What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Extended Families

Contraception doesn't merely deprive one's own children of siblings. It deprives one's nieces and nephews of cousins; and it deprives one's grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews of aunts, uncles, and cousins - on down the line. After several generations of contraception most of us do not know what extended families are like. To compound the problem, American hyper-mobility ensures that our few remaining relatives live hundreds of miles away, and American individualism ensures that we don't share the same religious beliefs anyway.

Have you noticed that our politicians, even the most corrupt, are never charged with nepotism anymore? Nepotism requires family, and we don't have families. I never understood the horror that some people have for political nepotism. In the old world it was called aristocracy. Of all forms of corruption in a democratic republic, nepotism is the most human and understandable. Aren't we supposed to prefer our relatives? To the extent that we still have dynastic families like the Kennedys and the Bushes, I view that as a good thing. It's really a shame that George Washington didn't have fifteen children.

Anthony Esolen grew up in a town of 5,000 with twenty of his cousins. Twenty. That means, of course, that he had aunts and uncles in the town as well. He writes that "kinship is the foundation of community life", and that cousins, in particular, "provide you that straight passport into a community".

Extended family is the reason Americans survived the last Great Depression; the absence of extended family is the reason we won't survive the next one. The close proximity of many relatives - relatives who, more or less, share the same religious faith and code of morality - is the best form of social insurance there is. When hard times come, as they come to all eventually, there's a cousin with a spare room, a cousin who can loan you the rent money, an uncle who owns a business and needs a clerk, an aunt who can move in while you recover from surgery, etc., and they all live close enough to be of help in an emergency. Furthermore every family has its eccentrics, people who just don't "fit in" and conform very well to social expectations, for whatever reasons. Nowadays such people are a heavy burden, but in healthier times they could be assimilated into the extended family. The "crazy uncle" perhaps couldn't hold down a job, but maybe he could entertain the children and do odd chores for the family: there was no reason he needed to be destitute.

There are some on the political "right" in America who reserve their greatest wrath for the "welfare state" and its clients. I'd like to know how many children these pundits are having. What are they doing to restore the extended family?

Comments (108)

Jeff, I think you have a good point in the post, but I think that the swipe at people who oppose the welfare state detracts from it. In public policy areas, the question, "If you oppose A, why aren't you doing B?" is usually worse than pointless. Compare, "If you oppose abortion, how many unwanted children have you adopted?" The problem is that people who oppose A usually do so for independent reasons that seem to them very strong, and the cogency of these reasons (or lack thereof) has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the opponents of A have done B. Usually people who ask such a question ("I wonder how many people who oppose A have done B") are implying that A isn't really so bad and is in fact the solution to some problem to which B would also be at least a partial solution. Hence, people who oppose A have a duty to do B--rather along the lines of, "If you don't like the job I'm doing keeping the house clean, try helping me yourself." But of course, public policy matters of this kind aren't like helping with housekeeping. They often have to do with much more serious issues and objections. Thus (as in the abortion example) to imply that this is just a matter of people's rejecting A *when A isn't really so bad and is a needed solution to a problem the opponents aren't helping to solve themselves* is to ignore (at a minimum) and even to beg the question against the reasons opponents have brought against A.

For example, here is a thought-provoking article by Theodore Dalrymple in which he eloquently describes the very serious spiritual illness created by the welfare state. How is this illness created? By the way in which the welfare state separates actions from consequences:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_2_oh_to_be.html

In public policy areas, the question, "If you oppose A, why aren't you doing B?" is usually worse than pointless. Compare, "If you oppose abortion, how many unwanted children have you adopted?"

These are apples and oranges. Most people cannot be expected to adopt children; however, most can and should be expected to have children. When the solution to a serious social problem is doing what normal people should be doing anyway, then I think it is fair to ask why a prominent and influential critic of welfare policies is himself childless, thrice divorced and on his fourth "marriage", having nary a word to say against contraception or the demise of the extended family. That could indicate that the priorities of such people are misplaced and their policy prescriptions lacking in wisdom ... don't you think?

Yes, there is a synergy here - contraception begets and encourages the welfare state, which further undermines families, which places more demands on the welfare state, and so on. The chicken and the egg. The critics are right about the morally corrosive effects of welfare due to its separating actions from their normal consequences: the benefits of the modern nanny-state rain on the just and the unjust alike. But to abolish welfare without a program to strengthen and re-build the family is to put the cart before the horse. Some libertarian-tainted conservatives imagine that if welfare just went away, welfare dependent people would be forced to pull themselves up by their own God-given bootstraps and extreme poverty would all but disappear. I think that's another example of the libertarian's total disconnect from reality.

Jeff, honestly, even if adoption were easier than it is, the criticism I quote on abortion would be misplaced, because it would imply that abortion isn't intrinsically wrong and therefore that you shouldn't criticize it unless you are doing _something else_. For that matter, I wouldn't agree with, "If you are against abortion, why aren't you having more children?" even though I agree with you that having children is a natural thing that married couples should intend to do. The point is that abortion is evil and that people can see this and make good arguments against it regardless of what they are or are not otherwise doing in their lives. To imply otherwise is to commit a pretty obvious ad hominem.

Now, the welfare state isn't intrinsically evil, but it's in my opinion _so bad_ in its effects as to be about as close to it as a policy set-up that isn't intrinsically evil can get. I'm certainly not going to judge the economic policy prescriptions of a person by whether or not he has children. After all, economic policy prescriptions aren't black boxes or pigs in pokes that we have to judge on the basis of the character of the person handing them to us. We can look at them directly and judge them for wisdom or unwisdom based on their content.

Yes, it is horrible the effect it has. I sometimes think that the lack of cousins and siblings is why we have so much more road rage and...what was that phrase... induced sociopathic tendencies? (I think it was from Little Miss Attila, to describe how folks act like folks they don't know on a personal level aren't real.) You learn to deal with folks from family life (closer to 30 than 20, and I'm STILL 'the oldest' and 'the big sister') and if there's not a lot of family to deal with.....

If it would be placing the cart before the horse to abolish the welfare state without first strengthening the family - and it would be - so also would it be if we were to endeavour to strengthen the family without first inquiring into, and redressing, the causes of its dissolution. The cultural shifts which have precipitated the present pathetic state of the family were/are not wholly endogenous, but resulted, in part, from exogenous inputs of the (very) political economy itself; the economic pressures of growing commodity markets, for example, undermined many old, small farm towns long before the welfare state emerged, sending their children to the cities in order to find remunerative employment. The confluence of big agribusiness and the USDA's "get big or get out" regime dealt those that remained the death blow. Changes in tax and trade policy, intended to harmonize local practices with the regime of globalization, accomplished the same for many areas invested in manufacturing.

Sometime in the late 90s, well after the character of the Harvard-imposed Russian shock therapy was made manifest to all who would understand, Angelo Codevilla wrote an excellent book entitled The Character of Nations; the burden of the book was to limn the connections between national cultures and their institutions. In the section on Russia, Codevilla observed - and I paraphrase - that it would be worse than useless to bid a people be honest, to fulfill their obligations, to observe the laws of the society, if the reality was that those who did so uniformly failed to prosper, while those - and only those - who flouted all laws of man and morality prospered by so doing. Russians in the late 90s perceived that there was literally nothing in it for those determined to abide by the law, and the canons of morality; they would assuredly remain poor and struggling, while those who traduced every standard of justice and decency would enjoy every earthly felicity. And so it was. The oligarchs, aided by American economists, looted the accumulated wealth of the nation, amassing unfathomable fortunes, while fully half of the erstwhile middle class descended into poverty, and not merely relative poverty, but the sort of poverty that means one hasn't enough to eat. Crime flourished, along with every social pathology one would care to name. Certainly, this social environment was not conducive to any sort of traditionalism; for, when people are immiserated, they tend not to adhere to the virtues, for these have become maladaptive. Why have children, for example, if at any time, for reasons utterly mysterious to oneself, one might be cast from a tenuous poverty into destitution and homelessness?

Yes, the welfare state has all manner of deleterious effects upon its clients and wards. The welfare state also exists as a compensation, however inadequate, for other structural dislocations that antedate the family dissolution of our age, dislocations which also corrupt and deprave character, by rendering men and women insecure, fearful, and often desperate. Doubtless, I will be informed that these issues are discrete, disconnected, that one can hold, or not hold, any one along with any other, for different reasons; but the difficulty with this view is that all of these matters must be unified in a human person, must be lived out, and not merely thought - and it is in the living of them that stress in one often produces weakness in another, because men are not gods, and most men not saints. We ought not make, or advocate, policy as though they were saints - it is profoundly antithetical to the best conservative instincts, contrary to the lessons of the last century, and destined for failure.


One would think that the role of the welfare state in contributing to the decline of the family would be common knowledge, among conservatives.

The invaluable "Laban Tall" discusses & links to a couple of the basic texts on this point here.

Maximos:

When Charles Murray attributes the decline of the family to the the growth of the welfare state, it all makes perfect sense to me, and he is full of examples that illustrate his case.

But when you attribute the decline of the family to "growing commodity markets," and the like, I'm simply at a loss.

Surely the most disastrous "decline of the family" that we've seen in our time is among urban African-Americans. But what, if anything, does that have to do with the lack of the sort of localist/protectionist trade policies that you seem to favor?

On the other hand, I'm lost in admiration for this view that you attribute to Angelo Codevilla:

"...it would be worse than useless to bid a people be honest, to fulfill their obligations, to observe the laws of the society, if the reality was that those who did so uniformly failed to prosper, while those - and only those - who flouted all laws of man and morality prospered by so doing."

There are plenty of people around who have extended families.

They're called, "Mexicans".

When my great-grandmother died (yes, I knew her), she had 73 grandchildren and 63 great-grandchildren. It seemed in my extended family household, they were bringing home "uncles" that I didn't know about every week.

My one doubt is the idea of why extended family is important in our context. It really is an outgrowth of the agrarian society: more hands meant more labor. And it helped that half your children would die by the age of ten, and you wouldn't live much more past thirty. The workings of such families were more clan-like than anything else. If anything, my sense is that the Mexican family was far more matriarchal than some would think. That probably had to do a lot with the woman outliving the man by a number of years. Even in my wife's family from rural Catholic Louisiana, it was far more common for the husband to die first, leaving the widow to take care of the brood.

