04/23/2004

It has been interesting to follow the discussion on just mark and elsewhere about the issue of contraception. One of the things adduced for the no-contraception approach is a document called the "Quiverfull FAQ". Below are some thoughts on the FAQ. I take the approach of trying to draw out the assumptions of the FAQ because they are not always stated explicitly:

Assumptions and Arguments of the Quiverfull FAQ

1. Homeschooling is ideal: After all, if church-schooling were ideal, and church-schooling costs money, then one must weigh the relative blessings of being able to provide one's children with the ideal form of education versus having as many children as biologically possible. Many Christians don't happen to agree with the idea that homeschooling is the ideal form of Christian education. One of the "enabling technologies" of the quiverfull idea emerges as being essential to the case. Of course, this could simply be because the view is uber-coherent, but it could also be a result that the procreation ideal pushes one to. Personally, I think church-schooling is ideal so I've got a long way to go before the quiverfull FAQ is going to scratch where I itch. The Quiverfull faq presents an entire, take-it-or-leave-it lifestyle; its parts don't really work apart from the whole.

2. Procreation is unlike any other blessing: After all, if it is a sin for a married couple to conceive any less times than is biologically possible, then one cannot pit the blessings of conception with other blessings, like health, or comfort, or opportunities available only to smaller families, or certain kinds of educational values, etc. Yet for all other blessings in life - good food, comfort, companionship, the joy of hearing sound preaching, the comfort of living in a safe nation, the joy of serving God in a dangerous occupation, etc., it is completely lawful to weigh these blessings against each other. One might, for instance, weigh the blessing/duty of honoring one's parents against the blessing of serving God as a missionary in a dangerous country against one's parents' wishes. Another example could be sacrificing the blessing of sitting under good preaching in order to serve in a church that needs a godly influence., etc. Or consider a family with an autistic child - the value of rehabilitating that child which takes enormous time and money is sacrificed to the value of having more children.

3. Procreation is unlike any other duty: After all, if one can weigh one's duty to honor one's parents against the duty to serve God in missions, or the duty to take care of one's body with the duty to serve neighbors in dangerous situations, but one cannot weigh the duty to procreate against the duty for bodily health or certain occupations that require small families or even against the duty to be a good parent given one's limitations, etc. then procreation becomes a duty unlike any other. Consider the mother prone to depression; the FAQ's worldview would imply not taking that into account in deciding what size family a person with a particular personality could handle. Every biblical duty is qualified besides the duty to have no other god above Yahweh.

4. Calling to marry is selfsame with calling to procreate: Having children moves from being one of the reasons God instituted marriage to being a duty of marriage. The FAQ even implies that grief is appropriate for every month that passes without conception. So a calling to be single, while rare, is a legitimate calling of God. And a calling to be married and actively attempting procreation is a legitimate calling of God, if not the default calling for all humans. But a calling to be married without actively pursuing procreation is an impossibility, an aberration, a second class form of living. This comes with some odd implications: that couples who both carry a dominant gene for an illness that will definitely result in miscarriage cannot use contraception and pursue adoption, for instance. To the authors of the FAQ, repeatedly pursuing miscarriage seems like a natural outworking of seeking the blessing of blessings. To others, it seems like God wants us to use our inductive reasoning and pursue either adoption or other activities that a couple without children would be well-equipped to pursue.

5. Those who limit family size are secondary participants in the dominion mandate: as if filling the earth and subduing it doesn' t take all kinds of married couples. No, it seems to require the kind of married couples who give their youths entirely to the project of procreation, homeschooling, etc. The FAQ explicitly states that "Be fruitful and multiply" is not a command given to everyone. The reason is that the FAQ so narrowly construes what being fruitful and multiplying means. There are many ways to participate in this process of filling and subduing the earth, from being a doctor to being a farmer providing food for procreating couples.

6. Providence: The FAQ moves back and forth between decrying Providence when that concept is used in arguments for contraception and using Providence itself in arguments for contraception. Moral reasoning based on providence is exactly what is going on when one applies Mark 9:36-37 to children one has not yet conceived. Using birth control is described as "taking matters into our own hands". Whose hands is the decision not to use birth control in?

7. Stewardship consists in managing the blessings we have, but not in choosing which blessings to pursue in the first place. This relates to number two above and is unargued.

8. Onan's sin is relevant to the ethics of contraception. Onan refused to fulfill his levirate duties. For generations of interpreters believing in homunculi, I can certainly understand why Christian interpretation has a history of applying this passage to coitus interruptus simpliciter. Freed from such primitive reproductive biology, it is not surprising that we moderns are better equipped to observe the real sin of Onan - denying someone levirate rights and thereby threatening the promised seedline.

Given that every biblical duty besides the proscribing of idolatry is subject to qualification and every biblical blessing is sought out in balance with other potential blessings and duties, doesn't it seem just a little strange for someone to come along and produce an argument that virtually isolates procreation from the nature of those other duties and blessings? Doesn't wisdom lead us to be hugely skeptical of such a package deal as is forced upon us if we adopt the view that contraception is always wrong? The Christian life is full of uncertainty; the moral man constantly weighs various blessings that could be sought against other opportunities, both for blessings and for service. That's just the way navigating life is. The authors of the very autobiographical FAQ may get along quite well in their approach, but consider if the wife had one of the various kinds of Rh factor problems and that by the third or fourth pregnancy, every future pregnancy would require in-utero blood transfusions at the best and certain fetal death at the worse? What if the family preferred church schooling to home schooling? What if the husband or wife tended toward clinical depression and could not easily handle having more responsibility? What if one of the children was disabled and treatment was available that might mean having another child would be cost prohibitive for a while? What if the family lived in China and couldn't move? The quiverfull FAQ describes a complex, package deal that would work for some percentage of families and be an onerous burden for another percentage of families. Wisdom has to send up red flags here about such a thing.