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Travis Fentiman

Dec. 2025

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Outline

Intro
Feser’s Main Argument & Qualifications
Counter-Arguments:

1. If the Syllogism is Sound, Contraception is Moral
2. Counter-Examples
3. Natural Family Planning
4. Not Inherently Wrong
5. Pleasure: not Only Subordinate to Procreation
6. Sex contrary to Fertilization: Naturally Designed by God
7. Conception is Cursed
8. Contra-Acting & the Greater Good
9. Syllogism’s Limitations: Unjustified
10. Partial Fulfillment of an Unattainable Greater Good
11. Divinely Provided Natural & Artificial Contraceptives
12. Gradation of Principles & Practices
13. God, Eve, Temptation, Self-Denial & Christ

Conclusions

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Intro

Edward Feser is a popular Roman Catholic professor of philosophy and an Analytical Thomist, who has made a forcible, chapter long argument (worthy of a professional philosopher) that using contraceptives in sex is immoral.¹

¹ Edward Feser, ch. 16, ‘In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument’ in Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), pp. 378-415.  This was put on the net by Feser.

Feser argues primarily from natural law and its metaphysical underpinnings, which things I largely agree with (unlike many of Feser’s published critics heretofore, to whom he has replied; hence my contribution to the issues).  I commend reading Feser’s chapter as:

(1) it includes a superb, brief and profound summary of how ethics derives from what exists, a la natural law (pp. 383-87), and

(2) it brings a great amount of valuable considerations to the discussion tying sex, marriage and family into a coherent whole.

However, I intend to show Feser’s premises, and reality itself, do not necessitate his conclusion, and that very clearly, by way of thirteen main arguments.  In doing this it will be seen contraception may be in accord with natural law, and as we go along, also with Christian Scripture.  Feser does not bring Scripture into the equation, hence the focus here on God’s natural law.²  Scriptural treatments of the topic are available elsewhere (though they do not interact with Feser’s specific claims).³  As Feser must needs be met at the level of his arguments, this answer will be in some places technical.  First, Feser’s main argument will be set forth with its numerous, principal explanations and qualifications.

² See ‘Scripture Upholds the Light & Law of Nature & Right Reason’ at ‘The Suficiency of Scripture’ (RBO).

³ See Travis Fentiman’s Response to Paul Barth and Philip Kayser, Conception Control: Avoiding Antinomianism & Legalism (Biblical Blueprints, 2017).

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Feser’s Main Argument
& its Qualifications

Feser’s main argument¹ in laymen’s terms is:

If a faculty (such as a sex organ) is natural to a person,² and by nature exists for the sake of some end (such as procreation), and it exists in the person precisely so that he might pursue that end, then it is metaphysically impossible for it to be good for the person to use that faculty in a manner contrary to that end (e.g. procreation).

¹ Here are his own words: “Where some faculty F is natural to a rational agent A and by nature exists for the sake of some end E (and exists in A precisely so that A might pursue E), then it is metaphysically impossible for it to be good for A to use F in a manner contrary to E.” (p. 398)

² Feser uses the term “rational agent,” which term may be likely intended to include God in the matter, who is three Persons acting through his one rational nature, though Feser does not expressly bring God into the issue.  For reading intelligibility I will use “person” throughout.  For how God is implicated by the syllogism, see Argument 13.

Feser explains and qualifies this syllogism in numerous ways (pp. 398-402):

1. He limits the issue to being with a rational person: “there is nothing in the premise that implies that it is wrong for a rational person to use a plant or animal in a way that is contrary to what is good for it by nature, or to use an artifact in a way that is contrary to its function.”  Hence counter-examples from nature, external to a person, will not invalidate Feser’s syllogism, as the syllogism does not speak to such.  Feser does not deny damming rivers may be good, and may very well affirm it.

2. The syllogism does not deny that a faculty can “have more than one natural end, and neither does it entail that it cannot be good for” the person to use the faculty (and that by conscious intention) “for an end other than” the one specified, as another end does not need to be contrary to the specified end.  Hence just as eating can be for (and consciously intended for) socializing without consciously thinking about nutrition, so sex can be for (and be consciously intended for) pleasurable unity without being contrary to conception.

3. Nor must the faculty be used at all (as the syllogism does not speak to this).  Hence, refraining from sex in some situations, or always, does not invalidate the syllogism.

4. Nor is it entailed a person cannot use his faculty if he knows the specified end will not be achieved.¹  In that case he is not using the faculty for the sake of frustrating the realization of the specified end.  For example, to foresee conception will not occur is not the same as using one’s natural faculty in a way that will prevent conception, as foreseeing something happening is not the same as causing it to occur.  For instance, having sex for pleasurable unity with one’s pregnant wife, who cannot conceive again, or with her after menopause, is not to attempt to frustrate conception.  The faculties work herein according to their design and natural course.

¹ Feser here does not reflect Aquinas, who appears to go further: “…because it is inconsistent with the end of the venereal act.  In this way, as hindering the begetting of children, there is the vice against nature, which attaches to every venereal act from which generation cannot follow;” Summa, pt. 2 of 2, Question 154, art. 1, I answer.

5. “To use organs that happen to be damaged, worn out, or otherwise non-functional to the extent that they will not realize their end, is not to pervert them…”  The use of a deficient faculty is still inline with its natural purpose though it be not fully effective therein.

6. Since the faculty exists for the sake of the person as a whole, it is “perfectly consistent” with the premise to “destroy” the faculty, if doing so is the only way to preserve the agent, such as in having “cancerous organs surgically removed.”

7. Feser is not against artificial devices per se, which could be lawfully used in some ways to promote legitimate human flourishing and conception (think of Viagra for someone who has erectile dysfunction, though Feser uses, initially, non-sexual examples).  Rather, the issue is with something being “contrary to nature,” or in that it “actively frustrates the end toward which a faculty is naturally ‘directed.'”

8. “Nor…  is the premise in any way undermined by the possibility that someone might have a deep-seated and perhaps even genetically-based desire to use” his faculty “in a way contrary to” the specified end.  If someone is born with clubfoot, “his feet have the same natural end, [but] they are defective in a way that makes them less capable of realizing that natural end.”  If someone is born with a predilection toward alcoholism, “while he has the same natural ends as other human beings, the realization of which requires avoiding drinking to excess, he has a psychological defect that makes it harder for him to realize those ends.”

These contextual considerations and qualifications (and further lesser ones) allow Feser to keep some common sense things appropriate in sex while yet disallowing the withdrawal method, manual or oral stimulation of the husband’s genitals unto orgasm, masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality (p. 403)…  and contraception.

Feser is also able with these conditions to ward off the arguments of his previously published critics, who sometimes offered suboptimal counter-examples.  I can either agree with Feser’s responses to his critics in the chapter or be sympathetic enough to allow them.  What I propose here takes all that for granted, yet intends to bring to bear new arguments, many of which arise from common ground with Feser and from reality itself (which is common to everyone).

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Counter-Arguments

The thirteen main arguments to follow will entail:

1. If the Syllogism is Sound, Contraception is still Moral
2. Counter-Examples
3. Natural Family Planning
4. Not Inherently Wrong
5. Pleasure: not Completely Subordinate to Procreation
6. Sex contrary to Fertilization: Naturally Designed by God
7. Conception is Cursed
8. Contra-Acting & the Greater Good
9. The Syllogism’s Limitations: Unjustified
10. Partial Fulfillment of an Unattainable Greater Good
11. Divinely Provided Natural & Artificial Contraceptives
12. Gradation of Principles & Practices
13. God, Eve, Temptation, Self-Denial & Christ

The first argument will show that if Feser’s syllogism is sound, yet contraception may still be allowed, due to Feser’s ambiguous terms (or rather, his argument hinges on an equivocation).  The counter-examples following from common life and sex itself will show Feser is clearly wrong.  Why the counter-examples are right will show why Feser is wrong.

The rest of the arguments involve aspects of reality Feser, it is believed, is not taking into account (at least expressly in his chapter).  Section 9 reveals ways in which his syllogism’s self-imposed limitations appear arbitrary (without Feser further proving they are not); if this be so, Feser is not consistent with himself.  The eighth and tenth sections will layout how the insights presented here synthesize and account for more of reality at a deeper level, more accurately and with more explanatory power than Feser’s paradigm.  The analysis of reality here accounts for a greater share of gradation in ethical, everyday living (section 12), this being a greater good and more preferable than Feser’s view, which will be seen to be extreme.  The last section will find that, while Feser’s syllogism is true for God, yet it makes human temptation and self-denial, including for Christ (with quotes by reformed theologians), impossible, or if it is not, contraception may be moral.

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1. If Feser’s Syllogism is Sound, Contraception may
still be Moral: the Ambiguity of Feser’s Terms

If Feser’s syllogism is sound, it still allows for the morality of contraception due to the ambiguity of Feser’s terms.  The syllogism entails a person’s natural faculty existing “for the sake of” an end, precisely so that the person “might pursue” that end.  The relevant end of the sexual faculty is “procreation” (pp. 389, 391-92, 395), and is never stated by Feser to be conception.

In the term “pursue” there is a difference between: (1) pursuit in every particular circumstance, and (2) pursuit to the general end, which may not need to entail every relevant, particular circumstance.  In the term “procreation” there is a difference between: (1) conception in every relevant instance, and (2) procreation in general, something having a tendency to the general end of procreation, even if procreation never occurs in any circumstance.

How does Feser use “procreation”?  He says in one place: “there is no such thing as a sexual act which of its nature is merely unitive and in no way procreative…” (p. 395)  Yet it is absurd to say this with respect to conception, as there are many sexual acts which in their nature in no way actualize conception, nor could.  Feser allows having sex at a time of the month the woman cannot conceive, yet this act, for Feser, must yet be procreative in nature.  Feser believes “it is perfectly consistent with the premise for someone to refrain from sex…  even just to avoid pregnancy,” (p. 400) that is conception; yet the couple’s larger actions may be consistent with procreation.  Feser in many places through the chapter uses “procreation” in a general sense, including where sex unto procreation can only be a probable means¹ unto conception.  Feser includes in “procreation” even child-rearing, in that procreation involves, at least potentially, forming children “into persons capable of fulfilling their nature as distinctively rational animals.” (p. 390)  It is easy for the reader to (wrongly) read conception into Feser’s use of “procreation,” giving Feser’s reasoning against contraception much persuasive force founded on equivocation.