I have to say that Mr. Culbreath's portrait here is far more rosy than real life. The weird uncle is sometimes just a drunk and a weird uncle. But coming from such a clan, I have to say that I do miss it sometimes.

Contraception has also had the effect of creating a sort of societal amnesia by destroying a sense of historical continuity. This has made Western society more malleable by external forces.

The Chicken

How about a word for the liberal demonization of the white race as a major factor in declining procreation among Americans and other Westerners?

"Most people cannot be expected to adopt children; however, most can and should be expected to have children. When the solution to a serious social problem is doing what normal people should be doing anyway, then I think it is fair to ask why a prominent and influential critic of welfare policies is himself childless, thrice divorced and on his fourth "marriage"

A lot of people who are against the welfare state are economic conservatives rather than social conservatives, or a mixture of both who hold the economic side to be of slightly higher importance or believe the social problems are mostly caused by economic factors. But I don't see how being critical of welfare means you can't support the extended family thesis as well. In the 1930's Gunnar Myrdal claimed that as Social Security became widespread throughout the western world it would lead to individuals having less children, as they no longer needed the many children that people had previously had in order to care for them as they get older. They now had government to do it for them. The old needed no longer to rely on the assistance of their children if they have made no provision for their own old age; and the young must economically support the old rather than the other way around, as is typical within families Birthrates have fallen in half since the onset of modern social security policies and individual families have far fewer children than they previously had. I don't think extended families alone are the answer to the problem we face (the strengthen of families in general may be) and neither is the dismantling of the welfare state, but I believe they both would both help.

The compulsory old age insurance system, by which retirees (the old) are subsidized from taxes imposed on current income earners (the young) is a major source of our problems, take this into consideration along with the fact that because of the low levels of childbirth, this means that the old outnumber the young hugely, then you'll see the depth of the predicament we find ourselves in. Youth seeing that there money is being used to subsidize the old, have lost some of the respect with which the young had traditionally had towards their elders, they see them as economic burdens and problems rather than as individuals (partially because the youth themselves don't have much connection with the old, as there personal experiences with them are highly limited because of the collapse of the extended family). Also, I don't see how being critical of the welfare state for playing a significant part in this problem through distorting and fracturing traditional family bonds and dynamics, should make these people the targets of your derision, even if there not directly trying to help families, there ideas, research and work may do so anyway, through alerting people to the problems. So anyway, I think a lot of these problems can at least partially be shown to have a link with the Welfare state.

"But to abolish welfare without a program to strengthen and re-build the family is to put the cart before the horse."

"I'd like to know how many children these pundits are having. What are they doing to restore the extended family?"

By this are you saying that there should be government programs to help strengthen the family because I'm highly skeptical of this idea. There could be minor things the government could do such as tax benefits, but I think it would mainly need to be carried out privately within communities and families, small towns or isolated areas within cities to begin with and then spread out from there. I'm not really sure how the government could help with this, but if you could lay out some specific points, plans and ideas I would be interested to hear them.

I never understood the horror that some people have for political nepotism. In the old world it was called aristocracy.

Allow me to explain this to you. It is horribly unfair for the moron nephew of His Lordship to get all the good jobs in life because he's related to someone, while thousands of far more competent people languish as peasants because they don't have the same relatives. No one should get a free ride, or even much of a leg up, because he picked his parents better than another person. Allowing nepotism means that most every organization or enterprise is managed with less efficiency and less effectiveness than if the jobs go to qualified people from less well-connected families.

Also, on your more general point, not all large families are happy or even functional ones. My husband has 20 cousins and he maintains contact with none of them. He and his brother are the only members in his family for three generations who aren't drunks and dropouts. Why should Steve's wastoid relatives have any claim on him more than unrelated people who can at least manage to stay sober and bathe every day?

~~when you attribute the decline of the family to "growing commodity markets," and the like, I'm simply at a loss.~~

Finance capitalism has a deleterious effect on the family because it causes a disconnect between living and making a living. As Allen Tate put it, it is necessarily hostile to the development of a moral nature because it has removed men from the responsible control of the means of their livelihood. The culture necessary for the health of the family becomes ever harder to maintain.

This is not to say that welfarism hasn't contributed to the decline of the family. But welfarism is partly a response (however wrongheaded) to inequities caused in part by finance capitalism.

Lately I've become partial to New Deal policies which reportedly subsidized young families instead of young single mothers. But I suppose this kind of subsidy itself destroyed some of the material pressures which helped reinforce reliance upon the extended family. The New Deal enshrined the atomic family, the Great Society enshrined the individual mother.

Tracing back my father's side of the family tree, I realize these men have been mobile since at least the 1860s. Not a single forefather died near the town he grew up in. This was also the most rural branch of the family. Is urban living actually more congenial to the extended family today? Or were their ranchers' lives far less friendly to extended families than farming?

Birthrates have fallen in half since the onset of modern social security policies and individual families have far fewer children than they previously had.

While this is true, social security has not caused birth control which is the proximate cause of the fall in birth rates. Let's face it, without the Pill and the like being seen as morally unobjectionable since the 1960's, the extended family would still be healthy, today. People are having as much, if not more sex as in the 1940s and 1950s and without the Pill and other methods of birth control, marriages would be stronger and families would be larger because babies would be the natural outcome.

Families are a result of love as much as biology. Since at least the late 1800's the concepts of both have changed from concepts which have God at their center to man. It has been this change which is responsible for the dwindling of the extended family. In families where God is at the center, families thrive. Even in bad economies, where God is at the center, families thrive.

The Chicken

Karen his claim was:

The close proximity of many relatives - relatives who, more or less, share the same religious faith and code of morality - is the best form of social insurance there is.
Hence cousins who are drunken, dropouts and unbathed would not share the same values as your husband, so they wouldn't count. Also just because your giving an advantage because of your circumstance, does not imply you are a moron or undeserving, if your father is a carpenter or electrician for instance he may have taught you the necessary skills needed from an early age, the fact that he then picks you over some random stranger with better qualifications, should not be seen as a negative move on his behalf, should one not take care of ones own family before others. To be given an advantage is not the same as to be giving a free ride. If he is willing to lose productivity and efficiency points in order to help his own family he should have the freedom to do so if it's his own business, if problems arise the responsibility and blame will be rightfully directed at him, and if he loses money or goes out of business because of the employment of family members, then that's his own problem caused by his own actions. Your claim that "that most every organization or enterprise is managed with less efficiency and less effectiveness" is only a problem if we look at organizations and enterprises from the perpective of the entire economy and its tax revenues, rather than as private businesses run by private individuals. If "His Lordship" gives his relative a job and he's a moron who clearly isn't qualified or knowledgeable enough to do this specific job, then this reflects badly on the character of "His Lordship". The nepotism of which Jeff was speaking is based upon good people who share common morals and values, not upon those of bad character. Men of good character would not let others, even relatives, ride on the coattails of others, they would make them work as hard as everyone else and give them the same responsibility's, have the same expectations, and expect the same results as they would from any other employee.

Kevin Jones, your link to Alan Carlson's piece is very interesting, I've read a few things like this which go a long way towards explaining the traditional Catholic love of all things FDR. At the end he states that the post-1960 undoing of all this profamily policy is a story for another time. I'd like to read his take on it, can it be found? (None of the links that appear when I toggle his name seem to deal with this.)

The Masked Chicken,

The point was that social security policies destroyed one of the main reasons for needing large families in the first place.

Obviously it is not the only factor. But also I tend to think from a historical standpoint we tend to forget just how many others forms of contraception and contraceptive techniques were available back then anyway.

Also according to this chart the Birth Rate peaked in the Mid-Forties and started a continues drop in the Mid 50's (though still above average) and hasn't picked up since, by the early 62/63 Sixties the Baby Boom Explosion ended and by the late sixties it dropped to the lowest it had ever been, at that point.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/U.S.BirthRate.1909.2003.png

The chart here:
http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/753/american-birth-rate-decline-linked-to-recession
looks more like the birth rate went back to pre-depression levels, went up a bit, started going back down a bit...and then the Pill came out, and the rate has gone down beyond even the Great Depression.

I think both charts show essentially the same trend though, the Mid-40's spike isn't there in your chart, but the rest appears to be the same.

When Charles Murray attributes the decline of the family to the the growth of the welfare state, it all makes perfect sense to me, and he is full of examples that illustrate his case.

Wherever did I mention Murray, let alone gainsay him? My entire argument has been for a more complex view of the causation.

But when you attribute the decline of the family to "growing commodity markets," and the like, I'm simply at a loss.

This is more or less why we have the modern Dept. of Agriculture, farm subsidies, and the like. The combination of westward expansion and technological/technique improvements greatly expanded agricultural production in the 19th century; this resulted in plunging prices on commodity markets, with the consequence that Western settlers, Southern sharecroppers, and many small and middling farmers were economically squeezed. Certainly, the deflationary tendencies of the gold standard economy didn't help them, either, hence the free silver agitations of populism. This economic pressure upon the small farmer, and his communities, has continued largely unabated, but it also generated political pressure for various farm supports. These have largely been perverted into props and subsidies for Big Ag, to the detriment of the small farmer and his communities. Needless to say, the hardship endured by the small farmer accelerated the flow of population into the cities. The point is that regarding food as a pure commodity, and not as something culturally embedded, in a rich nexus of values and goods, thus undermined families.

Surely the most disastrous "decline of the family" that we've seen in our time is among urban African-Americans. But what, if anything, does that have to do with the lack of the sort of localist/protectionist trade policies that you seem to favor?

The welfare state as we know it, post-Johnson, acted upon an African-American population already torn from familial roots; a significant percentage of African-Americans in the great Northern metropolitan areas who succumbed to the Great Society had already left their extended families in the South, fleeing Jim Crow and seeking work. Moreover, the Great Society got into full swing in the 70s, right around the time that, for a variety of reasons, the American economy was made to undergo structural shifts, toward financialization and away from manufacturing. Globalization accelerated these trends. Must I explain why that was bad for African-Americans?

