the natural end of their love and the damage caused by this removal is proportional to the good it damages. While a single contraceptive act, even between a man and wife, is gravely sinful as it opposes the end set forth by the natural law, the effects of a contraceptive mindset are even more terrifying. Through the adoption of a contraceptive mindset, our culture has separated marital love and the creation of children into two separate camps. The fruits of such a separation are bountiful in our culture: pre- and extra-martial relations, masturbation, pornography, abortion, fatherless children, the acceptance of homosexuality and numerous other sexual disorders. It paves the way for marital love, which is supposed to express perfect self-giving to another, to corrupt into selfishness and mutual use. The Trinity shows that love is fruitful by its very nature. The love between the Father and the Son spirates out from them and is another Person. To act contrary to the natural end of love is to act contrary to love itself.

The family is the building block of society and God has will that it be the building block of the supernatural society of the Church as well. He has also made it the natural image for His very Nature, the greatest mystery of the Catholic faith. We must defend this great gift from God which has been entrusted to us by living and proclaiming the truth.

Power Play

Abortion, Bioethics, Contraception, Human Dignity, Magisterium, Theology of the Body, , ,

As the Church marks the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, much has been said regarding the prophetic character of Blessed Paul VI’s controversial encyclical.  In particular, the Pope predicted that four things would happen as contraceptive use spread throughout a society.  There would be an increase in marital infidelity, a general lowering of moral standards, a loss of reverence for woman as she is reduced to an instrument for the satisfaction of a man’s desires and governments would use coercive power to implement “family planning” policies.  In reading the signs of the times, the Pope saw the consequences clearly, but why he was so easily able to see this is just important.  For these consequences were just symptoms of a deeper mindset that the Holy Father feared would ultimately conquer the hearts and minds of men, a mindset that was just as soul-killing as the contraceptive mentality to which it was linked.  After uttering his prophecy of consequences, the Holy Father tells us the root cause is man’s unwillingness to “accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go” (HV , 17).

On the one hand this is nothing new.  One can even say that Original Sin itself is the mark of man’s unwillingness to accept his creaturely limits.  Man in his Edenic bliss can eat from every tree in the Garden, save one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (GN 2:16-17).  Made in the likeness of God, he is confronted with the choice to be “like gods who know good and evil” (Gn 3:5).  That is, he has a choice between conforming himself to the limits of reality, or shaping reality to his liking.  He quickly finds out that his decision was never a real option.  He passes his confusion on to his progeny along with a proclivity for choosing likewise.

Confusing Limits

Because man is now in a state of confusion, he must set out to discover reality as it really is.  To enter into a relationship with reality he must also (re-)discover himself as he really is (including his limits) as well.  At first, because of his confusion reality appears rock solid and he discovers many limitations in himself.  But as the field of discovery expands, he finds that he has the power to manipulate reality more and more.  His limitations become blurred except when he asks a simple question: does this new power over reality include power over myself?  If so, then it is actually a power within reality, which is the only true power.  Otherwise it is a grasping and remaking of reality.

In many ways chemical contraception represents a paramount example of this principle in play.  In the past contraception usually involved changing the act, but with the Pill and the like came the power to alter the reality of a woman’s reproductive system.  But this is no mere biological alteration, but an alteration to a person’s biology.  Therefore it has to be viewed through a personalistic lens.  Does the power the Pill gives over a woman’s cycle carry with it the power of the woman to master herself?  And, because a woman’s reproductive system is a relational system, does the Pill give the man in whom she enters into a reproductive relationship with a power to master himself?

Power

The wisdom of Blessed Paul VI’s condemnation of contraception begins to emerge, especially when we add a second principle.  With the emergence of new technology comes new power over reality.  This power is given at the service of controlling men.  The question is which men will be controlled.  Will the new power be used to control man himself?  Or will the power be used to control other men?  Or as CS Lewis put it in The Abolition of Man “For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means…the power of some men to make other men what they please.”

Blessed Paul VI was so accurate in his predictions because he knew that the Pill wasn’t really a medicine to control births, but a poison to control other people.  His forecasts are really about the power of one person over another.  More to the point, the Pill is about men exercising their power over women.  It tells women in order to gain her rightful share in society she must act like one of the big boys.  But because woman is a “misbegotten male” she must take a pill to do this.  But in truth it is a ploy in which man, who is fertile all the time, can find partners who are infertile all the time.  It absolves him of all responsibility and creates an injustice in which women are treated as inferiors.  What is so puzzling is that many of them, in the name of equality, swallow the pill anyway.  Shouldn’t society have to change and adapt to the feminine genius and not woman herself?  As then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (the future St. John Paul II) said ,

“Contraception makes no contribution to the woman’s personal rights.  Since it is a process that makes it possible to satisfy the ‘needs of the sexual instinct’ without taking on any of the responsibility for the consequences of sexual activity, it primarily benefits the man.  This is why, once accepted contraception leads to sanctioning his erotic hedonist behavior.  In this situation, inevitably, the man benefits at the expense of the woman.  He ceases to regard the woman in the context of transmitting life.  She becomes for him simply the occasion for enjoying pleasure.  If one adds to this the fact that it is inscribed in the very structure of man to take initiative in the sexual realm and that the danger of being violated is a threat primarily to the woman, then one must admit that the more constitution of the woman appears grim indeed.  Therefore, when contraception is used, the woman faces not only inequality but also sexual slavery.”

In his opening paragraph of Humanae Vitae, Blessed Paul VI recognized that technology, especially reproductive technologies, were a force that the Church was going to need to confront.  Unfortunately she has not been up to the task and many women have suffered because of it.  As the Church continues to celebrate this Golden Anniversary of Humane Vitae, let’s work towards a rediscovery of the golden wisdom contained within this prophetic document.