¹ “…nature makes it very difficult to indulge in sex without procreation…  we’re built in such a way that sexual arousal is hard to resist and occurs very frequently, and such that it is very difficult to avoid pregnancies resulting from indulgence of that arousal.  The obvious conclusion is that the natural end of sex is (in part) not just procreation, but procreation in large numbers.” (pp. 389-90)

When procreation as a general end is inputted into Feser’s syllogism (and must be, not conception), the syllogism determines as immoral any use of the sexual faculty contrary to the general end of procreation.  Yet it is clear not every act contrary to conception is an act contrary to the general end of procreation, as procreation may still be intended and actually occur in one’s broader actions over time, and contraception may even support the general end of procreation.  Yet, by sleight of hand, Feser concludes not for the immorality of going against the general end of procreation altogether, but for the immorality of contraception.  Hence, if Feser’s syllogism is sound, contraception may still be moral.

However, for the sake of argument, allow Feser’s syllogism to stand in its conclusion against contraception.

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2. Counter-Examples

The absolute claim of Feser’s syllogism, if it concludes what he wants it to conclude, is too strong.  If he had said the essential ends of a person’s natural faculties render a general orientation for their ethical use, this generally bearing significant ethical weight: this would be true.  However, it only takes one counter-example to disprove the claim of something being “metaphysically impossible”.  Feser says:

“I submit that there are no such [legitimate] counterexamples, and that there could not be any given an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of the good.” (p. 409)

The following counter-examples will be consistent with “an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of the good.”

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Pain Relievers

Consider that persons have the natural faculty in their bodies of neural, sensory and pain transmission and processing.  An essential end of this faculty, by its very structure and inherent teleology, is to convey painful sensations.  A person chooses to take pain medicine or a muscle relaxer, which blocks this transmission of pain signals in the central nervous system or brain (and hence blocks the inherent teleology), this being for the (higher) good and flourishing of the person, as nearly everyone (rightly) accepts.  One might take pain desensitizing drugs to storm enemy lines, as both sides did in WWII, though this action be contrary to the natural life of the whole person, for greater, natural and rational purposes.

It might be responded that pain is a deficiency, which the medicine is relieving one from; hence this example is excluded by Feser’s 5th or 7th Qualification above.  Yet for whatever the nature of the quality of pain is, the natural faculty in transmitting it is working according to its natural teleology in due order.  Transmission of pain or a degree of unpleasantness is natural and not necessarily a deficiency of natural teleology, so far as there would have been variation and some pain or unpleasant sensations in Eden before Adam’s disobedience to God.  Feeling a prickly pine cone is useful in knowing not to grasp it too tightly and hurting oneself, giving respect for the nature of the object and how it be handled.¹

cf. Richard Baxter, ‘Whether there were any passions in the state of innocence’ in The Government of the Passions according to the Rules of Reason & Religion… (London: J. Knapton, 1700), pp. 17-19

Feser, in responding to counter-examples in some way similar to the ones I have given, distinguishes (1) “an individual deliberate act of using a bodily faculty” from “an ongoing and involuntary physiological process,” and says that in the latter case (2) there “is no specific individual event that initiates the latter processes and there is no specific individual event that culminates any of them either,” whereas there is in sex (p. 407).

Yet soldiers storming enemy lines is an individual, deliberate act oriented to a specific (not simply general) end which initiates the process of transmitting pain, and the specific, individual event that culminates the act is victory.  In storming the lines, in the natural faculty itself, the initiating specific event is the occurrence of pain, and the culminating, specific event (which is blocked) is the sensation of pain.  Or one could choose to inflict pain on oneself and take an analgesic for the greater purpose of the specific event and culmination of a medical study.

Why can it be right to take analgesics?  The artificially composed chemicals, by the design of man’s natural faculty of reasoning, bind to neural receptors so the faculty’s own inhering transmitters cannot do so and pass along the signal.  The chemicals have to be engineered precisely right to “cover” the receptors, which receptors are able to receive such a covering by nature and by the receptors’ potential, general capacities (and hence their general, intrinsic ends).  Feser essentially allows for this in accounting for how shaving is not wrong: it is “hair production in general” that is the “natural end” of hair follicles (p. 407), and not that they grow without impediment.  Yet a condom has been carefully, rationally engineered to cover the penis and fit within the vagina for what may be a greater good.  The general capacities (or potentials) of these two organs allow for this; they (thus) have such intrinsic capacities and general ends.

Feser may respond that there is a significant difference between hair growing and our sexual organs: Growing hair has no clear, specific, teleologically tied counterpart external to itself, whereas genitalia do; and hence counteracting that sexual teleological end is immoral.  However, the penis does have its own distinct general, potentials and intrinsic ends, like pain receptors, which means it can function from its own general intrinsic designs, apart from the teleological whole.  Feser says with respect to shaving: “those general outcomes [of hair follicles] are not frustrated by any individual act of…  shaving…”  Likewise, the general natural ends of pain receptors are teleologically fulfilled in using analgesics and are not frustrated by their being blocked in that respect.  General, natural ends of the penis can be fulfilled and not frustrated by the individual act of using a condom.

It is acknowledged the penis’s larger purpose as a part of the teleological whole with the vagina is being acted contrary to, but whether this must be immoral is the difference at hand, and will be decided more fully below.  For now, note that the whole, intrinsic, teleological purpose of pain receptors in the central nervous system is (artificially) acted contrary to by the individual, deliberate choice of using analgesics (with starting and ending events), which is a morally good thing because it serves the greater flourishing of the human person.  All this is also the case with storming enemy lines.

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More Counter-Examples

Sex is a very unique act; hence it can be difficult to think of other actions akin to it that fit into Feser’s syllogism and qualifications.  This may give the impression that Feser’s argument has significant persuasive force, after he has defined out of the question nearly everything besides sex.  Feser does not provide any example of an action his syllogism is true for besides sex.  This may appear to be a begging of the question.  However, further counter-examples fitting Feser’s premises in his syllogism are:

2. Persons choosing to use immunosuppressive agents for organ transplants.

3. Choosing to cough or sneeze to clear a bodily irritation and yet suppress it in a quiet setting or for other reasons (such as it causing pain in one’s ribs, etc.).

4. Choosing to swallow and to resist and counteract the reflex in certain ways in order to swallow pills better; or when swallowing food or water, to then counteract it and cough to prevent aspiration; or after beginning to swallow something, to gag and spit it out due to taste or contamination.  All this contra-acts the realization of an essential, natural end of the swallowing faculty.

5. Urinating and defecating.  Both these have a specific event that begins the process (namely natural urges) and a culminating event (a feeling of relief) and may be an individual, rationally chosen, deliberate act.  To counter-act the exercises of these faculties when a bathroom is not around is a greater good that promotes human flourishing.  Persons sometimes choose to urinate, then suppress it completely in the act over and over again, doing Kegel exercises, in order to please their spouse with better sexual performance.  If one has a bowel obstruction and will die if one defecates, it is good to counteract the defecation.

6. Choosing to flatuate and then suppressing it to some extent due to social norms, or beginning to sniff something and then to resist and expel the smell.

7. Delaying (or contra-acting) orgasm can give heightened pleasure.

8. Plucking nose hairs for hygiene purposes and then resisting crying, because crying is unpleasant; or an actress choosing to cry for a scene, and then supressing this for the storyline.

9. Blocking a kick (or some other hurtful thing) with one’s shin.  It does not feel very good and may damage the shin’s natural function, but it is a greater good for the whole person.  To promote the life and good, and hence protection of the whole person, is undoubtedly an essential end of every part of a whole person.  Note in this example the organ is not destroyed, only relatively counteracted, and blocking with one’s shin is not the only way to preserve the person (cf. Qualification 6), as one could also step out of the way, block with one’s arm, etc.

10. Taping one’s eyes shut in playing a pinata game, for pleasure.  The natural teleological end of the eyes is not seeing the back of the eyelids, but the outside world; and taping them shut is counter the natural reflex and individual, deliberate acts to open them.

11. Choosing to fast for a greater, rational purpose (consistent with human flourishing) not only does not use the digestive system, but one must deliberately suppress its natural urges unto its external, essential teleological end, namely eating and deriving energy from food for human flourishing.

12. A haircut.  Hair growth has a beginning, and if most people find uncut hair to be eventually inconvenient, then it must have a natural/rational end, and hence must be counter-acted.

13. Virtual environments, optical illusions, stage magic and decoys in war.  These things in their chosen use deliberately manipulate vision contrary to what one will infer is reality or true (an essential teleological purpose of the visual organs), in a given context for a greater purpose.  Using virtual environments and optical illusions may be done by oneself, for oneself.  Stage magic by a magician is regularly consented to be watched as such by the observer, and hence involves the active willing of the beholder, contrary to the teleological ends of his natural faculties.

It is not clear in Feser’s view how acting contrary to the teleological ends of other persons’ natural faculties for a higher good purpose is moral.  But it is clear Gideon’s 300 men surrounding the enemy in the night and revealing torches, creating the fore-expected illusion for the enemy of being surrounded by a much larger army, as directed by God (Jud. 7:16-22), was good.  It is also clear Paul, in the material action of the (non-necessary in itself) ceremony of circumcising Timothy, which he had Christian liberty to do, knew the surrounding Jews would interpret this action as being from a religious observance of the Mosaic Law (contrary to reality), Paul herein not scandalizing the Jews, for the good of the Church (Acts 16:1-5); yet this was a good action,¹ and even morally necessary due to the circumstances.

¹ The reason for this is not all material actions for a good purpose, such as in using decoy tactics in war (Josh. 8:3-22), though one knows it will occur that others will misinterpret them, are wrong, even when the good is only brought about through their accidental (in the Aristotelian sense) misinterpretation of them.  Other examples are feints (Lk. 24:28) and fakes in sports, self-defense, instruction (Lk. 24:17-19) and in trying others (Gen. 22:1-2; Jn. 21:15-17), etc.  Cf. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.132-33.

Our conclusion, per Feser’s premises, is that it is metaphysically possible for a person to use his natural faculty in a manner contrary to an essential end of it, for the person’s good.