On the other hand, I'm lost in admiration for this view that you attribute to Angelo Codevilla

It's an admirable book. However, the implications are perhaps unsettling: we ought not expect much virtue, or commonality of sentiment, among people subjected to the depredations of our (so-called) meritocracy. The lumpenproletariat will gaze upon their 'betters', perceive that there is no common bond, no damage that cannot be done, and act accordingly.

Ah, THAT might be part of it... "birth rate" is per 1k population; the chart I was looking at was children per woman of childbearing age.

The birthrate would drop just from the live expectancies going up.

For various reasons, some folks are ill-suited to parenthood, and they know it. I thank God when they are wise enough to decline procreation. Just as not all blessings are for all persons, the calling to reproduce is not for all married couples. (For those inclined to draw moral and practical principles from nature, that is one.) For those variously ill-suited couples to decline the privilege of procreation is not a threat to civilization. Would that more couples were so discerning. And if, as some on this thread assert, the health and future of civilization is really what concerns them, then civilization is more threatened by persons who ought not marry or have children together doing exactly that.

For various reasons, some folks are ill-suited to parenthood, and they know it. I thank God when they are wise enough to decline procreation.

Funny thing. I went through a list of all the folks I knew who are ill-suited to parenthood, and I found that they were also ill-suited to marriage. Some people should never get married.

It's a curious thing that you apparently believe there are some people suitable for marriage but not parenthood. You seem to have a very low view of marriage.

I have to agree with Bob on this one. Of course, being well-suited to parenthood comes in degrees. Some people are _better_ suited for it than others. Most of us who are parents recognize our faults only too well. But if you're really _so_ ill-suited for it that you ought not be a parent at all, I find it implausible that you ought to be married. And anecdotally, my experience is the same as Bob's--if I think of a man who really ought not be a father, I have trouble imagining him as being loving to his wife in sickness and in health, for example.

For various reasons, some folks are ill-suited to parenthood, and they know it.

If they no it, they should not attempt marriage. Marriage without the acceptance of the possibility of children is not a marriage, by definition, at least in a theological sense (regardless of what the law says). One gets married for two goods: having children and support of the spouse. Being open to the transmission of life at the time one gets married (whether or not it actually happens - medical or financial reasons could intervene) is one of the sine qua non of a valid marriage in a sacramental sense, at least between Christians and it also makes sense from the standpoint of reason, as well. The divorce of sex and marriage is one of the major things that has destroyed the extended family.

The Chicken

Michael Bauman, what do you expect these married couples who are not fit to have children to do? Do you expect them to remain celibate? If you do not expect them to remain celibate, and are advocating contraception, you should leave God out of it for fear of blasphemy.

Procreation is a privilege? Umm . . . like in China? What would you suggest we do to the children conceived without express permission of the state? I hope you used the wrong word there.

Dr. Bauman,
I am in complete disagreement with your comment above. I read this late last night and was jolted by your view of marriage and reproduction. I do not want to take this thread in a different direction so I will say only this - Psalm 127:3-5 states, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate."
There is no qualifier here, nor as far as I know is there a qualifier anywhere in the Scriptures. Marriage is to be entered into with the hope and intention of procreating. If one is not suited for children then, as was stated above by Bob and Lydia, one is not suited for marriage either.
In my opinion the quality of parenthood in the culture has deteriorated precisely because of the interference of the welfare state, which has made legal, committed, and active fatherhood unnecessary. The State has created a matriarchal society in the very neighborhoods where the "matriarchs" are barely educated. Add to that the complete dumbing down and sexualizing of the culture with curriculum that does not have education as its primary goal, but rather social change including the destruction of traditional marriage.
The people who are ill suited for children might have been stellar parents had they had the opportunity to be raised in a two parent home with a mother and father who believe that in spite of their shortcomings and maybe limited income, children belong to God and they are the result of His blessing on them. This won't happen until the welfare state is rejected and people turn once more to Christ because with Him all things are possible. Even good parenting.

Where to start?

Dr. Bauman's comment is likely the most intelligent observation on W4 to date and like most wise observations is obvious on a moments serious reflection. Abstracting out the victims of our ridiculous War on (Some People Who Use Some) Drugs, we still have a considerable number of folks who should never have been. How many incompetent dingbats do you know whose contribution to the gene pool we could have done without? Take a good look around the next time you visit a big box.

It seems obvious to me that those who are good at something should do more of that thing and those who aren't shouldn't. As long as the average is around 2,2 or so we will be OK. Those who don't choose to reproduce will still pay taxes which will help educate the children of the competent who in turn will grow up and pay taxes to help pay the Social Security and Medicare of those whose taxes helped educate them. Rinse and repeat.

"It seems obvious to me that those who are good at something should do more of that thing and those who aren't shouldn't."

Yeah and my point was that its up to the owner of the specific business, to make the decisions about who he employs, based upon whatever factors interest him or that he personally finds important. He may be interested in qualifications or may be interested in helping his family members, the choice is his and there is no right or wrong decision.


America has the highest birth rate of any industrialized society (this has a lot to do with immigrants though), the rate is 2.1 and still dropping (there has been a major drop recently partially due to the financial crisis). In Russia a million more people are dying a year than are being born (this is largely to do with the fact that in Russia there are more abortions performed a year than actual babies being born, though I believe these statistics are dropping), in Japan and China they are failing to meet replacement rate and the same is happening in Europe though not quite as badly (again due to immigrants).

Gunnar Myrdals point was that the welfare state changes the incentives that govern family life. His point being that the reason families were shaped the way the were was due to unseen external pressures shaping and molding family dynamics.

I don't think the pill itself explains why people now deliberately choose not to have large families, yes it changed the way people looked at sex itself, but there are many different reasons why large families are rare nowadays, its partially due to lifestyle and career changes, people having different goals in life (what they see as important), both of these being the byproduct of technological, social, economic and governmental changes. The economic burdens of large families are also a factor (partially due to the effects of inflation, and ther rise in the cost of living that comes with it) and these lead us to the fact that people no longer see the need to have large families and this partially because of social security which tells them its not important, as government will protect them instead.

we still have a considerable number of folks who should never have been.

There is al's philosophy in brutal summary. Never let him deceive you with the pretense that he believes in equality. As is often the case, the firm traditionalist affirms the brotherhood of man far beyond what the liberal can manage.

How many incompetent dingbats do you know whose contribution to the gene pool we could have done without? Take a good look around the next time you visit a big box.

Al, so, you fancy yourself as God, now? - making decisions on who should be born? Are you criticizing God for letting these children be conceived? Shame on you! It may take a man and a woman to try to have a baby, but only God can let the conception happen and his reasons are always good reasons. If you do not believe this, then your outlook on life is not a very charitable or hopeful one, it seems to me.

Do you not believe in repentance? You do remember that the prostitutes and tax collectors were getting coming to Jesus and not the Pharisees, right. Jesus said, "and yet, even when you saw this, you (the pharisees) did not repent."

Al, some of those people you think should never have been born may be the saints you will never see secretly crying over their sins, the saints you will never see help others keep out of trouble, the saints you will never see because, it seems, you do not believe in the mercy of God.

Tell me it isn't so.

The Chicken

"There is al's philosophy in brutal summary. Never let him deceive you with the pretense that he believes in equality."

I certainly don't believe in equivocating terms. I believe in equality before the law and basic policies that give all a fair shot at developing their talents and that is about all.

If you have never crossed paths with at least one person about whom you can observe that it would have been better had he never been born, you have led a sheltered life.

Speaking of equivocation, I notice that you all seem to be confusing "welfare state" with "welfare" in the sense of some AFDC program (AFDC itself ended with welfare reform in 1996). The core principles of the welfare state are that work and family are things to be honored and encouraged. What Social Security and Medicare say is that, regardless of station, luck, or good or bad investment decisions a lifetime of work means that when you can't work, you won't be desitute.

Things like family allowances, school lunch, Schip, unemployment insurance, COBRA, etc. even out the rough spots and give most everyone a fairer shot at life.

That has been one of the enduring differences between left and right in this nation. The left believes all work deserves to be honored at some basic level regardless of how it pays. The right can't get past some version of Social Darwinism (Spenserism, actually) and aristocrat worship.

What traditionalists do, Paul, is explain today with just-so stories about things that never were in times and places that no sane person would ever want to revisit.

Whatever, Al. My just-so traditionalist view is that all men who have life deserve it, and that to declare them unworthy of it is an offense against human dignity.

How you honor the work of a man unworthy even of life is a question I'll leave for your unequivocating mind to illumine.

"desitute (sic)

Oops, destitute

"...but only God can let the conception happen..."

I have a different understanding of the process.

"Al, some of those people you think should never have been born may be the saints you will never see secretly crying over their sins..."

A comfort to their victims, I'm sure.

Look , Michael made a commonsense observation - that not everyone is cut out for marriage and parenthood - and all I see in response is a bunch of canned theology.

"The right can't get past some version of Social Darwinism (Spenserism, actually) and aristocrat worship."

Yeah, because your statement "How many incompetent dingbats do you know whose contribution to the gene pool we could have done without?" doesn't in anyway imply Social Darwinism.

that not everyone is cut out for marriage and parenthood

If he had said, "Not everyone is cut out for marriage," no one would be arguing, here. That is certainly obvious. Even Jesus has said as much. We are arguing with Michael because he has separated marriage from the goods of marriage (children). One cannot be married without being open to life. That's not canned theology. That's the truth. Reason and Revelation argue as much.

"...but only God can let the conception happen..."

I have a different understanding of the process.

Al, ???????? If you believe in God, do you think anyone can stop him if he says a baby will be or will not be born? God, who cares about our immortal soul, would certainly seem to have a vested interest in being there when it is created.

The Chicken

"Speaking of equivocation, I notice that you all seem to be confusing "welfare state" with "welfare" in the sense of some AFDC program (AFDC itself ended with welfare reform in 1996). The core principles of the welfare state are that work and family are things to be honored and encouraged. What Social Security and Medicare say is that, regardless of station, luck, or good or bad investment decisions a lifetime of work means that when you can't work, you won't be desitute."

Yeah and the point I was making was that is was unsustainable. And didn't help families but damaged them indirectly, and I explanied why as well. And you haven't shown in anyway how the ideas and points that I made were wrong.

