Question 3

Dear Fr. Matthew,

In our scripture study class I said that when couples contracept by artificial means, many children were not permitted to come into being. Because of this, some people do not exist that God intended to be conceived. The opposition said that, yes, life begins at conception and some people do abort. But other than that, God does cause all those to be born that he had planned to be born. I think that God planned to create many more children, but He does not go around the barriers of contraception, or against the parents’ will. What do you think?

Thank-you in advance, S.
 

Dear S.

At conception, God gives life to a new human person, who will live forever. It is the intention of God that a newly conceived person has the opportunity to pursue a full normal course of existence on this earth, and then to be received into Heaven with Him for all eternity.

Abortion destroys the physical life of the unborn. Many forms of contraception are also abortifacient. When a mother decides to abort her child, she is clearly thwarting God’s plan for the life of her child. The soul of the aborted child continues to live.

God planned for every conceptus to be born and to move along the trajectory of life. Once God gives life, He does not take it back. This applies also to stillborn babies and miscarriages. Only God understand these mysteries, and all life is ultimately in His control. He seems to allow defects of physical nature to have their natural consequences. God provides for these premature deaths. Their souls continue to live.

Contraception prevents God from creating the full number of children He has always intended to give to a given couple. God knows how many children He has planned for every married couple. One of the evils of contraception, perhaps the greatest evil, is that it prevents God from being God, from being able to create new persons. The contracepting couple wants to be masters over life, instead of servants of life. \

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:3-4). From all eternity God has planned to call each of us into existence at a given time, from a given set of parents. We are very special to Him, and there are no accidents involved. He has numbered the very hairs on our head.

God decided to allow us to cooperate with him as pro-creators, as bodied-persons who are fertile. That always involves free will on our part. God allows us to abuse our freedom, as in the case of contraception and sterilization. But that is exactly the nature of sin: the abuse of our freedom.
By contraception, a couple refuses to allow God to create all the children he desires.

Cordially yours,
Fr. Matthew Habiger OSB
To contact Fr. Matthew with a question on NFP, email him at mhabiger@kansasmonks.org