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3. Natural Family Planning

Feser in principle allows for Natural Family Planning without contraceptives (NFP), characterizing it as refraining from using a natural faculty, in contrast to actively going contrary to that faculty.¹  While the distinction between omission and contra-acting has a place in ethics, yet such refraining does go contrary to our natural faculties in numerous ways (which is why people are not always fond of NFP).

¹ “there is no such prohibition on merely refraining from sex…” (p. 398)  “it is perfectly consistent with the premise for someone to refrain from sex…  to avoid pregnancy.  For the premise does not say that there is anything necessarily contrary to nature in not using a faculty, only that there is something contrary to nature in using it in a way that actively frustrates the end of the faculty.” (p. 400)  “For human life is complicated and requires the pursuit of many different goods, not all of which can be pursued at the same time.  Sometimes one good can be sacrificed for the sake of a higher good…  Sometimes a good cannot be pursued because of circumstances, as when…  as when a married couple’s indulging the desire for intercourse might lead to a dangerous pregnancy.” (pp. 397-98)

NFP entails refraining from sex when one’s wife is, by her natural faculties, most sexually prepared, available and naturally, sexually desirable.  Around when the wife ovulates and is most fertile, the peak in her natural hormones has been shown to tend to give her more attractive features due to soft tissue changes, including fuller and more sensitive breasts, a slight rise in vocal pitch, greater pheromonal attractivity, her own sexual desire is increased and women may tend to dress more ornamentally, engage more in social interaction and display greater flirtatiousness (without necessarily conscious intent).  At the same time the spike in hormones enhances her vaginal lubrication (which becomes increasingly sperm conducive), she is capable of faster arousal, her genital blood flow and sensitivity is increased and her sexual neural circuits are sensitized, contributing to greater responsiveness in orgasm.  Needless to say the husband must regularly act contrary to the urges and teleological designs of his natural faculties during these times to maintain this unnatural practice, especially when he deliberately chooses against his better judgment to initiate sexual play.  Nor can such times in the month be strictly delimited: as evidenced by the gradual cyclical falling and rising of a woman’s basal body temperature; her natural teleology is going on all month long.

So refraining also so far acts contrary in some measure to the essential, unitive, pleasurable design of marriage, being a willing deficiency from it.  While a couple need not come together sexually at every or all times, yet an inappropriate refraining therefrom (as is very relevant to the question of using contraceptives or not) is a falling short of marriage’s unitive purpose and the natural and specially revealed law of God (1 Cor. 7:2-5), and his glory (Rom. 3:23).  That is, complete omission in principle is not necessarily ethically safe ground, refraining being in some respect, at times, a contra-acting of the relevant teleology.  Refraining and contra-acting can be distinguished (and are often ethically relevant), but there are continuous fundamental principles between them which may put them on a sliding scale of proportion and degree.

If contraception is immoral on Feser’s grounds, so is NFP.  If NFP is lawful, on Feser’s grounds so must be contraception.

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4. The Relevant Contra-Acting is
Not Inherently Wrong

Feser allows that a natural faculty, which exists for the good of the whole person, may be destroyed or removed if this is the only way to preserve the person (p. 399).  The only reason he gives for this, besides stating that it is the “principle of totality” (meaning that a lesser part may serve the greater whole) is that so destroying the faculty is not “to use it for the sake of actively frustrating the realization of” an essential end of it.  Feser’s (hopefully unconscious) sleight of hand is that once the organ is removed (which is not considered to be a use of it), the organ is no longer in the picture, and hence is not being used or contra-acted.  But that is because in destroying it one has acted contrary to it and all its teleology.  To put it philosophically and more accurately:

The power to do something is something more foundational and greater than an exercise of it.

(1) To contra-act a faculty’s exercise realizing the existence of an essential teleological design, is something lesser than to act contrary to the very existence of the intrinsic, teleology of the faculty itself (e.g. the male gonads), wherein all its exercises are contained virtually, as proportionate effects in a cause.

(2) To destroy the faculty (e.g. the gonads) is contrary to the teleology of procreation, inclusive of the teleology and exercises of the external, complementary, completing faculty (e.g. the female reproductive system), which can no longer complete its teleology.

To put it another way: an exercise requires a power or possibility for the exercise.  To act contrary to the power or possibility of exercising unto an end is to act more contrary to teleology than simply to contra-act a teleological action.  Is not acting contrary to a power’s exercise, an acting contrary to that power?  To contra-act a power is to contra-act, in some more basic and complete way, that power’s exercise.

Feser’s limiting his syllogism to acting contrary to a faculty’s use and not the faculty itself is arbitrary.  The one implies the other; and if contra-acting a faculty be moral, so is contra-acting an exercise of it.  If you can morally get a vasectomy,¹ and need to, but don’t have the money, you can in the meantime use contraceptives.

¹ See Fentiman, ‘That Permanent Sterilization, Tying One’s Tubes or a Vasectomy may be Morally Lawful’ (RBO).

All this means contraceptives are not inherently wrong.  If Feser implicitly allows contraception when it “is the only way to preserve” the person, what if it is not the only way, but the most effective way?:

Say your wife will most certainly die due to medical reasons (with the baby) if she gets pregnant.  You can, on Feser’s paradigm, simply refrain from sex for decades, or try NFP, wherein you may slip up, or she may ovulate way before she expects.  Given that you may have in part got married because you do not believe you or her are able to contain yourselves in burning (1 Cor. 7:9), and project, due to your weaknesses, you both will likely slip up one way or another (as many do), would it be wrong to herein use more effective contraceptives, when it is not the only way to preserve her life?

All this is not to play Devil’s advocate, but to get at the ethical principles, and their balancing proportions, that govern reality.  What about when contraceptives are the most economical option?  Given the same circumstances, but one does not have money for a vasectomy, and a government program is giving out free condoms, is it wrong to use them?

Lastly, what if contraceptives, which we have seen are not inherently wrong, are the most convenient option? in comparison to the burning of abstinence (which is contrary to inherent, natural teleology) and the inconvenience of NFP without contraceptives?  Ought not one to use contraceptives in these cases?

The principle of totality entails, I submit: If contra-acting one’s own faculty is not wrong, then so doing, even in its exercises toward essential ends, when it is for the betterment of the person, is good.

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5. Sexual Pleasure is not Completely Subordinate
to Procreation

Feser allows for a flexibility of pleasure about sex (especially in mental intention), yet:

“When analyzing the biological significance of either eating or sex, to emphasize pleasure would be to put the cart before the horse.  Pleasure has its place, but it is secondary.” (p. 389)

“procreation is the reason sex exists in the first place, even if sex does not in every case result in procreation and even if procreation could have occurred in some other way.” (p. 392)

I submit that the relationship of pleasure and procreation in sex is not so simple as pleasure being wholly subordinate, or “secondary,” to procreation.  Pleasure is normally present 100% of the time in sex, whereas conception is not (e.g. during about 75% of a woman’s monthly cycle, during pregnancy and after menopause).  Feser has a different understanding of this relationship, still holding sexual pleasure here to be subordinate in its existence to procreation in general throughout life.

I appeal to the Word: Adam was not created like the animals, who were in pairs and could therein reproduce, but was alone.  His loneliness and teleological need for companionship, this being a deficit of the exercise of his higher rational and social faculties, was the immediate reason why God gave him Eve, whom he would be “one flesh” with.  Coming together in sex is the epitome of being one flesh, being a consummation of marriage.  Pleasure in the other person, especially in sex, used rightly, always tends to the unitive, cleaving purpose of marriage (Gen. 2:24) and is integral to marital companionship.  Hence sex continues through life when bearing children does not (bearing children is more suitable to the middle of life).

Only after Eve was created and this rational and social need of companionship was met, “God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply…'” (Gen. 1:28)  While procreation, a lesser biological process common to animals, seems to have been in view from the moment of Eve’s creation (Gen. 2:24), yet Feser rightly relates the subordination (in some appropriate respect) of the good of the lesser sensory faculties to the higher:

“These goods are ordered in a hierarchy corresponding to the traditional Aristotelian hierarchy of living things (viz. the vegetative, sensory, and rational forms of life, respectively).  The higher goods presuppose the lower ones; for example, one cannot pursue truth if one is not able to conserve oneself in existence.  But the lower goods are subordinate to the higher ones in the sense that they exist for the sake of the higher ones.  The point of fulfilling the vegetative and sensory aspects of our nature is, ultimately, to allow us to fulfill the defining rational aspect of our nature.” (p. 384)

While sexual pleasure is primarily sensory, yet (properly used) it directly tends to the unitive purpose of marriage (inclusive of its rationality) 100% of the time, and that not simply through procreation, but apart from it (such as during 75% of the woman’s cycle, during pregnancy and after menopause).

The marriage relationship, in its nature, is closer than that with children: The parent-child relationship is never said to be “one flesh”.  Children grow up and leave (and cleave to spouses), and the married couple lives out their last decades without children in the house.  The marriage relationship, even within a house full of kids, is closer,¹ and needs to be, to found the solidity of the family and to optimally parent.²  Married couples need the closest kind of unity through 75% of a woman’s cycle, pregnancy, menopause, etc.

¹ Most instances where in the circumstances a spouse is more closely obliged to or bonded with the child rather than their spouse is due to deficiencies within the marriage.  I do not deny there are times and circumstances where a closer obliging and bonding with a child may occur and be called for in a healthy marriage, yet the intrinsic tendency of marriage bonds persons closer in numerous relevant ways than to their children.

² For instance, divorce, where parents parent as singles, is not only bad for the parents, but also for the kids.

Children are in relevant ways secondary; procreation is likewise so; and the pleasure needed for the closest unitive intimacy and companionship may thus take priority over procreation.  Not only may persons pursue sexually pleasurable unity apart from fertilization and procreation, but even, as will be further seen, against them.

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6. Sex contrary to Fertilization:
Naturally Designed by God

God could have made sex to be 100% effective in conceiving and bearing children, as other natural processes.  If a certain biological purpose of genitalia is clearly for a sperm and egg to unite, implant in the uterus and proceed with procreation, then however often this doesn’t happen, through the regular course of de facto nature or not, is a deficiency from this biological purpose.  But often sex cannot result in conception in the proper functioning and regular course of things (which kind of functioning Feser not infrequently appeals to), such as around 75% of the time in a woman’s monthly cycle, during pregnancy and after menopause.