Bob,
You said:
"It's a curious thing that you apparently believe there are some people suitable for marriage but not parenthood. You seem to have a very low view of marriage."


Not so, Bob. Some persons, whether by calling, by circumstance, or by temperament, might be well suited to marriage but ill-suited to parenthood. Suitable soulmates might not be suitable parents, or else might not be in a position where parenthood is wise. It have nothing to do with a high or low view of marriage -- or of parenthood -- but relates to dealing with humans as they are, and with the circumstances in which God has placed them (Matt 24: 19, 20, for example cites a circumstance in which parenthood is actually woeful. I do not believe the this passage exhausts the times and ways in which parenthood might not be the right choice.)

"Yeah and the point I was making was that is was unsustainable."

Actually it is. SS can be easily fixed with a couple of small tweaks. Medicare is the immediate problem though HCR has made a start.

The problem with much of the criticism of SS is that it confuses cause and effect. The transition from agriculture and rural to industrial and urban created the need for social insurance and made large families problematic. On a family farm everyone works and child rearing can be integrated into everyday life in a way that it can't with industry. Recall the abuses and horrors of women and children working in mills and mines.

You might also consider the possibility that the post WWII baby boom was unsustainable and produced more children then it was possible to properly acculturate.

"God, who cares about our immortal soul,"

Soul???

The Chicken:

"If he had said, "Not everyone is cut out for marriage," no one would be arguing, here."

Michael Bauman:

"And if, as some on this thread assert, the health and future of civilization is really what concerns them, then civilization is more threatened by persons who ought not marry or have children together doing exactly that."

Insisting on a theological definition of marriage for those outsides ones dispensation is just cant.

Paul, one of the drawbacks to conventional conservative discourse is its tendency to loose reading. There is no way this,

"How you honor the work of a man unworthy even of life is a question I'll leave for your unequivocating mind to illumine."

can be considered a reasonable interpretation of what I wrote.

For example, if ones employment was the result of ones criminal activity, say treason and the job was president or general, then that work would properly be honored with a rope. The same for murderers etc.

Folks who play by the rules fair differently, as they should.

Michael, the trouble is that you weren't simply talking about a couple's choosing a time for parenthood but about a couple's marrying with the intention _never_ to be parents. And you were applauding that if they were globally unsuited to parenthood. That's what most of us have a problem with, here. Even the Catholic Church's position permits delaying parenthood for serious reasons. The problem is with a couple's marrying and saying, "We don't ever want to have kids."

Insisting on a theological definition of marriage for those outsides ones dispensation is just cant.

Not if it happens to be true.

The Chicken

Lydia,
Right. I talked both about persons and circumstances, either one of which might make procreation a bad choice. If one considers calling as something different from circumstance, then some Christians might be called to a ministry that makes marriage a wise choice but procreation an unwise one.

Jeff C.,

This struck a chord with me "American hyper-mobility ensures that our few remaining relatives live hundreds of miles away" -- I have a brother that lives in Florida and I wish he was here in Chicago so my girls could grow up closer to their cousins. It is also sad that my wife's family is (mostly) back in North Carolina -- again, there are many aunts, uncles and cousins over there that I wish could be a part of my girls' regular rhythm of life. That said, if it weren't for hyper-mobility, my wife wouldn't have moved to Chicago in the first place -- so it is sort of a glass half-full situation.

Maximos,

You say, "The oligarchs, aided by American economists, looted the accumulated wealth of the nation, amassing unfathomable fortunes, while fully half of the erstwhile middle class descended into poverty, and not merely relative poverty, but the sort of poverty that means one hasn't enough to eat. Crime flourished, along with every social pathology one would care to name." Let's count the ways this is exaggerated nonsense.

First of all, American economists tried to help Russians set up a free-market economy just like they did in Eastern Europe. It is not the American economists fault that the people of Poland are decent (where free-market reforms took root and Poland is currently doing quite well thank you very much) and the people of Russia, not to put too fine a point on it, are not. Whether you want to point to culture or genes, Russians weren't ready for freedom and made a mockery of the proposed free-market reforms. To pin the blame on American economists is like pinning the blame for crack cocaine drug dealers on the free market.

Secondly, people (middle-class or otherwise) were not living in poverty in Russia, especially "the sort of poverty that means one hasn't enough to eat" and I dare you to point to any reputable statistics (and some angry paleo website doesn't count) that suggest otherwise. Times were tough for awhile in the late 90s in Russia, but they were tough in a relative sense only.

Finally, I couldn't disagree more with this nonsense: "when people are immiserated, they tend not to adhere to the virtues, for these have become maladaptive". This is classic left-wing propaganda -- crime is caused by the root cause of "poverty" and to fight crime we must fight the root causes. It is ridiculous coming from left-wingers and perhaps even more ridiculous coming from someone who considers himself a traditional conservative. By historical standards, throughout most of human history people were immiserated -- pick up Greg Clark's "A Farewell to Alms" for the evidence.

Anyway, in case you didn't know, the social science evidence (along with common sense) suggests there is no link between poverty and crime -- after all, plenty of poor nations don't suffer from the kinds of crime you saw in Russia and in the inner-city in America (see e.g. rural Malaysia). The real problem is moral, and the break-down of morality, which I admit has complex origins although ultimately the loss of faith and the breakdown of the family are the two big culprits (in Russia and in the U.S.) Putin, although I'm not his biggest fan, at least realized that the solution to crime and moral anarachy is the restoration of order. This is why I'm always amused by liberals who wring their hands at the rates of incarceration of African-American males and yet are amazed that crimes rates in American cities are (generally) going down -- I wonder why that could be?!

Al, try this one on for size:

I regard you as one among that "considerable number" of "folks who should never have been," but I promise that despite that ruthless judgment of your worth, I do indeed honor your work, and uphold the value of your life.

Also, I have a bridge you might be interested in purchasing.

al,

You say, "What Social Security and Medicare say is that, regardless of station, luck, or good or bad investment decisions a lifetime of work means that when you can't work, you won't be desitute."

But there are two problems with your idealization of these programs: (1) in practice, they are not means-tested very well, so that people who do make good investment decisions and are well-to-do still collect benefits; and (2) even if these programs do the "good" you claim for them, you fail to acknowledge their negative effects. By (2) I mean that by setting up such a safety net, you destroy some (not all) of the incentive to work for your own safety net -- including having kids to act as your safety net, which is what folks here have been saying. So yes, I grant that bad luck can ruin your investments, but what about people who go through life without bad luck or good luck and yet without Social Security would have the extra incentive to save more for their retirement? They would have greater control of their future, have more assets to leave to their kids if they died early, might be incentivized to work harder during their most productive years, etc. In other words, Social Security, while protecting folks from some of the bad luck we experience in life also messes up people's long-term incentives to save and work and plan for the future. Maybe the trade off is worth it, but at least acknowledge there is a trade-off.

Finally, this is an amusing statement of al economic history: "The transition from agriculture and rural to industrial and urban created the need for social insurance and made large families problematic."

Leave aside the determinism implicit in the statement (what's next Karl, a statement about the inevitable demise of late stage capitalism?), what amuses me is the part about "large families problematic". The only problem with large families (other than those who for biological reasons have difficulty having many kids) is our ego -- folks who value large families will have them:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI08Aa01.html

Those who don't, will die out and leave the Earth to the rest of us!

Jeff, I'm going to keep this brief, since I'm short of both time and patience. First, the American economists did not attempt to impose rapid shock therapy privatization upon Poland; there was no attempt whatsoever to apply the same programme to both Poland and Russia, because the circumstances were too divergent. Second, in part bewildered by the complexity of the Russian situation, in part infatuated with stupid and unconservative notions of rapid and revolutionary transformation, and in part motivated by dreams of lucre, the American economists unleashed an orgy of primitive accumulation unprecedented in human history.

Third, if you'd like, you may email me, and I will provide you my phone number. If my wife consents, you may speak with her about the realities of Russia in the 90s. The poverty was not merely relative. My in-laws, like millions of other Russian families, were plunged into a poverty which, perhaps, only the Depression generation might understand. There was little work. Wages were not paid. What wages one received, intermittently, came in a devalued currency, after all consumer goods, inclusive of necessities, had been revalued at Western European levels. There was not enough to eat. You may choose to disbelieve all of this, if you wish, to use you illusions, in the words of Thomas Fleming; but don't you dare come on to this website and assert that my wife, and millions of others like her, did not ecperience what they experienced. I will not abide denialism. You have never known what it is to subsist on one meal a day for months on end, to have forgotten the taste of meat after several years, to go without heat in the dead of winter. Don't you dare insinuate that my remarks, and those of other paleo critics of American policy towards Russia, are motivated by ressentiment over mere relative differences in material welfare, as though it were a matter of simply detesting the New Russians over their automobiles, or something. You do not have the experience, nor have you observed the realities of Russia.

Fourth, no there is no necessary correlation between poverty and crime, but there is a caveat, which most critics refuse to acknowledge: there is no correlation if and only if the poor are members of a relatively intact, traditional culture, characterized by strong family structures. Eliminate those, and the relationships become more complicated, refracted by a thousand variables. In any event, my emphasis was not on crime, per se, but upon the virtues; when the American and Russian lumpenproletariats behold their oligarchs and meritocrats continually playing the letter of the law against the spirit, constantly chasing after arcane loopholes, pressing every advantage, however dubious, they will do the same. When the lumpenproletariat find themselves economically distressed, for this is their fundamental condition, they will be more inclined to disregard the goods of family, and so forth - or has there never been a woman who aborted out of desperation and despair?

What Social Security and Medicare say is that, regardless of station, luck, or good or bad investment decisions a lifetime of work means that when you can't work, you won't be desitute.

They don't say anything. Politicians say that if you vote for me, I will (maybe) take care of you by either robbing the next generation or mortgaging their future (and by the way, I am exempting myself from all of this).

Insisting on a theological definition of marriage for those outsides ones dispensation is just cant.

From a non-religious/theological point of view marriage is primarily for the protection/benefit of children, not primarily the spouses, because the spouses, who pre-exist the marriage, can make whatever arrangements they want for their protection. Thus, an intentionally permanently childless couple can simply agree to how to share their earnings, wealth, the permanency (or not) of their relationship, etc. They don't really need marriage as an institution.

