Family UnPlanning, Part One - Sex and Reproduction

In this review, J. Matthew Sleeth discusses a Christian argument for small families, based on the Golden Rule. My wife and I desire to have a large family, of not only biological children, but also adopted and foster, if God sees fit to bless us. We have also chosen not to use contraception. Naturally, I was interested in this opposing viewpoint, printed in a journal that I respect.

Sleeth argues that it's okay to use contraceptives for family planning purposes. I agree, mostly, that some contraception is an option for Christians, but I'll get to my perspective in bit. Sleeth summarizes the argument against contraception as thus:

Is the use of contraception against Christian teaching? I have heard many versions of this argument, but they all boil down to the same thing: Contraception is against God's law, since it interferes with the created purpose of sexual intercourse. In short, contraception is unnatural.

This is a straw man if I ever saw one, one that hits especially close to home. I believe that Sleeth has mischaracterized the argument against contraception and that he, ultimately, misses the point about sexual reproduction.

The Theology of Reproduction
Sleeth gets it backwards. Reproduction is not the "created purpose of sexual intercourse." Reproduction is the natural fruit of intercourse. Here, I'm summarizing an argument I first heard from James Houston, who was discussing the Trinity and drawing on writings of the Cappadocians and C.S. Lewis. In the beginning, God made human beings in his image. But why did God need to make anything? The Trinity is a self-sufficient community. God is the great "I AM." He exists because of himself, for himself, without need for prior cause, without need of anything at all, including human company. The pagan gods of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world needed human beings to make sacrifices, worship them, and honor their sacred places. YHWH transcends humanity.

So why bother with human beings, or a created universe for that matter? Because God is love, and love is expansive. It's like yeast, or a mustard seed, or good news that spreads and spreads, filling everything and everyone. The Trinity created the universe, and created us, out of an expansive love that sought more persons to love. God did not need to create us, or anything at all. He wanted to. We are wanted by God.

And we are made in his image. "Be fruitful and multiple in number" are God's very first words to human beings. We are to be productive like God - generating new persons to love. In the perfect marriage, children are created out of the love between 'adam and 'adamah. It is a joyful expansion of the love between the lovers. In a sense, children "proceeds" from the marriage. It is not a coincidence that emotional bedrocks of a marriage - the wedding, sexual union, and the birth of children - are part of a continuous whole.

To reduce the connection between sex and childbirth to a matter of mere purpose is like saying the created purpose of Jesus was to die on the cross. There's nothing incorrect, per se, with that statement, but it misses the mark entirely.

Next, the theology of children.