True, conception not occurring when nature takes its course does not necessarily morally implicate man.  However, something Feser does not address is that when conception cannot be had in the regular and proper functioning of nature, nature being intrinsically, teleologically designed this way by God, given that pleasurable, unitive sex is naturally intended during this time (as Feser allows), this intended sex functions not only apart from fertilization, but given the natural forces acting against and overcoming fertilization, it shows a purpose in nature in the larger procreative process to counteract conception most of the time.  If this be true in the intrinsic design of nature itself, it is not immoral for man to actively concur therewith, even in part intending that the proper functioning of nature take its course and conception be contravened most of the time, for the very benefits nature provides through that sexual intercourse.

An objection to this is that if the body’s forces counter-acting fertilization in many circumstances be not a deficiency, but a natural, neutral (or even good) process, then this would produce waste,¹ so far as semen and the egg are wasted apart from the purpose of conceiving (much of the time).

Yet this would only be waste from an assumed standard.  If the natural standard is not 100% effectiveness for conception (Eve would have been almost always pregnant in Eden), then it is not waste.  If sex be not only a probable means unto conception and procreation, but intended in its teleological design to be probable (to whatever extent), as is here put forth, then the ceasing of sperm and eggs need not be waste, just as unused sperm and eggs cease of their own in a short amount of time (and seem designed to), as do many other cells in our body through regular, natural and proper, and/or rationally chosen, functions.

¹ This is a common refrain of persons against contraception when commenting on the case of Onan withdrawing in Gen. 38, though Feser does not bring this in or speak of waste.

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7. Conception is Cursed

Feser never takes into account that nature and conception is cursed by God due to Adam’s sin.  If there be inordinateness and deficiencies due to the Fall in conception¹ (Gen. 3:16; Lev. 15:18) and its rate, there is prima facie reason to think the process and rate of conception may be counteracted to at least that degree.

¹ That such deficiencies exist in the process of conception is known not only by Scripture, but also by nature’s light, insofar as decay and irregular, malfunctional aspects of the process of conception, and regular results from it, contra human flourishing, are evident to any that studies it in humans.

Is the standard for how often a woman should be pregnant, how often she actually conceives with normal sexual activity?  Is the standard for how often a farmer ought to sow the land with seed, how often seed will take root and grow?  Even God prescribed for the Old Testament Israelites to leave the ground fallow every seven years (Ex. 23:10-11; Lev. 25:2-7), including for its greater fertility.

True, according to Feser, one could modulate the rate of conception by abstaining in NFP, but abstaining, and burning for many, is hardly an ideal standard for human flourishing.  If the de facto rate of women conceiving in their regular monthly cycles with normal sexual activity is normative, even with one baby after the other, then one would not expect women to incur deficiencies contrary to human flourishing because of it.  Yet often women who do not rest long enough after birth, husbands having a tendency to becoming impatient, do often incur:

– Nutritional deficiencies (inclusive of anemia, calcium depletion affecting bone density, folate depletion increasing risk of neural tube defects in the next baby, iodine depletion affecting thyroid function and fetal neurological development, vitamin D depletion affecting mood, etc.)

– Metabolic stress, chronic fatigue

– Obesity, pelvic floor weakness (risk of prolapse, incontinence, chronic pelvic pain), diastasis recti, back and hip instability (due to lax ligaments not resolved from previous pregnancy)

– Mental health problems including postpartum depression or anxiety, burnout, chronic sleep deprivation and stress dysregulation

– Increased risk for complications in the next pregnancy, such as preterm birth, low birth weight, placental problems (especially after C-sections) and maternal hypertension disorders (including preeclampsia)

Professional health organizations often recommend at least a year and a half between birth and the next conception for optimal maternal and infant health, or, that is, for optimal human flourishing, though for husbands to abstain that long is hardly a natural ideal.  Pick your deficiency from the realization of your human flourishing because you cannot get around it, as one would expect from God’s curse on nature: “Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what He has made crooked?” (Eccl. 7:13)  If one’s digestive system is acting deficiently with heart-burn, one might take medicine to inhibit it.  If regular sexual activity for human flourishing may cause predictable health deficiencies, one might inhibit the reproductive process in one way or another.

If it is pure nature’s ideal for a wife to be pregnant year after year indefinitely, how is it that Noah, closer to that primeval state, who lived for centuries, only had three sons (Gen. 6:10), even for the many years (possibly 120, Gen. 6:3) he was married and building the ark (Gen. 6:18), and for the centuries he lived after the flood (Gen. 9:28-29; 10:1, 32; 1 Chron. 1:4-24)?

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8. Contra-Acting & the Greater Good

Why is Contra-Acting Wrong?

Precisely why, for Feser, is it impossible to morally contra-act an essential end of one’s own faculty?

The reason is that it blocks the realization of one of our natural ends.¹  If a natural end is not realized, less natural good will exist.  This entails an objective measure of good.²

¹ “the whole point of the argument is simply to draw out the implications of the Aristotelian-Thomistic position that what is good for us can in principle only be what is consistent with the realization of our natural ends.  And neither artificial devices, nor the pursuit of ends other than our natural ends, nor interference with non-human natural processes are inherently contrary to the realization of our natural ends.” (p. 406)

² “in particular from an organism’s realization or failure to realize the ends set for it by its nature…  the goodness a flourishing instance of a natural kind exhibits is ‘natural goodness’—the goodness is there in the nature of things, and not in our subjective ‘value’ judgments.” (p. 383)

Yet on Feser’s terms, a person might morally refrain from procreation altogether, presumably for the reason of the higher flourishing and good of the person (and hence for a greater natural good), as this seems to be entailed by the few justifications Feser gives for such, such as in choosing “the [celibate] religious life” over marriage.  That is consistent with Feser’s “principle of totality” and the fact that persons have other natural (and possibly above-natural) ends besides procreation.³

³ “There are certain ends that any organism must realize in order to flourish as the kind of organism it is, ends concerning activities like development, self-maintenance, reproduction, the rearing of young, and so forth; and these ends entail a standard of goodness.” (p. 382)

While for Feser sex is subordinate to and is to serve marital unity,† yet he allows marriage may be wholly forgone.  How then does one choose between fulfilling one’s natural ends through marriage and procreation or living a celibate, religious life?  What is the common factor by which one decides?  It seems clear from Feser’s chapter, the choice is to be made based upon what will entail the greater good of human flourishing for the individual.‡

† “In short, the procreative end of sex points, in human beings, given their rational nature, to a unitive end.” (p. 394)  “…the unitive end of sex…  A human sexual act is a seamless unity of the procreative and the unitive, directed, directed at the same time toward both biological generation and emotional communion.” (p. 395)  “Our sexual faculties…  have a unitive as well as a procreative end, and why these ends are inseparable.” (p. 388)

‡ “There are certain ends that any organism must realize in order to flourish as the kind of organism it is…” (p. 382)  “…that the parts’ being so united involves an inherent directedness toward the flourishing of the whole of which they are a part; and that this teleological aspect makes the unity or integration of the whole intrinsically good in a way the unity of an accidental collection of things is not.  In the case of our sexual faculties, the Aristotelian-Thomistic “old” natural law theorist would add that the realization of their natural end requires another human being of the opposite sex and that directing them toward another object frustrates this end and thus the good of the whole organism of which they are a part.” (pp. 411-12)

Hence the reason, it seems, Feser finds contra-acting the sexual faculty (e.g. in using a condom) to be wrong is that it inhibits a person’s natural end and reduces his human flourishing for a total lesser natural good of the whole person.

Yet if contra-acting that faculty results not in a total lesser good of the person, but in fulfilling more fundamental and greater natural ends, this increasing the person’s human flourishing unto a greater natural good than what would occur through not contra-acting that faculty, the action (say of using a condom) may not be wrong.

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Feser’s Assumptions

Feser makes at least three assumptions which cannot be sustained:

(1) Feser assumes any deficiency from the realization of a natural, essential end in the use of one’s faculty, for which it exists, is immoral.¹

This simplistic assumption is not true or correspondent to reality.  While it is acknowledged what is not good is a deficiency from what is good,² yet not every deficiency, even in contra-acting the realization of natural teleological designs, is simply not good:³ some goods are good, better and best.†  Things not good yet always have some good in them, to varying degrees,‡ and if contra-acting a teleological design be wholly not good,ª yet even this can be used to bring about an external, greater good.

¹ “Hence (given the underlying metaphysics) it cannot possibly be good for A to use F for the sake of preventing the realization of E…” (p. 398)  “the latter…  is at least a mild lapse in a virtue like prudence.  A genuine counterexample…  would have to involve an action that both involved the active frustration of the natural end of a faculty and yet which was in no way contrary to what is good for us, not even in a minor respect.” (p. 409)  “..the perverted faculty argument…  the moral conclusions it is typically deployed in defense of (the immorality of contraception…” (p. 409)  “human beings…  have various capacities and ends the fulfillment of which is good for them and the frustrating of which is bad, as a matter of objective fact.” (p. 385)

² See ‘On the Negative & Positive Aspects of the Nature of Evil’ at ‘On Evil’ (RBO).

³ See ‘All Worship is Impure before his Uncreated Being & Infinite Perfections: that of Sinners, the Holy Angels & of Spotless Glorified Saints, Forever’ at ‘On Impurities in Worship’ (RBO).

† If you need Scriptures to confirm this natural truth, see Bible concordance search results for “better” and “best”.

‡ This is because what is not-good is a deficiency from what is good, in something that otherwise would be wholly good; and what is not-good cannot be wholly so, so far as it is, and only is, a deficiency from the natural or moral standard; what is not good is not the standard or something positive itself, but presupposes the standard and what is positive.

ª This case is doubtful, as teleology can be partially contra-acted and as the wholesale contra-acting of the teleology, to the point of eliminating it, entails nothing, and nothing is not a deficiency or bad, except in relation to other things (which have some goodness in them, in at least their existence).

(2) Feser assumes the action’s fundamental goodness must needs be overturned by the contra-acting of the natural, essential teleology of the biological process, which is yet subordinate and in some way incidental to the action itself.