The children, on the other hand, don't have a pre-marriage voice in the relationship, and won't have one after birth, so they need to enter into an already existing institution that society has set up for their protection. Hence, marriage. Because really, when you call something a "marriage" what you are really describing is the first step in creating the nuclear family. There is no such thing as a family without children.

Dear Maximos,

I have known a few Russians in graduate school and have had some naturalized Russian students and I think the situation you describe in 2010 Russia is pretty accurate, unfortunately.

The reasons for it may not be simply a matter of economics chasing after vice, however. My humble submission:

One important difference between 2010 Poland and 2010 Russia is the presence of the Catholic (or Russian Orthodox) Church as an important part of the lives of the people. Back when Poland was under submission to Communism, it was the Church that sustained the hope of many people and when democracy broke, it and its moral teachings acted as stabilizing influences to prevent the spread of vice (although commercialism is slowly eroding the morality of Poland). The Church also encouraged not only large families, but the sorts of social nets that those imply.

In Russia, the Orthodox Church was mostly underground from 1925 until at least the 1980's. The only God most Russian knew was the State. When Russia was opened to the West after the collapse of the State, there was little influence from the Church as to morals or the State as to economic virtue. The God of the State had vanished. The result was depression, fear and an attitude of every man for himself (thus, the rapid explosion of the Russian Mafia). Families were also small because there was no encouragement from religion to have large families, but many economic and state dis-incentives in times past, as well as the state of fear and hopelessness among at least a part of the people (the Russian people are very hearty, but they can be a tad pessimistic, at times). Thus, there were few safety nets, which put even more pressure for moral decline. The West could do little to help (and some Westerners did take advantage of the chaos) because there was little in the way of cooperation in terms of economic distribution after the State collapsed - no Churches to help and little in welfare.

The Orthodox Church is making some in-roads, but not enough to help bring many Russians back from the moral brink. I suspect if the Roman and Orthodox Churches could just learn to cooperate, things might improve.

Just my ignorant take on things. Make of it what you will.

The Chicken

The answer is simpler than most people think. Americans don't have kids because they're by and large selfish nincompoops who hate the idea of anything getting in the way of watching the football game or buying a new pair of shoes. Or even going to work; God forbid anyone not be able to perform some office drudgery. If not for the industrious immigrants replacing us America's population would be dropping just like Europe's.

Raising a child isn't like driving a car, so there is no sense in which a person is better or worse at it in a measurable way. You could do everything right and the child may still end up bad. In the end, all you can do is try. There are definitely some people who are unable to even take care of themselves. Their unfortunate luck is to be born into a garbage culture that will never show them how.

Let's turn the situation around. There are some people who aren't married and should be and some people who are married and should be parents but aren't. So, there. I, of course, would count myself in this class, except that I'm a chicken and I'm pretty sure its illegal to marry fowl in most states.

Perhaps the strangest offer for a date I had came some years ago. I sometimes get into odd moods and once, I called an information operator to find a phone number for something or other and the first thing she said struck me as funny so I did a comedy set for her for about five minutes (I can be hired for parties). Her co-workers must have thought something were going on because she was as close to falling out of her chair and rolling on the floor laughing as I could hear over the phone. I finally relented and let her breath. She then asked me if I wanted to meet her daughter.

The Chicken

There is al's philosophy in brutal summary.

You beat me to it, Paul. More evidence that liberalism is built not on compassion, but contempt. The tyranny that must result will seem like progress.

Maximos,

I'll be brief, as I don't want to hijack Jeff's post. You are both right and wrong about Poland and Russia -- right that American economists didn't impose the same economic reforms on both countries, wrong that they didn't try to:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0003.sachs.html

As for the suffering of the Russian people, to the extent that "millions" of Russians experienced the kinds of things you described, then I was obviously wrong about Russian poverty. But not to put too fine a point on it, I would think that there would be regular riots in the streets if life was that bad in post-Soviet Russia (no secret police to take you away for protesting living conditions), and I don't recall civil unrest getting that bad in the 90s (I remember folks weren't happy about crazy Muslims, but that is a different story). Perhaps you'll be back to give me another 90s Russian history lesson...

Finally, as to the question of women aborting out of desperation and despair -- again, compared to life for a typical peasant women in the 1300s (who was dealing with the Bubonic plague and surviving on subsistence agriculture) who has a tougher life, a ghetto Mom or the peasant woman? And yet who would never even consider aborting their child? I think the question of what makes "strong family structures" is an important one but I don't think the answer can be found in material goods.

The purpose of marriage is not procreation.

When his Jewish opponents quizzed him on the subject of marriage and divorce (Matt. 19: 3ff.), Jesus invoked the Genesis account of creation as the paradigm by which He understood such things. For Jesus, even millennia after the fall, the union of Adam and Eve in Eden was the pattern for marriage. If you want the mind of Christ on the subject of marriage -- and you should -- to this passage in Genesis you must turn first because it is the one to which He turned. It therefore merits careful attention, to discover both what it says and what it does not say.

In the Genesis account of creation, we read that after the various days, or stages, of creation, God often deemed that day's work "good." In fact, when His creative efforts were complete, He judged the entire world "very good" (1: 31). The finest and highest part of his "very good" creation was Adam, with whom God shared intimate, face-to-face, fellowship. As God's picture and partner, Adam occupied a position of privilege and esteem. To him, for example, God brought all the animals for naming.

Of course God could have named the animals appropriately Himself. But He apparently had a lesson in mind for his newly created human image. By examining and then naming all the animals (apparently according to their nature and characteristics), Adam realized first-hand that for him none was a suitable companion. Though he might relate to the animals pleasingly and well, Adam learned that at the deepest and most important level he was alone. He understood that, unlike the animals, he was unmatched and unmated -- somehow incomplete. While all the other creatures had suitable companions of their own kind, he did not. Hence his exclamation of pleasure and excitement when later she first appeared.

In light of Adam's solitary condition, God declared, "It is not good for Adam to be alone" (2: 18), giving divine voice to what apparently was Adam's realization, in light of the lesson of the animals.

At one level, I myself am rather surprised by the word "alone." At first blush, it seems a singularly inaccurate description of Adam's condition because Adam had intimate, continual, soul-deep fellowship with God Himself in the midst of Paradise, a fellowship with God unhindered by sin, by sickness, or by any other of the characteristic burdens of life in a fallen world. Surely intimacy with the Eternal Spirit who made, sustains, and loves the universe is an inestimable privilege that banishes all defects and fills every deprivation.

But according to God Himself, in some way it does not.

Even though Adam enjoyed blessings the rest of us at this moment can only hope to enjoy, God called Adam "alone." Whatever rich and good things God was for Adam up to that point, in God's own words, and in God's own infallible judgment, at some level Adam's condition amounted to being "alone."

God determined to assuage Adam's aloneness: "I will make a suitable helper for him" (2:18).

Naturally, God knows his business. He knows perfectly well what will and will not remedy Adam's ills. So, God made a woman, and not just any woman, but a suitable woman. He made Eve. If something else, or someone else, were better for meeting Adam's need, God could have -- and would have -- provided it. Such is God's character.

When Adam was alone, God made for him a suitable helper, a woman to be his defense against loneliness, and, by implication and extension, a woman to be his support, inspiration, enlightenment, amusement, and companion. In short, Eve was to be Adam's second self, his other half, and his fulfillment, someone without whom he would remain incomplete. Presumably, what she was for him, he was for her in return. In that sense, Adam and Eve's roles echo one another. If Adam were not for Eve what she was for him, then Eve herself would fall into the same lonely predicament Adam experienced before her arrival. God is not so foolish as to solve Adam's problem simply by re-creating it in Eve. Their life together was to be a life of profound mutuality and love. Short of that, they'd both still be alone.

When Eve finally arrived, Adam exclaimed, "At last!" which (paraphrased by Jerry Maguire's "You complete me") is a graphic and dynamic articulation of the meaning of the Hebrew text (2: 23), which is inadvertently stifled by the more staid KJV-ish "This is now bone of my bone."

Nowhere does the text Jesus invokes as his paradigm for marriage say that the purpose of marriage is children. Other folks might say it, but not Jesus and not the text He invokes. The raising of children inside a relationship like this is arguably the best place to have and raise children, but having children is not the purpose of the relationship.

One important difference between 2010 Poland and 2010 Russia is the presence of the Catholic (or Russian Orthodox) Church as an important part of the lives of the people.

This, manifestly, is one of the critical differences between the two nations. The communist regime in Poland was incapable of compelling the submission of the Church, because the Poles themselves defended Her - the regime thus confronted a crisis of legitimacy: had the regime demanded a renunciation of the Church, or imposed an aggressive atheism, the Poles would have refused, and the regime could not deal with several million dissidents, all at once. In Russia, the Bolsheviks practically began by liquidating much of the clergy and intelligentsia, and what remained of the clerical elite was partially compromised; the Orthodox Church in Russia was thus incapable of serving as a bulwark of resistance to the regime.

The Stalinist regime did embark upon a natalist policy in the aftermath of WWII - the Great Patriotic War - but this proved unavailing by the late sixties, as the communist architecture had become sclerotic and moribund, in reality, by the time of Khrushchev; in the absence of religion, or some secularist simulacrum, and in the midst of the soul-deadening pseudo-culture of the time, few thought it imperative to have children.

There were safety nets, of a sort. Wages and salaries under communism may have been low, but the Ruble was objectively overvalued, and controlled prices were low; the inefficiency and corruption insured that few goods were available licitly, but they were always available otherwise, and people could afford to scrape by on their official salaries. There were also pensions for the aged and retired, graduated by duration and type of service, and these, like the salaries of the employed, were sufficient to keep recipients from destitution. However, once the shock therapy was imposed, and the economic system unraveled, these salaries and pensions continued to be paid, if at all, according to the old Soviet scales; they were wholly inadequate under the new circumstances, particularly given the decimation of the family.

The Orthodox Church is succeeding in making some converts, and in drawing some of the marginally attached back to active observance; I have myself, on numerous occasions, witnessed baptisms of groups ranging from ten to twenty-four (or thereabouts) persons. The Church has the de facto support of the Putin regime, though this is more a matter of national heritage and identity, perhaps, than anything else; the cultual effluvia have been mitigated somewhat under Putin, as well. It all appears to be too little, too late, but it is still better than nothing, better than resignation and despair. There are also modest natalist programmes, including incentives for larger families. Again, these are probably too little, too late, to arrest the precipitous demographic decline.

Jeff, here's the thing about the shock therapy: they didn't accept the privatization that had already taken place. As a consequence of the reforms of Perestroika, many of the large state-owned enterprises had undergone partial privatization; shares of ownership had been allotted to the people of the Soviet Union, and people bought them and sold them, much as we might buy and sell stocks, albeit they did so in a much more informal and primitive manner. My wife's family retained their shares, in the hope that, after the demise of the Soviet regime, a new government would inaugurate further reforms. Dealing with the complexity of this situation, elaborating a property-rights regime that respected the claims, formal and informal, that Soviet citizens had upon the system, was apparently beyond the Americans. Shock therapy was never a serious proposal, and never had any reasonable prospect of success; it was ideology, an expression of a myth of spontaneous generation, and eventuated in opaque, rigged, and fraudulent auctions of collective property to dubious personages, via mysterious financing. Virtually all of those who thus primitively accumulated the collective property of the people of the FSU were former apparatchiks and mafiya figures, leveraging their insider knowledge of the workings of the system to deliver it unto themselves, formally. How could it have been otherwise? Shock therapy was no more closely tethered to reality than Bolshevism; as anyone familiar with Burke could asseverate, such attempts at radical and precipitous change always summon forth evils.

As regards abortion, it is imperative that the matter not be considered in timeless abstraction, but relative to the cultural inheritance of the people of a particular place and time; one cannot reproach a woman for aborting, and claiming economic desperation as a defense, on the grounds that she ought to have held some cultural or religious ideal, and thus regarded abortion with abhorrence, when she never had exposure to that ideal in the first instance. Objectively, the abortion is always an enormity; subjectively, any number of privations could preclude, or obscure, knowledge of this fact. A woman spiritually and psychologically (de)formed by that system, deprived of any substantial knowledge of religion, deracinated by the destruction of family and the careerist materialism (yes, it was a real sociological factor) of the system, generally will not respond to hardship as we might expect of a poor, but religious peasant woman. The two women do not have the same subjective appreciation of the normative facts of the situation, and objectively cannot; one is assuredly nearer to error than the other, precisely because her circumstances constitute nearer occasions of sin. Again, as you might expect me to say - though I must say it anyway, for it is true - I know women who had these experiences, and did that thing, for the very reasons I have suggested. That impoverished and desperate women in one culture, and one epoch, might have shuddered to commit that offense, tells us little about what women in a different culture and epoch might do; culture shapes consciousness, and persons thus formed by different cultures will react differently to similar circumstances. Political economy, moreover, is an element of culture, not an autonomous process, discourse, regime of signification, or what have you; it forms the soul as do all other elements of culture, and in combination with other such elements, it often does weight the scales in favour of certain circumstantial decisions.

Mike, both "don't eat from the tree" and "be fruitful and multiply" are commands. If it's wrong to disobey the first, why is it okay to disobey the second?

On the notion that someone is apt for marriage if and only if one is apt for being a parent:

Suppose that disease X - a horrible, painful, chronic condition - is present in S's family. As a matter of fact, S doesn't have X, but S is assured by his doctors that his children would have a 90% of contracting it. S is a well-adjusted member of society. It seems that S would be apt for marriage but not apt for being a parent.

Also, let's take someone who isn't well-adjusted. Why shouldn't he be apt for marriage, even if not for parenthood (either because the disability put too much financial strain on him or because of likelihood his children would inherit mental illness)? What would he be apt for? Studies indicate that marriage is good for mental health, and that those with mental health issues usually marry others with similar issues. Perhaps they couldn't live up to the demands of marriage as well as others would, but then they can't live up to any of their obligations as well as others can. The question is where the most good can be achieved, even if it will of necessity be less than others.

And on the "welfare" state, I have to say that while perhaps the programs may be of excessive profit to some groups, they are practically useless for many others. I personally witnessed a schizophrenic burn down an apartment complex because the State psychiatric institutions didn't give him the care he needed, and I know homeless people who don't qualify for help because they have no telephone or address (or worse, no ID - hard to keep hold of when you have no roof over your head).

Mr. Bauman -- your interpretive reading of Genesis is beautiful in many ways, but it falls far short of being persuasive of the question at issue here.

There is no way to abstract away the sheer Scriptural and biological fact that where the female is the most decisively the "helper" of the male, lies in their mutual and exclusive capacity to bring new immortal souls into the world.

Bring in that great earthly command of Christ before his Ascension, it is obvious that unless a similar jarring act of intellectual abstraction is performed, one way to make disciples is the organic way -- by raising children into the covenant community, into God's people on earth, the Church.

Even one of Al's "better that he'd never been born" the miserable and unworthy of life -- he might come to the Cross, be welcomed into a local instance of God's living Body, find a wife who can truly be his helper, and together with her, raise up children whose own plain talents would make even Al feel shame at his break with democracy and equality and the brotherhood of man.

I'll even say to Al that if he has never seen what a good Christian wife can accomplish to strengthen and sustain a miserable man, who according to liberal judgment should by rights have perished in the womb, then he has lived a very sheltered life indeed.

Frank,
Both commands do apply, of course. Sin must be avoided and the earth must be filled. We have failed miserably on the first count, and succeeded relatively well on the second. We've got around 7 billion persons at the moment. That number is rising quickly. We have been reaching each succeeding billion quicker each time. An empty earth seems not to be a major problem any longer. (Some demographers calculate that about 1/15 of all the persons who have ever lived are alive today. I do not know how they arrive at that figure. I'll simply take their word for it.) But even if one thinks the earth is not quite full enough, that view does not mean that in the Genesis text the very purpose of marriage is procreation. Genesis doesn't say that about marriage. It does say that the earth needed filling.

Paul,
I'm not against having children and raising them in the faith. I am saying that the Biblical text does not say that the purpose of marriage is procreation. The great commission text to which you allude does not say so either. You have transformed the call to global discipleship into a statement that procreation is the main purpose of marriage. The nature and purpose of marriage is quite alien to the text in view. Global discipleship might well entail raising one's children in the faith, should you be a parent. But the call to global discipleship does not mean that the purpose of marriage is procreation. The text you cite does not go there. Neither, then, should our interpretation of that text. (Indeed, in pursuit of global discipleship, a couple might actually decline having children so that they can pursue the commandment more fully on other levels and in other places. In pursuit of global discipleship, even celibacy might prove a wise and useful choice, as so many dedicated priests and nuns have demonstrated. Global discipleship requires neither having children nor insisting that the purpose of marriage is procreation.)

Good grief, Dr. Bauman! The first command God gave to the newly married Adam and Eve WAS to be fruitful and multiply! You are selectively quoting from Genesis 2. Genesis 1 is more direct in establishing the connection between marriage and procreation:

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The Chicken

Well, we're probably not going to get anywhere with this, Mr. Bauman, but your reasoning is quite wrong, both as too the nature of Scripture's picture of marriage and as to the nature of men and women. Why should the command Frank cites be instantly abstracted to the whole world at large? Is it not also a individual and personal command given to a specific man and woman, in their relationship as man and woman? To say "we don't have to be fruitful and multiply because lots of other people are doing that already" is in a sense like saying "original sin doesn't apply to us, since we never ate of the forbidden tree." On the contrary, the commands (and disobedience in following said commands) are personal and individual as much as they are global and species-wide.

Your parenthetical remark, there at the end of your 6:59am comment, contains some particularly egregious bad reasoning, I'm afraid; it is a sheer non sequitur to adduce the potential for discipleship work outside the nuclear family -- i.e. outside a marriage and its natural issue -- into a discussion of the institutional of marriage. Of course the following statement is true -- "In pursuit of global discipleship, even celibacy might prove a wise and useful choice, as so many dedicated priests and nuns have demonstrated." No one so much as hinted a disagreement with this point.

"[In] pursuit of global discipleship, a couple might actually decline having children so that they can pursue the commandment more fully on other levels and in other places."

I believe the Catholics have some saints who were married couples and yet celibate even within the marriage, for precisely this reason. So I do agree that this is a possibility.

What I cannot agree with is that a sexually-active married couple can "decline having children." Biological defect or injury may possibly prevent them, but a lifelong refusal to embrace the gift of fertility while still enjoying its pleasurable and companionate benefits, is to do violence to the human person, created in the image of God.

Even leaving aside the spiritual dimension, there is the plain pulverizing fact that even in our hi-tech era no birth control method is 100% effective, especially if a couple constrains themselves to non-abortficant methods (which I hope you would endorse strongly). In other words saying "we decline to have children but we'll have all the sex we want" is dubious as a matter of simple physiology.

By the way, I finally yesterday got to watch the film clip in the main post. It's truly beautiful. I appreciated it.

On the notion that someone is apt for marriage if and only if one is apt for being a parent:

Suppose that disease X - a horrible, painful, chronic condition - is present in S's family. As a matter of fact, S doesn't have X, but S is assured by his doctors that his children would have a 90% of contracting it. S is a well-adjusted member of society. It seems that S would be apt for marriage but not apt for being a parent.

The spirit of the world would say that S shouldn't have any children. But since contraception is never 100% effective, what should we do when S unexpectedly does have a child and it is discovered that S's child likely has X while she is still in the womb? Should we kill the child? Or perhaps we should wait until the child is born (in order to be certain of diagnosis) before we kill the child?

The alternative view is that any child born with X is blessing. Certainly, the child with X will be a burden (and every child is a burden), but more importantly, the child with X is a blessing. That is, the "horrible, painful, chronic condition" does not determine or factor-in on the worth of the child (the child as a blessing). The worth of the child is solely determined on the basis of the child as a human being. There is an allowance for prudence in every family as to how much they might take on, but the correct answer is not "a child with X should never be born."