This need not be the case.  Aquinas, the scholastics commonly and numerous of the reformed taught,ª for many good reasons, the kind and the primary goodness of a moral action derives from its suitable end; and this may not be its nearest end, but a remote end¹ (inclusive of its rational purpose,² finis operantis).  That is, the primary morality of using a condom need not derive from using the condom itself, but from one’s remote purpose in using it (such as in attaining a pleasurable unity with one’s spouse and not having more kids in one’s circumstances than is prudent). 

ª e.g. George Gillespie: “Actions take their species or kind from the object and the end, when other circumstances hinder not…” A Dispute against the English-Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 3, pp. 152–53; Samuel Rutherford, The Divine Right of Church Government (London, 1646), Intro, pp. 85–56, 88–89 & ch. 1, p. 150.

¹ Aquinas, Summa, pt. 1 of 2, quest. 18, art. 2, I answer:  “…the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object…”

quest. 1, art. 3, Reply to Obj. 3: “One and the same act, insofar as it proceeds once from the agent, is ordained to but one proximate end, from which it has its species: but it can be ordained to several remote ends, of which one is the end of the other.  It is possible, however, that an act which is one in respect of its natural species, be ordained to several ends of the will: thus this act to kill a man, which is but one act in respect of its natural species, can be ordained, as to an end, to the safeguarding of justice, and to the satisfying of anger: the result being that there would be several acts in different species of morality: since in one way there will be an act of virtue, in another, an act of vice.  For a movement does not receive its species from that which is its terminus accidentally, but only from that which is its per se terminus.  Now moral ends are accidental to a natural thing, and conversely the relation to a natural end is accidental to morality.  Consequently there is no reason why acts which are the same considered in their natural species, should not be diverse, considered in their moral species, and conversely.”

² Aquinas, Summa, pt. 1 of 2, quest. 18, art. 5, I answer.  Reply to Obj. 2: “For an action is said to be evil in its species…  because it has an object in disaccord with reason…”

Using the condom is not essential to the action, but accidental, insofar as (1) it is merely a means to an end, (2) a different means accomplishing the same thing might be used for the same purpose, and (3) such a means would not be used at all if the end might be attained without that means (which it might in the varying circumstances).  Hence the essence of the action of making love to one’s wife for pleasurable unity, glorifying God, and its primary goodness, inline with more fundamental natural ends, is not dependent on the use of the condom.

(3) Feser assumes (or dictates) the circumstances of the action do not further factor into whether the action may be right and good.

Yet this is contrary to reality.  An action’s goodness comes from its complete cause, inclusive of its circumstances,¹ which may be taken into account by the person’s remote end, and not simply from the minute circumstance that one’s biological process is being counter-acted.  Feser himself essentially affirms this general principle.²

¹ Eccl. 8:5-6; 12:14; WLC #99; Aquinas, Summa, pt. 1 of 2, quest. 18, art. 4, I answer and Reply to Obj. 3; ‘That the Law Arises out of the Circumstances’ at ‘How Far the Laws & Commands of Human Authorities Bind the Conscience’ (RBO).

² “Anything that enters into living well…  is part of the moral life, broadly construed.” (p. 408)

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Greater vs. Lesser Teleological Purposes

Correcting these assumptions allows for the obvious, that a rational person may morally, actively pose a greater, natural, teleological power or purpose against, in some way, a lesser teleological power or purpose in a natural faculty or organ, if that greater good cannot come about in another way.  That is, circumstances may be of such weight as to call for the correction of an organ by active frustration in order to attain greater benefits, when it is not inherently wrong to do so and that is the only way, or best way, it can occur.

To not be able to contra-act one’s own natural (even essential), lesser teleology for one’s own greater good and flourishing would be to choose the lesser good and what is worse, this being a much greater deficiency than counter-acting the lesser good for the greater good.

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Material vs. Formal Distinction

The material versus formal distinction¹ plays a key role in this.  To illustrate it in a different context:

A person defending himself may shoot an attacker using lethal force, materially killing him.  Yet the formal intention of the defender was not to kill the attacker, but only to preserve himself and stop the attack.  The death of the attacker (a deficiency) was materially necessary, due to circumstances (as the end could not be attained without it), but was not essential to the action (if such had occurred in a different way), or its formal aim, which was only for life (and not death).

¹ Feser allows for this in a limited way in his paradigm: “Nor does the premise entail that A cannot use F when he knows its end E won’t in fact be achieved; for in that case he is not using F for the sake of frustrating the realization of E, and he is not himself attempting to frustrate the realization of E in the course of using F.  To foresee that F’s end E won’t in fact be realized is not the same thing as using F in a way that will prevent E from being realized, any more than foreseeing that something will happen is the same as causing it to happen.” (p. 399)

Similarly in sex, the counter-acting (a subordinate part of the action), though it may be materially active in the action itself (i.e. putting on a condom), yet it is not the formal intention of the action, and may be considered incidental and passive therein (as most people consider it).  The deficiency (the necessity and inconvenience of the condom) is not what is formally aimed at (it would be wrong if it were),¹ but is a tolerable circumstance, in accord with and justified by reason, which does not overturn the fundamental naturalness and goodness of the larger action of sexual intercourse.

¹ That is, if a person used the condom (or anything else) for the sake of the unnaturalness of it, which is to aim at and delight in what is bad as such.

Strangely enough, Feser’s syllogism, again, does not actually forbid using contraceptives.  The syllogism’s latter part runs:

“it cannot possibly be good for A[gent] to use F[aculty] for the sake of preventing the realization of E[nd], or for the sake of an end which has an inherent tendency to frustrate the realization of E[nd].”

In having sex, and that with a condom under the moral necessity of preventing conception due to the circumstances, the person is using his sexual faculty, as usual, “for the sake of” a pleasurable unity with his wife, not for the formal purpose of preventing conception.  The end for which it is being done, a pleasurable marital unity, does not have “an inherent tendency to frustrate the realization of” conception.  The couple may likely be having sex at that time whether or not the wife is capable of becoming pregnant and a condom is used or not, their formal intention remaining the same.

One may object that the material end yet prevents pregnancy, and the syllogism does not specify the formal, remote end, but simply “an end,” that is any end of the action, including a material end.  Very well, but preventing pregnancy does not have “an inherent tendency to frustrate the realization of” conception:

The man and wife regularly have sex with a subordinate purpose of preventing pregnancy in their circumstances, without a condom during most of her cycle in NFP (which Feser allows) and with a condom during her cycle’s fertile part.  Preventing pregnancy does not inherently involve a contraceptive or a “tendency to frustrate the realization of” conception.

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“Frustrating,” “Perverting” & “Corrupting”

Feser routinely uses the loaded word “frustrating” for acting contrary to a teleological purpose.  He even equates such with “perverting” the faculty (p. 400).  In his own words, he says with reference to sex organs, to:

“actively to try to… prevent them from functioning for the sake of making sure their use will not result in the realization of their end is to pervert them.”

One wonders how this doesn’t apply to destroying and surgically removing these organs (p. 399).  A person acting in this way, Feser adds, “only shows that his will has become corrupted.” (p. 396)

Yet, ought not animal functions to be subordinate to rational functions, on Feser’s own terms?  Ought not one’s faculties to be used according to nature’s light and prudence?¹  It is no corruption of man’s will to use his faculties inline with his most basic, natural teleological ends for the greater natural good (including that of himself and/or others).  Even a lesser, non-essential purpose of the faculty or person, in sufficient, needful degree, might so contribute to human flourishing that this may justify the contra-acting of an essential end, in light of the reason Feser gives: “For human life is complicated and requires the pursuit of many different goods, not all of which can be pursued at the same time.” (pp. 396-97)

¹ Aquinas: “Prudence is right reason applied to action…” Summa, pt. 2 of 2, quest. 47, art. 8, I answer.

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9. The Syllogism’s Main Limitations are Unjustified

The main limitations Feser has constructed his syllogism with, which may appear to safeguard it rather well, are that the relevant action must involve (1) a person’s faculty, (2) one’s own faculty, and (3) an end for which the faculty exists.  Hence damming the natural tendency of a river for persons’ greater benefit doesn’t pertain.  But why not?  Because “interference with non-human natural processes are [not] inherently contrary to the realization of our natural ends.” (p. 406)  That is, man may use natural things, even obstructing their natural designs, for his benefit (because such things exist for his good, Gen. 1:26-28), whereas counteracting the realization of what is necessarily one’s own natural end, must result in some deficit of personal flourishing.

Yet, as has been seen, the real, more fundamental issue that would make both external and internal counter-acting actions wrong would be if they do not result in a greater good.  Hence the difference between such actions, that one is inherently contrary (in some way) to the realization of our natural ends, and the other is not, is not ultimately decisive of their morality.  Nor are Feser’s limitations of a relevant action to (1) “an individual deliberate act,” in distinction from “an ongoing and involuntary physiological process,” and (2) a “specific individual event that initiates” a process, with a “specific individual event that culminates” it, of ultimate, decisive moral force.

If Feser cannot further prove the significance of these actions’ differences as being decisive of their morality, then (1) his syllogism’s limitations are arbitrary, unjustified and result from special pleading, begging the question, and (2) many general counter-examples (as often provided by his critics and dismissed by him) stand.  The general principles, as the critics have alleged, may equally apply to both external and internal actions.

It is affirmed here, while there are qualitatively different aspects to external and internal actions, and internal counter-acting often bears a greater ethical weight precisely due to such being internal to us, this often involving essential, natural teleological designs of our faculties, yet there is a continuity between these actions which Feser’s syllogism does not account for, and which may make contraceptives moral, as damming rivers and cutting our fingernails for greater beneficial purposes is moral.

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10. Partial Fulfillment of an Unattainable
Greater Good

Not only are contraceptives not necessarily a contra-acting of the general end of procreation, but given “procreation” in a wholistic sense (as Feser so uses it, including for the rearing and flourishing of children), contraceptives may fulfill procreation to a greater extent than might be had without their use.

However, if contraceptives be held to be a contra-acting of the general end of procreation, they (1) are only partially so, (2) are only a contra-acting of conception some of the time (i.e. only for 25% of the woman’s monthly cycle) and (3) are only a contra-acting of the sexual faculty partially, insofar as the substance and greater share of sexual intercourse (and its natural teleological ends) is left intact, or is in a great measure fulfilled.