-----

I don't know that the __primary purpose__ of marriage is procreation. Certainly, an 85 year old man could marry an 85 year old woman. It's not likely, nor is it expected that such a marriage produce offspring. The same would apply to an infertile couple in their twenties. We would not force these couples to adopt children or seek fertility treatments. Perhaps the better word is __order__. Marriage is __ordered__ toward procreation. While we would accept infertility as a disorder for the couple in their twenties, and infertility-as-a-function-of-age for the couple in their eighties, because their marriages don't violate that __order__, we would, on the other hand, deem that marriages which are sterile (either same sex "marriages" or made sterile {prophylactic by barrier or chemicals or whatever}) as a violation of that __order__.

The same rule applies for sex within a marriage. Sex is __ordered__ toward procreation. Infertility (due either to a woman's cycle, age, or disease) does not force the couple to abstain from sex (that is, the requirement is not that each act of sex produce offspring), but sterility (i.e., the intention not to have children) by contraceptives would be a violation of the natural __order__.

I'm sure there will be a need for me to sharpen the above formulation, but I think most of the above will survive intact (although I recognize that the opposite side will probably remain unconvinced).

Peace,
Bob

Michael, does it give you any pause to realize that in your acceptance of contraception you are in disagreement with virtually the entire Christian tradition, East and West, up till the 20th century?

"By the way, I finally yesterday got to watch the film clip in the main post. It's truly beautiful. I appreciated it."

Watch the whole film sometime, Lydia. It's outstanding (although I'm a big David Lynch fan it's the only film of his that I can recommend without reservation -- rated G and distributed by Disney, no less!)

I would have fewer negative things to say about a couple who had disease X in the family and intended to adopt rather than to have natural-born children, provided that if they did in fact conceive a natural-born child they were prepared to love and cherish the child.

Usually, though, the plan not to have or raise children means just what it sounds like--a plan not to have or raise children, period.

There are some on the political "right" in America who reserve their greatest wrath for the "welfare state" and its clients. I'd like to know how many children these pundits are having. What are they doing to restore the extended family?

The welfare state is the sine qua non of individual radical autonomy. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, women could simply not afford to take the radical leap of devastating marriages by latching onto feminism without the assurance that someone would take over the role of their husbands.

Certainly, many people would suffer if we gutted the welfare state, but that is necessary. You don't give more heroin to an addict, you at least send him to a methadone clinic, if not make them go cold turkey.

Not to unduly single out women there, but it's a social conservative myth that men have been the destroyers of most marriages in the last several decades; women initiate about 72% of all divorces in the US. It is possible to accurately pinpoint the wholesale destruction of American family life to the point when feminists and other liberals brought together the welfare state and radically liberalized marriage laws to enable women to enjoy the "freedom and equality" that the top 10% of all men enjoyed (feminism's views of sex were always a projection of the top 10% of men onto the majority of men).

Maximos,

If you read the Sachs piece, you'd realize that "shock therapy" refers to all sorts of economic reforms, most of which have nothing to do with privitization. In the case of Russia, most of the privitization happened after the Americans left the scene, so to blame them for Russia's flawed execution of a privitization strategy is strange.

But this sentence is what caught my fancy in your last comment:

"As regards abortion, it is imperative that the matter not be considered in timeless abstraction, but relative to the cultural inheritance of the people of a particular place and time; one cannot reproach a woman for aborting, and claiming economic desperation as a defense, on the grounds that she ought to have held some cultural or religious ideal, and thus regarded abortion with abhorrence, when she never had exposure to that ideal in the first instance."

In other words, you are a moral relativist? My favorite story on this subject comes from the British Empire as told by the always witty Roger Kimball, who quotes General Charles Napier, who worked in the Raj, on the subject of suttee, the Indian/Hindu custom of burning a widow on her husband's funeral pyre:

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

Let me just put it out there that the role Jeffrey Sachs in the Great Russian Barbecue of the 90s is disputed, as also the roles of other economists, particularly some who hailed from Harvard.

No, I'm not a cultural relativist; abortion is always and everywhere immoral. My point is that differing cultural and economic conditions will either enhance or hinder the subjective apprehension of this fact. Soviet communism hindered this apprehension; Western consumerism hinders it as well, albeit to a lesser degree than communism.

For the record, the poverty rate in Russia in 1999, at the nadir of the Yeltsin gangster capitalism years, was 41.6%; given that the population of Russia in 1999 was approximately 147 million, that yields a total number of the impoverished of 61 million, or thereabouts. The conditions for the gradations of poverty are not explained, and are not terribly clear, in that first source; presumably, they have something to do with factors such as food insecurity. In the absence of well-constructed data sets on such factors, we rely upon the testimony of those who experienced those conditions. Among the Russians of my acquaintance, or marriage, that poverty often entailed food insecurity, choices between food and heat, and so forth. It was not - not - relative poverty, but sheer deprivation.

The alternative view is that any child born with X is blessing. Certainly, the child with X will be a burden (and every child is a burden), but more importantly, the child with X is a blessing. That is, the "horrible, painful, chronic condition" does not determine or factor-in on the worth of the child (the child as a blessing). The worth of the child is solely determined on the basis of the child as a human being. There is an allowance for prudence in every family as to how much they might take on, but the correct answer is not "a child with X should never be born."

I'm not saying that the child wouldn't have positive value, or even that the life the child would have would not be worth living (after all, even if that were the case with regard to this life, it wouldn't be the case with life eternal). But suppose that S and S' (his wife) and T and T' can only have 5 children total. It seems to me that it would be better if T and T' bore the 5 children than for S and S' to bear some of the 5.

Of course, reality isn't that way, since there is no fixed total. But I would say that S and S' would be better to adopt, as Lydia mentions, or perhaps to donate an amount of income equivalent to that which would be spent on childbearing to some sort of charity - perhaps one which spreads malaria vaccinations in Africa - or to be involved in charitable activities themselves.

I'm not even sure this would require one to abandon Catholic teaching; you could say that it would be permissible for S and S' to have marital relations only in infertile periods.

I would have fewer negative things to say about a couple who had disease X in the family and intended to adopt rather than to have natural-born children, provided that if they did in fact conceive a natural-born child they were prepared to love and cherish the child.

I understand, Lydia. The situation as described requires a lot of courage, and frankly, because I am such a sinner, it may require a courage that I do not myself possess.

We seem to live in a culture which is pain averse. It seems that as a culture, we think that we have a right not to suffer. It extends to preferring the ending of life over that of living a life with suffering.

How about the question of joining together with God and bringing into the world a life in which there is high probability of suffering? It should be obvious that I believe that the gift of human life far outweighs the negative of suffering. However, I say this while wondering if I would ever accept the martyrdom of the secular bayonet or the martyrdom of the Muslim sword, if I were offered the choice of suffering -- for life in Christ. I don't know if I am a coward, but I do know what the best choice is.

Then again, in the example above, S could choose not to marry and avoid that choice. He might pour his energy into becoming a spiritual father, rather than attempt to consummate a marriage (and thereby risking the birth of a suffering child). I think that would be a good choice too.

Peace be with you,
Bob

By the way, I finally yesterday got to watch the film clip in the main post. It's truly beautiful. I appreciated it.

Glad you liked it, Lydia.

For anyone who might be wondering, I have pretty loose standards when it comes to "threadjacking" if the discussion is good. And this discussion is good.

I'm not even sure this would require one to abandon Catholic teaching; you could say that it would be permissible for S and S' to have marital relations only in infertile periods.

There is nothing wrong about having sex only during infertile periods (for extended periods of time). The problem is when the couple enters into marriage with the _intention_ of not having children.

Rob,

"Michael, does it give you any pause to realize that in your acceptance of contraception you are in disagreement with virtually the entire Christian tradition, East and West, up till the 20th century?"


As I said the last time you raised that point, the fact that an error is old or widespread does not turn the error into a truth. The truth is that Scripture does not teach that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. That is just one of many old and widespread errors propagated in church tradition.

Paul,
I'd be interested to see you cite a few reputable exegetes who say that the great commission verses to which you allude in Matt 28 refer to the notion that procreation is the purpose of marriage. If you want to ground that idea in Scripture, you'll have to go elsewhere.

Dr. Bauman,

Paul asked,

"Why should the command Frank cites be instantly abstracted to the whole world at large? Is it not also a individual and personal command given to a specific man and woman, in their relationship as man and woman? To say "we don't have to be fruitful and multiply because lots of other people are doing that already" is in a sense like saying "original sin doesn't apply to us, since we never ate of the forbidden tree." On the contrary, the commands (and disobedience in following said commands) are personal and individual as much as they are global and species-wide."

You basically ignored this analysis in your latest comment -- how come?

Michael,

You didn't really answer Frank's question. You say yes, the command must be obeyed, channel Paul Ehrlich for a couple of sentences, then end with "But even if one thinks the earth is not quite full enough, that view does not mean that in the Genesis text the very purpose of marriage is procreation. Genesis doesn't say that about marriage. It does say that the earth needed filling."

Well, did it need filling inside or outside of marriage? I hope you don't say the latter because, even without being an exegete, I feel on safe ground believing that that's not what He meant by it. Unless you think that 'sex is reserved for marriage' is another one of those old errors we need to get shut of.

Or are you simply making the case that a young married couple need not procreate if they so choose, that the command to be fruitful and multiply is optional? In which case it is not clear how it could be a command, nor why it should be obeyed.

"The truth is that Scripture does not teach that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. That is just one of many old and widespread errors propagated in church tradition."

Even if that's true it doesn't answer the question. That in your opinion 'Scripture does not teach that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation' does not automatically give the stamp of approval to contraception, even by your own logic, because there's more to the Church's rejection of contraception than that fact. It's not as if the Church simply declares by fiat: "The primary purpose of marriage is procreation; therefore, contraception is wrong."

Your argument, in fact, sounds a lot like that of the pro-abortion 'Christians': "The Bible doesn't prohibit abortion anywhere -- that the Church has universally rejected it
is just one of many old and widespread errors propagated in church tradition."

In any case, it's certainly interesting to see an actual specimen of a person who believes that his personal reading of Scripture trumps that of the entire Church up till about 1920. I know that Luther existed, and that he believed he was the first person since the apostolic age to understand St. Paul, but still...