To fulfill a purpose as far as one safely may, for the highest good attainable (while avoiding the greater misery), is not necessarily contrary to that purpose or to contra-act it in an immoral way.¹  Feser does not take into account partial contra-acting or partial fulfillment,² though the latter can attain a greater good over time than abstinence.

¹ See ‘On the Ethical Principle of Avoiding the Greater Material or Miserable Evil’, Fentiman, ‘Lesser of Two Evils’ & ‘Highest Good Realistically Attainable’ in ‘Theses on the Ethics of Civil Voting…’ (RBO), ‘Some Impure Worship may be (and even must be) Lawfully, Personally Performed in Some Circumstances for the Inherent Good in it & for Higher, Good Reasons’ (RBO); Fentiman, ‘Extended Editor’s Introduction Defending the Lawfulness of Partial-Conformity in Worship & Church Government (including under Civil Impositions) from Scripture, Westminster & the Scottish Indulgence Controversy…’ in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025); ‘Richard Baxter – Reformation & Conformity’ at ‘On Impurities in Worship’ (RBO); ‘On Occasional & Principled Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism’.

² Though Feser says: “it can be rational to engage in an act only if it is in some way good for us…  it is precisely the realization of the natural ends inherent in human nature that is being furthered… so that at least some of his natural ends might still be realized even if others no longer can be.” (p. 404)

A partial fulfillment of good breaks Feser’s syllogism.  The latter part reads:

“it cannot possibly be good for A[gent] to use F[aculty] for the sake of preventing the realization of E[nd], or for the sake of an end which has an inherent tendency to frustrate the realization of E[nd].”

No doubt Feser by “good” means a formal, complete good, but he is wrong that any deficiency therein makes an action immoral; and there can be a substantial, partial, material fulfillment of good, such that the action is good, though contra-acting a given end.  To put it simply and state the obvious: It is very good for a man to have sex with his wife for the sake of pleasurable, marital unity with her, while frustrating conception, in circumstances where it is prudent for her not to conceive.

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Christian Liberty vs. Perversions

It is recognized having to use a condom is inconvenient and obstructive in some degree to marital pleasure and unity, and is therein a deficiency that is so far contrary to natural law.  Yet unduly conceiving, as well as abstaining and burning are also deficiencies.  One must pick the deficiency they prefer to bearª under Adam’s curse (which counteracts our faculties), and to do so is not immoral (2 Sam. 24:10–14).¹  Despite the deficiencies all three options can be good choices, whichever one be good, better or best in the circumstances.

ª Just as there is natural good (in distinction from moral good), as Feser, expounds (pp. 383-85), so certain deficiencies from this are natural evils, or miserable evils as they bear upon man (in distinction from moral evils).  Yet not all choosing or use of natural or miserable evils, especially in choosing the best of them under necessity, is wrong.  It is moral and better to eat expired food than to starve.  See ‘On the Distinction between Moral vs. Natural (or Miserable) Evil’ at ‘On Evil’ (RBO).

¹ See ‘On the Ethical Principle of Avoiding the Greater Material or Miserable Evil’, Fentiman, ‘Lesser of Two Evils’ & ‘Highest Good Realistically Attainable’ in ‘Theses on the Ethics of Civil Voting…’ (RBO).

Feser himself, strangely enough, testifies that some deficiency in an act may yet be innocent:

“It is also sometimes objected that acts of oral-genital stimulation are undignified…  (Is eating chili dogs undignified?  Dressing up like a clown at the circus?  Standing on one’s head so as to amuse a child?  Passing gas or blowing one’s nose?  Or, for that matter, engaging in straightforward marital intercourse?  In some sense each of these acts is undignified, and yet they are all also perfectly innocent.)” (p. 402)

If the principles of the greater good and partial fulfillment be valid, it might be wondered what that makes of masturbation, pornography, adultery, homosexuality and bestiality?  These several things, however, besides qualitative differences, are not an aiming at and a substantial preserving or fulfilling (in accord with upright reason)¹ of one’s natural, teleological ends and the ends of the marriage ordinance (Gen. 2:23-25; Mal. 2:14-16; Mt. 19:4-6; Heb. 13:4), and hence truly are perversions, not for one’s greater good or the greater good in general.

¹ Aquinas: “In human acts, those are sinful which are against right reason.  Now right reason requires that things directed to an end should be used in a measure proportionate to that end.” Summa, pt. 2 of 2, quest. 152, art. 2, I answer.

Feser has rightly said there is no alternative to the “perverted faculty argument” for those who wish to keep the previously listed actions immoral, “apart from a sheer appeal to divine authority” (p. 409).  Note the solution given here is a form of the perverted faculty argument: a more accurate one.

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11. Divinely Provided Natural & Artificial
Means for Contraception

Feser makes an argument that contraceptives are not natural.¹  As he is not opposed to the use of artificial means in general, his purpose would seem to be to note that contraceptives are not inline with the designs of nature.  Yet this is a selective reading of nature.

¹ “…nature makes it very difficult to indulge in sex without procreation.  There is no prophylactic sheathe issued with a penis at birth, and no diaphragm issued with a vagina.  It takes some effort to come up with these devices…” (p. 389)

Nature’s light teaches us the natural world may and ought to be used for the good of man, and this is good, God having given many things in nature for us to cultivate for our benefit (Gen. 1:26; 4:20-22).  Nature has provided many things useful for the inhibition of conception, as the ancient world was aware of and used, such as slathering on olive oil, vinegar, honey, etc. using vaginal sponges soaked in the same, or in wine or resin, and sheathes made of animal membranes, amongst other things.¹  Some effective oral contraceptives provided by nature were known by the Jews and Native Americans.²

¹ See ‘History’ at ‘On the Ethics of Birth Control’ (RBO).

² David M. Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law  (1968; Schocken Books, 1974), pp. 235-37; James, Peter & Nick Thorpe, Ancient Inventions  (Ballantine Books, 1994), p. 190.

If Native Americans thought they would have a hard winter to get through, would it be wrong for them to take these oral contraceptives provided by nature?  If a person was comfortable with reducing pregnancy most of the time for a given period, for prudent reasons, would not using olive oil be beneficial for this?

Rationality and the potential for constructing artificial means was a natural, teleological gift of God to Adam, set in conjunction with the use of the whole world.  God set Adam in the garden before the curse to improve it, and that for Adam’s pleasure and benefit (Gen. 2:5, 15).  If pure-nature needs correction and rational improvement for its greater flourishing, how much more so after the curse?  If a lesser part of the body may be sacrificed for a person’s benefit (Mt. 18:8), from the greater to the lesser, how much more desirable and natural is it for a rational, artificially constructed means to serve a person’s benefit?

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12. Gradation of Principles
& Practices

Feser finds his view attractive as it allows for some gradation of principles and practice in accord with the variations of common life (pp. 408-9).  Some deviations from natural law may not be “a grave moral fault,” but are “at least a mild lapse in a virtue like prudence”.  Yet such is still a deficiency that is in some way “contrary to what is good for us,” albeit in “a minor respect”. (p. 409)  Notably Feser does not explicitly put contraception in this category.

The many ethical gradations of common life arise from the intermix of the natural teleologies of our variegated and shuffling circumstances, according to their qualities, weights and proportions, mixed with the same in positive laws.¹  Upright common sense (or practical reason) tends to accurately recognize moral judgments before one can formally articulate and intellectually conclude the sometimes complex moral principles involved² (Ps. 119:66; Rom. 2:14-15; Lk. 10:36-37; 14:5; Jn. 3:21; 1 Cor. 10:15; 14:37; 1 Jn. 1:1-4; 2:20; 3:9-10, 18-19).  In this respect philosophy ought to confirm and validate common sense.  It is believed the principles laid out in this article do exactly that (albeit imperfectly due to my own unskillful dullness), and reflect and synthesize the gradations of ethical living in common life better, whereas the anti-contraception view is extreme, and therein is distorted and unnatural.

¹ On the distinction between natural and positive law, see ‘Intro’ at ‘On Positive Laws & Ordinances, & the Law of Nations’ (RBO).

Baxter: “12. The whole law of nature, which was such to innocent man, did necessarily result from the nature of man, as related to God and his fellow-subjects, and as placed in the midst of such a world of objects; and so is legible in rerum natura [in the nature of things]…

13. There are some duties that are founded in the relation of our very rational nature to the holy, perfect nature of God…  and some duties that are founded in the relation of our natures one to another, and some from the inseparable, innocent principle of self-love.  All these have their necessary original with our natures, by resultancy therefrom…

14. There are some duties of the law of nature founded in natural, but mutable, accidents, relations, moods.  These are indispensable duties, while these relations or other accidents remain, which are the foundation of them;” The Unreasonableness of Infidelity (London: R.W., 1655), An Advertisement Explicatory, pp. x-xi.  For the relations of positive laws added into this mix, see Baxter’s larger discussion.

² An example is posing a hypothetical situation for moral judgment.  Usually the moral judgment is made quickly based on one’s moral sensibilities, and rationalizations are then come up with to justify the moral judgment.  This article has constantly posed such scenarios, appealing to persons’ upright common sense, leaving the principles of why such is right to be worked out (as has been done).

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13. God, Eve, Temptation,
Self-Denial & Christ

God

God Himself often acts contrary to the laws of nature for a greater good (WCF 5.3).  He regularly, allowingly uses deficient things and immoral persons and actions, not for the deficiency or sin itself (which would be evil), but for higher, good purposes,¹ including for the eternal welfare of his believing people and his own glory (Rom. 8:28).  Such higher goods, as the display of the power of his justice against the wicked and the riches of his mercy towards the redeemed of the Savior, could not be reached without that deficient, unnatural wickedness they presuppose (Rom. 9:21-23).

¹ ‘God is Not Pleased with the Existence of Sin, though He has Effectively Permitted it as it is Useful unto his Good Purposes’ at ‘Sin’ (RBO).

Yet Feser’s syllogism does hold for God: He is a rational agent who never uses a faculty of his contrary to an end for which it exists.  To give an example: Will is a faculty of God (analogically speaking) which exists for the end of God’s glory and good, so God may pursue his glory and good.  It is therein metaphysically impossible for it to be good for God to use his will in a manner contrary to his glory and what is good.  This is impossible for God because He is utterly simple, undivided, infinitely perfect, unchangeable, completely self-fulfilling, all-wise and omnipotently good.

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Eve, Temptation & Self-Denial

On the other hand, man is not infinite, utterly simple or all knowing; many circumstances and causes lie outside himself, which may counteract him or part of his complex being.  Unfallen Eve saw that the divinely forbidden tree “was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes” (Gen. 3:6), which no doubt it was.  She perceived and had some desire for its natural goodnessª (so far as it was good), though it had been positively forbidden.  Satan used this to tempt Eve.  Eve should have denied herself,¹ but fulfilled her natural appetite for the natural good, against God’s positive prohibition and her understanding reason, sinfully breaking God’s command.

ª Baxter: “201. There is in the very essence of the natural power or faculty, besides the vis vel virtus agendi [power or virtue of acting], a certain natural inclination to some things, which is inseparable from it, from which the [Medieval] Schoolmen say even of the will that it is quaedam natura, et pondus animae [a certain nature and gravitation of the soul].  So the soul is inclined or propense (and not only able) to activity as such, to intellection as such, to volition as such; and objectively to truth as such, and to natural good and felicity as such.  And there is an inclination of the soul, which is not essential and inseparable, but is much under the power of the will, and may be got and lost.” Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable... (London: White, 1675), sect. 10, ‘Of Natural & Moral Power as Foreseen’, pp. 36-37

¹ Rutherford: “…created sinless self is to be denied.  Adam denied not himself and thought in his sick imagination he should be like God, knowing good and evil, Gen. 3.” Covenant of Life Opened, pt. 1, ch. 7, p. 40.

The early, Swiss, reformed theologian, Wolfgang Musculus (d. 1563), discoursed in a bit of length and detail on natural concupiscence by pure-nature, in contrast to sinful concupiscence.  Natural concupiscence is “an affection of the mind…  by which we endeavor to draw unto our use by any means that which does like us.”¹

¹ Common Places of Christian Religion (London, 1563), 10th Precept, fol. 103.a

Musculus says when natural concupiscence was in our unfallen parents it:

“was simple, natural, orderly and necessary, like as other affections were, so that it was subject unto no malice…  as when we be hungry, we desire meat; when we thirst, drink: when we be a cold, we desire warmth…  when we be sick, we desire health, etc. and this we do by the only course of nature, without any matter of sin.” (fol. 103.b)

Natural concupiscence is necessary for creatures to sustain themselves and flourish, which is good.  Musculus describes sinful concupiscence as “passing the limits of nature and necessity, it extends itself unto those things which it is not lawful to desire…” (fol. 103.b)¹

¹ For more material on the whole, see ‘On the Internal Relations of the Soul in Adam in Original Righteousness’ at ‘Man, the Image of God’ (RBO).

In the case of Eve, she had the faculty of will, which existed for the sake of the end of pursuing what is good.  Yet when she perceived the natural good in the tree when tempted, she should have used her will in a manner contrary to pursuing that natural good.  Because she did not, she sinned; if she had, in self-denial, she would have done good.  If Feser is right, temptation cannot exist.¹

¹ Natural concupiscence for a forbidden natural good may have the conscious concurrence of the will, and therein be a deliberate, individual choice, beginning with the perception and choice to pursue that good, culminating with the eating of it.  Feser might say the pursuit of natural goodness is not a specific end, but a general end, and in denying a specific instance of natural good the person yet pursues a greater natural good in another way (i.e. in obeying God’s positive command).  Yet if such a material contra-acting of a lesser good be allowed in the syllogism, though it be not the formal end of the action, then the syllogism allows materially contra-acting conception or procreation in a given instance while conception and/or procreation are pursued in other ways and instances, especially in obeying God through his higher law of prudence.

The issue is not simply temptation.  Eve ought to have denied her natural appetite for the good in the forbidden tree even if there had been no tempter.  The issue lies in the difference between natural versus positive laws of God, and man’s capability to be so contrarily obliged.  There can be, as Samuel Rutherford argued, no moral concupiscence against natural law (i.e. as such), because “The Law of God…  does require a conformity between all the inclinations and motions of our soul and the law of nature…”ª  However, positive laws of God are above nature, and may be in some ways against nature.  In order to obey them, one might need to cross nature, and herein it is not inherently wrong to have desires and partial-willings against positive commands of God,¹ as they require us to put his will before our own.

ª Samuel Rutheford, Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself (London: Crooke, 1647), p. 141

¹ Rutherford: “Assertion 4.  A conditional and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive law and commandment of God, is no sin, nor does the Law require a conformity in all our inclinations and the first motions of our desires to every command of God, though most contrary to nature and our natural and sinless inclinations.” (Christ Dying, p. 140)  See ‘Affections & Motions Against Natural Law are Sinful, but not Necessarily Against Positive Laws, even Divine Positive Laws’ at ‘On Concupiscence…’ (RBO).

Rutherford gives as examples: (1) God telling Abraham to kill his only begotten, beloved son (Gen. 22), (2) a martyr dying for the truth of Christ, though he have a conditional inclination to live, and (3) one giving a family member up to be executed for blaspheming God (Dt. 13:6-9).  One can add God’s forbidding to eat the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Adam should have, Rutherford said, “submit(ted) his natural hunger or desire to eat of the forbidden tree, to God’s Law, and eat not…” (Christ Dying, p. 141)

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Christ’s Self-Denial

If natural concupiscence be innocent from pure nature and essential to man, it is no wonder if Christ, fully God and fully man, had,ª and contra-acted, natural concupiscence.  Christ’s one person, having two natures, had two wills:¹ (1) one divine, uncreated, and (2) one human and created, his human will being in subordination to his (and the Father and Holy Spirit’s one) divine will.²

ª Mt. 4:2, “He was hungry.”  Jn. 19:28, “I thirst!”  Lk. 22:15, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you…”  Jn. 2:17, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”  Ps. 2:12; 16:9; chs. 20-21, 35; 31:1-7; 40:1-11; 45:7, 11; 69:9; etc. Mt. 23:37; 26:38; Mk. 3:5; 4:38; Lk. 12:50; Jn. 11:5, 33-34; Heb. 5:7; Song 2:10-13; 4:8-5:1; 6:4-12; 7:1-9.

¹ This is in contrast to the Early Church heresy of Monothelitism, that Christ only has one will; see ‘Christ has Two Harmonious Wills, Divine & Human’.

² On Christ’s human will being subordinate to his divine will, see the ‘Intro’ at ‘Christ’s Mediatorial Operations, Divine & Human, unto the Same Work’ (RBO).  On the Logos, the Father and the Holy Spirit having numerically one divine will, see ‘On God’s Essential Works Inside & Outside of Himself (ad intra & ad extra)’ and ‘On the Doctrine of Appropriations, or Terminations’.  That the Logos, the Father and the Holy Spirit having different eternal wills is latent Tritheism, which had a rise in the mid to late-1600’s with Cartesianism, see ‘Tri-Theism’.

Christ having fasted for forty days indeed was hungry (Mt. 4:2; Lk. 4:2) and had a lawful desire for food.  Yet He denied that natural desire and hungered more, not being willing to receive bread on the unlawful terms Satan suggested. (Mt. 4:1-3)  Satan then tempted Christ with “giving” Him “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” (Mt. 4:8) if He would fall down and worship him.  Christ in his famished state rightly would have had a natural desire for such natural good in itself, as it was good; hence the temptation.¹  Yet He denied that faculty of his Person’s humanity in that end for which it existed, as it would have been an attaining of good by evil means (Rom. 3:8; 6:1-2).

¹ Rutherford: “Christ was really tempted of the Devil, but was never induced to sin…  Every temptation…  coming under the shadow and roof of the desiring faculty as good, nothing hinders it to take, but a marring of the understanding in apprehending some black spot in the fairness of it;” Christ Dying, pp. 206-7

Read Isa. 53, of the Man of Sorrows striving through that valley of humiliation for the end of his coming.  His commandment from the Father, to lay down his life for his sheep (Jn. 10:15-17; 15:13), was not necessitated from nature, but was freely chosen (Ps. 40:6-8) and positive (Jn. 10:18), going against the warp and woof of nature.  “None so self-denied,” said Rutherford: “He pleased not Himself, sought not his own glory, nor his own ease, nor his own will, but submitted to the will of God.”¹

¹ Rutherford, The Covenant of Life Opened (Edinburgh: Anderson, 1655), pt. 2, ch. 12, p. 359

Commenting on Lk. 22:42, on Christ in Gethsemane saying, “nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done,” Rutherford explains this “apparent opposition” as:

“rather between [1] Christ‘s sensitive and his sinless mere natural desire and affection, and [2] his reasonable will, [rather] than [between] his [reasonable] will and the will of God: Nor can any say there is a fight or jarring between the conditional desire of Christ subjected in the same act of praying, to the Lord’s decree and the resolute and immutable will of God.”

It took self-denial for Christ¹ to take up his cross (Mt. 16:24-25), against the natural affections and groaning of his humanity for his life’s preservation and flourishing (Ps. 22:1-21).  But it was not only a faculty Christ was contra-acting in this good work, but his very flesh and human life altogether, for a higher end than his natural biology.  Praise be to the Lamb in the Highest!

¹ Rutherford further affirms “Christ’s conditional desire of life and deprecating death,” and “innocent self-denial” in Christ Dying, p. 359.  “Christ the more excellent Adam pleased not that noble self, Rom. 15:3, και γαρ ο χριστος ουχ εαυτω ηρεσεν [“For even Christ pleased not Himself”].  He denied Himself as man, as a gracious mere man, to be God or more than a man.  And this self-denial is in elect angels, who blush and are sinlessly ashamed of self, and cover their faces with wings before shining infiniteness of glory, and proclaim Him thrice, ‘Holy, holy, holy,’ Isa. 6:2-3.” Covenant of Life Opened, pt. 1, ch. 7, p. 40.

Baxter: “And as the Law, so also the Redeemer, in his example and his doctrine does teach us, and that more plainly and urgently, this lesson of self-denial.  The life of Christ is the pattern which the Church must labor to imitate: And love and self-denial were the summary of his life: Though yet he had no sinful self to deny, but only natural self.  He denied Himself in avoiding sin; but we must deny ourselves in returning from it.  He loved not his life, in comparison of his love to his Father and to his Church.  He appeared without desirable form or comeliness: He was despised and rejected of men…  What was his whole life, but the exercise of love and self-denial?  He denied Himself in love to his Father, obeying Him to the death, and pleasing Him in all things…  And this He did to teach us by his example to deny ourselves, to be like minded, having the same love…  He denied Himself also in obedient submission to governors.  He was subject to Joseph and Mary, Lk. 2:51…  He disowned a personal worldly kingdom, Jn. 18:36, when the people would have made him a king, he avoided it, Jn. 6:15…  And his Spirit in his apostles teaches us the same doctrine, Rom. 13:1; Pet. 2:13-17; Eph. 6:1, 5.  And they seconded his example by their own, that we might be followers of them as they were of Christ.” A Treatise of Self-Denial (London: White, 1675), Preface, n.p.; cf. Confirmation & Restoration the Necessary Means of Reformation & Reconciliation... (London: A.M., 1658), Prop. 13, p. 110.

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Summary Conclusions

To concisely reiterate the main arguments above as conclusions:

(1) If Feser’s syllogism is sound, contraception may yet be moral.  Even if conception be contravened in certain instances, this is not necessarily contra-acting the design of one’s faculty and intention for procreation generally.

(2) Numerous counter-examples prove Feser’s syllogism invalid, including counter-acting chosen bodily functions in their essential ends for some greater good.

(3) Natural Family Planning without contraceptives (which Feser allows) is contrary to his syllogism as it entails contra-acting in the relevant way; and an inappropriate refraining from sex is against marriage’s essential unitive purpose and God’s natural and revealed Law.

(4) Feser’s (right) allowance for destroying and surgically removing one’s organs for a higher good, from the greater to the lesser, allows contra-acting them in the realization of their natural, essential ends, which hence is not inherently wrong.

(5) Sexual pleasure is directly subordinate to marital unity, which unity is more foundational than procreation, per the Word; hence sexual pleasure need not always be subordinate to conception or procreation.  This ought to be recognized, and is by most, from nature’s light.

(6) If the regular and proper functioning of nature, given its teleology, be taken as a standard, then God, through nature, has intended the contra-acting of conception around 75% of a woman’s cycle.  It is not wrong for one to concur with nature in this for the natural benefits of such contra-conceiving sex.

(7) Conception and all relating to it, including its rate, was cursed by God for man’s sin, and is so far not a standard to us.  Given the whirlpool of curse-induced deficiencies we live in (Eccl. 1; Rom. 8:20-22), one must pick the deficiencies from human flourishing they think most tolerable and for the greatest good (which often depends upon and is determined by our circumstances).  To absolutize tolerating one deficiency as immoral is not only arbitrary, but is contra nature’s light.

(8) Human flourishing is a greater and more foundational natural, teleological purpose and good than sex organs and contra-acting them in an essential way.  Hence, so contra-acting, which is not inherently wrong, is right when it results in greater human flourishing, which could not occur (or would not best occur) except through this means.  Feser’s view sacrifices the greater good for the sake of a lesser good, which is a falling short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

(9) The main limitations of Feser’s syllogism are unjustified precisely because there are more fundamental, general principles which underlie the differing minute categories at hand, opening up the syllogism to be contradicted by a whole swath of common counter-examples, recognized by people at large by common sense.

(10) Aiming at a higher good and partially fulfilling it so far as one morally can (though it necessarily involve a partial counter-acting of an essential, facultative end) is good and is not an immoral deficiency.

(11) God has provided through nature both natural and artificial contraceptive means, which most of history has recognized (whether giving Him thanks for it or not, Rom. 1:21).  God set Adam in the garden to improve even pure-nature itself.

(12) The further principles inherent in reality, as elucidated in this article, go much further to synthesizing and explaining the ethical balance of the gradations of our variegated circumstances in common life, which is much preferable, that one’s ethics reflect reality, in contrast to the anti-contraception view, which herein is seen to be extreme, and thus distorted and unnatural.

(13) Feser’s syllogism, while true for God, yet, it appears, cannot account for: (1) how simultaneous natural and positive laws differently bear upon man, (2) temptation or (3) self-denial, (4) including with respect to our Christ.

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Larger View of Differences

To give a larger view, in short, of some of the differences between Feser and myself (and many others), the following comparisons respect specifically the voluntary exercise of one’s own faculty in regard to the necessity (or not) of the realization of an essential end of it:

1. An essential natural end fixes moral possibility vs. An essential natural end entails ethical weight and a general orientation.

2. Acting against the given teleological end is morally, metaphysically impossible vs. Acting against the teleological end admits of proportional exceptions (i.e. the greater good).

3. Teleological, moral and metaphysical necessity in such a context are bound up together vs. These things can function with differentiation.

4. Properly functioning biology determines an action’s moral-kind vs. Rational, moral ordering and reasoning determines moral-kind and ought to (and does) weigh competing goods, proportionality, context and intention.

5. Chosen actions involving any deficiency from such natural teleology are wrong vs. Such actions can involve partial fulfillment and may also be good, better or best.

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Metaphysical Possibility

Feser claims morally contra-acting conception and other similar bodily functions is metaphysically impossible.  He has been shown to be wrong.  Yet, given the tight metaphysical principles and groundwork Feser elucidates, which may appear conclusive, how is it metaphysically possible to morally counteract personal, facultative, essential teleology?  To make this more clear:

Feser, in framing the issues, limits the relevant morality to hinge on the sole teleology of natural faculties’ essential ends and their realization, claiming any contra-acted deficiency therein must make an action immoral.  If Feser’s assumptions are true, he would appear to be right.

Yet there is necessarily a larger teleological context to these actions, involving the person’s more basic and important flourishing (not to mention that of others) and his or her natural rational will directing how the faculty may be used in accord with right reason given the larger circumstances.  These considerations, outside the minutia of Feser’s box, which must be taken into account as part of the action’s total cause (metaphysically speaking, and epistemologically) and hence as part of its morality, opens up the action’s defining context (potentially) to the whole universe (and above).  When Jesus denied his own natural concupiscence and natural faculties’ essential end of self-preservation in refusing to answer his accusers, Pilate marveled (Mk. 15:3-5).  The action may not have been moral except by the greater good of that other-worldly, free, contingent (in some way), positive, divine command given and taken up by Him, to make an eternal reconciliation for sinners (Isa. 53:7-8).  Praise be to the Lamb forever!

Hence, at hand is not simply the necessity of the metaphysics of a natural faculty’s teleology (which Feser is otherwise largely right about), but that of all existence (and of possibilities that do not exist).  If morality derives from that which exists (including God), then all which exists (or can exist) may determine morality in some way.  My friend, our good God, who is ultimate existence (“I am that I am”, Ex. 3:14), creates out of nothing; our Savior creates good out of evil.  You cannot conceive the good He has done, is doing, and can and will do.  He is the omnipotent Creator and author of all metaphysics, all morality, all good and all possibility.¹  Though our world be devastated by our sins and his due judgments, He has created a Heaven with mercies overflowing for all those who acquiesce to his call’s teleology to come and believe upon Him unto your greatest good, his glory and your highest flourishing.

¹ On the latter, see ‘On Possibilities & Hypotheticals’ (RBO).

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Philosophy Descriptive of Reality†

As has been expressed, this article’s considerations have been put forth with the intention of describing reality and ethical living, which we do everyday, more accurately and fully, not to open up a pandora’s box or skepticism.  Indeed, very precise and somewhat complex principles and argumentation (perhaps dizzying) has been used, but that has only been to confirm common sense (or upright practical reason) from subtle, but very significant and potent, practical error, for people’s health.  Flee all sophistry¹ (Isa. 5:20-21; Mt. 22:18; Col. 2:8) and simplistic ignorance (Ps. 19:7; Prov. 1:22; 8:5), both which are unworthy of your intelligence and hinder the fruit of God’s truth.

† See ‘Which Philosophy Should be Used?’ at ‘Philosophy’ (RBO).

¹ See ‘On Sophistry’ at ‘On the Use of Reason in Theology’ (RBO).

Be assured in all this in what is presented here there is no slippery slope.  The weight of nature, and that which is above nature, in conjunction with it, will and ought to bear determinative ethical weight in situations according to the natures, context and proportions of that which is involved.  God’s Law requires this (Lev. 19:15; Job 34:10-12; Ps. 28:4; 99:4; Prov. 2:9; Jer. 32:19; Mic. 6:8; Zech. 7:9; Mt. 16:27; 23:23; 26:60-61; Mk. 14:61-64; 15:31; Lk. 23:39; Jn. 7:24; 19:12, 17-22).

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Conclusion

Reality even in everyday things around us all the time is more complex than we can possibly comprehend.  Solomon, the wisest in the earth (1 Kn. 3:12; 10:23-24), found this:

“Then I saw all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun.  For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it; moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it.” (Eccl. 8:17)

We are left to cry out with Job: God “does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number!” (Job 5:9)  If error intertwines itself ever so intricately to even what is good (Job 28:20-21; Prov. 14:12; Eccl. 7:29; Isa. 42:19; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 7:21; 2 Thess. 2:7; Heb. 3:13), what can we do but groan with the psalmist to God, dependent upon his Spirit, in the name of Jesus the Christ, the only name under Heaven given among men whereby we can be saved (Acts 4:12; Ps. 19:12-14):

“Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults!
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me…
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer!”

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Related Pages

On the Ethics of Birth Control

Natural Law

Metaphysics

On Ethics & Virtue

On Bioethics & Medical Ethics

On the Use of Reason in Theology

Which Philosophy Should be Used?

On the Relation between Theology & Philosophy

On Thomism & Scholastic Philosophy

On Sophistry

Does Ignorance Excuse Sin?

Affections & Motions Against Natural Law are Sinful, but not Necessarily Against Positive Laws, even Divine Positive Laws

On the Internal Relations of the Soul in Adam in Original Righteousness

On Man’s Original State in Righteousness

On Temptation & Trials

On the Classifications & Degrees of Sin, & the Distinction Between Venial & Mortal Sin

On the Timing of Ensoulment in the Womb, including with respect to Christ’s Incarnation & Gestation

On the Use of Medicine & Doctors

Marriage

On Occasional & Principled Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism

On the Negative & Positive Aspects of the Nature of Evil

On the Distinction between Moral vs. Natural (or Miserable) Evil

Christ’s Mediatorial Operations, Divine & Human, unto the Same Work