One thing I had wanted to bring up was the idea of family identity. In a normal human society, extended families have certain characteristics known to everyone - a unique sense of humor and way of laughter, peculiar talents and virtues, common faults and shortcomings, discernible manners of expression, distinct physical and facial features, etc., the facts of which are proven by their salient exceptions, those whom everyone also knows "aren't like the other Culbreaths" for some mysterious reason, and who become the subject of much good-natured joking and speculation.

And the reason I wanted to bring this up is because one of the most serious crises of our time is the crisis of personal identity. Who am I? Is it enough to say "I am an American"? Is it enough to say "I am White" or "I am Aftican-American" or whatever? If being an American means anything in terms of personal identity, it has to be more than an idea or a philosophy or a political system in order to create a genuine sense of belonging (please forgive my sociology-lingo) to something real and permanent, to be a "straight passport into a community" in Dr. Esolen's words.

In my view, racial categories are not helpful in terms of creating a personal identity. To be "white" or "black" does not even imply a common language with other whites and blacks, much less a common faith or experience or memory.

Ethnic identity, on the other hand, is not insignificant and can offer a real sense of personal identity when joined with the common language, religion, memories, customs and traditions of an ethnic people. But in the United States and the "New World" in general, ethnic ties are weak and there is not much to sustain them. The New World is still a world in transition. I myself am a jumble of several European nationalities and, rumor has it, some American Indian ancestry. Due to modern conditions many different ethnicities live cheek-to-jowl, often intermarrying, speaking the same language and observing the same rules and customs, sitting in the same classrooms and even worshiping at the same altars. Whether you like this or not, that is the present reality and it is unlikely to change anytime soon.

But the need for personal identity remains.

An ethnicity, after all, is little more than a large extended family. And so rebuilding our western culture will begin - if it is to begin at all - with rebuilding the Christian extended family. Personal identity begins with God, of course, but is then actualized through family, community, and nation. It is more "who I am" than "what I believe" - not that beliefs aren't important, but that some beliefs (Christian) are ontologically determinate, especially in light of sacramental realities, while others (American) are shallow and exclusively temporal. I'll always be a Culbreath and a Catholic, but someday I will not be an American.

A word to Arturo Vasquez. You come from something like what I, and others, want to recapture. You are right that we are "outsiders looking in". You are also right that it is easy to romanticize traditional societies such as the one from which you came. What you don't seem to understand is that we seemingly rootless Americans still have available to us the memory of the traditional society from which we also came. The Church is the most important transmitter of this historical memory, but we also have our own families, letters, literature, music, etc., to make it personal. The survivors of America's Great Depression are now in their 90s. I have sat at their tables, listened to their stories, and read their memoirs. Yes, we do have something they wanted: material success and economic prosperity. But they did not know that it would come to us at such a heavy, heavy price. For most of them still living, that price was too high, and they look on their worst years as better than our best. Furthermore one can observe their characters, formed in hardship and community, and the characters of our own generation, formed in prosperity and alienation, and come to some definite conclusions.

Rob,
When you can bring yourself actually to answer my case as articulated rather than to evade and distort it, perhaps we will make progress.

I have said that neither the Bible in general nor Christ in particular teach that procreation is the purpose of marriage. They teach other things. Perhaps you can show me from Scripture where I am wrong. If so, please do. If not, then it's not a matter of me against the tradition. It's a matter of the tradition against Christ and Scripture -- a condition that has obtained frequently over the centuries.

The fact that your misreading of my views sounds to you like pro-abortion arguments means only that you misunderstand both what I am saying and the basis for my saying it.

Pitting me against the tradition is irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of my view, and it misses the bigger picture that the tradition (and you yourself) might be standing against Christ and Scripture. By falsely linking me to pro-abortionists (whom I likely oppose more fully, more strongly, and more effectively than you do), does not answer any of my points -- not one.

If you wish to engage me on this point, then I encourage you to stick both with what Scripture says and with what I say about it. If you do not, you cannot refute my contention about what Scripture teaches concerning marriage.

I have said that neither the Bible in general nor Christ in particular teach that procreation is the purpose of marriage. They teach other things. Perhaps you can show me from Scripture where I am wrong. If so, please do.

Michael,
Moses taught that if a man died before he had a son, his brother was to marry his widow and raise up issue in the dead brother’s name. You don't consider this scriptural proof? Here is a marriage ordained explicitly for the purpose of procreation. And it also clearly implies, I might add, that procreation is the purpose for all marriages in general; for if it weren’t, why would a brother have to continue where his dead brother left off as if something were left uncompleted?

Moreover, (and I don’t know if this has been mentioned already), Onan son of Juda was struck dead by God for avoiding getting his wife, the widow of his brother, pregnant during copulation, i.e., for practicing contraception, “for he did a detestable thing.”

No, Mr. Bauman, it is you who are evading and distorting the issue. Rob G does not need to take your arguments seriously because you have not taken his question seriously, you have just glibly dismissed it while simultaneously demonstrating how devastating it is to your beliefs. The question is not whether contraception is morally licit or not, which it of course is not, but where your authority to propound "true" Christianity comes from. How can you claim to speak for Christ or to offer the true interpretation of Scripture? Who are you? You are just one man, like all the others who think that their interpretation of Scripture is indeed the only true one. How can you claim that you are somehow correct while they are wrong? It cannot be the case that you think that your interpretation is just so clear and rational that no sane man can disagree with you, is it?

Tradition and authority play a paramount role in determining what is true Christianity and what is not. If it didn't, then anybody would be free to believe what they wanted and to twist the Scriptures and words of Our Lord into whatever they want them to mean (as you do). The truth is that you have set yourself up as an authority, and in doing so you have set yourself apart from what Christianity has been for almost two millenia. You do not speak for Christ, you do not speak on behalf of Scripture. You speak only for Michael Bauman.

I have said that neither the Bible in general nor Christ in particular teach that procreation is the purpose of marriage.

Mat 19: 4 - 5
He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

Compare

Gen 2:24
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Obviously, Jesus knew BOTH creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. His reference to, "in the beginning," means that he accepts Genesis 2 as the way it was in the beginning, then he must also accept Genesis 1 and its reference to be fruitful and multiply. Jesus even said that Scripture cannot be set aside.

Also, in the question about the seven brothers who died (Mat 22: 23 - 32) :

"The same day Sad'ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question,
saying, "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.'
Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother.
So too the second and third, down to the seventh.
After them all, the woman died.
In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her."
But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,
'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."

Jesus contrasts the married state to the angelic state. What is it that married people can do that angels can't? Obviously not simple mutual support of friendship, since the angels can do that. Is it simply becoming one flesh? What would be the purpose of that, by itself? There are many ways to support one another in a marriage and grow in love besides having sex. The only answer that makes sense is procreation. Angels can't procreate. Their number was fixed at the time of their creation. The last part about God being the God of the living also implies that Jesus is talking about the generation of life. The resurrection is a form of new life or new birth.

The entire passage refers, at least obliquely, to procreation as the important thing in marriage.

What about Hannah, and Elizabeth, and Manoah's wife (the mother of Samson)? If procreation were no big deal, why are these women considered among the most righteous in Scripture, following the Law of the Lord very well? They were all barren and desperately wanted children. Why? Because being with out children was seen as a reproach. St. Elizabeth says in Luke 1: 24 - 25:

After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she hid herself, saying,
"Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men."

The Chicken

Jeff C., I would just want to say that extended family is only one source of corporate personal identity, even fairly strong corporate personal identity. For example, my parents in a sense "went out from" their families when they became Christians, because their families were completely non-Christian. My grandfather, a self-identified atheist from Luxembourg, had even forbidden my mother to go to church when she was a child. Their community identity came through their church. They would have said, "We are Baptists" or "We are fundamental Baptists" rather than identifying themselves with their families. They identified themselves most of all with the pastors who had led them into Christianity and had taught them in the early years of their young adulthood and marriage. Now, when I am too far away to be of much help, their fellow church members take them to medical appointments and the like. That sort of thing happens. Then, too, some _nuclear_ families are strong enough and distinctive enough to provide a strong sense of personal identity to their children even if they do not have or do not live near their extended families.

On the discussion with Michael Bauman, I would just emphasize as a matter of logic that the issue of contraception and the issue of a couple's marrying with the intention of never having children are distinct. As another commentator has pointed out, it would be possible for a couple to marry with the intention of never having children while using NFP as the mechanism for avoiding conception. This is not so very implausible in our own time, as technology and increased knowledge have made NFP a great deal more scientific than it was a hundred years ago, provided a couple has the determination and willingness to follow the protocols carefully. But I take it that many of us are agreed that using NFP to avoid having children _altogether_, _ever_, and going into a marriage with that intention, would be at least morally questionable.

William,

I did answer Frank. I agreed with what I presume he was getting at regarding the commands of God, namely that they ought to be obeyed. On that point, I suspect quite strongly that he and I fully agree. I said, regarding the first command Frank cited, that we have failed miserably when it comes to avoiding sin. Regarding the second, I said that we have done quite a bit better. I said that it seemed to me that having nearly 7 billion persons on earth could be considered full, or very nearly so. Perhaps you do not think that 7 billion persons equals a sufficiently full earth. Fair enough. Then keep at the procreation. I don't oppose it in the least. Nor does the Bible. But even if you think that 7 billion persons is not a full earth, you have not shown -- and this is what I am arguing and why I am arguing it -- you have not shown that Scripture teaches that the purpose of marriage is procreation.

Remember the context of the commandment to fill the earth, William, of which we have alluded to only a fragment: God told us to fill the earth and to subdue it. There were but two persons on the entire planet, and those two persons simply cannot fulfill all on their own the creation mandate God gave them to subdue the planet and to have dominion over both it and all the living things that dwell upon it. To do that, they needed offspring, lots and lots of offspring. So God commanded them to subdue the earth -- and to fill it. Filling the earth is related to subduing the earth and having dominion over it. The command to fill the earth has that particular end in view. The command to fill the earth is tied to the command to subdue it. It's textually a package deal. We can't quote but a portion of the commandment and its background in order to make our case. The point in view in this passage is not to articulate the alleged purpose of marriage but to create the human beings needed to complete this particular task: subduing the earth and having dominion over it. It seems to me that roughly 7 billion persons is enough for that task. Our failure to subdue the earth and to have dominion over it, as commanded, is not due to lack of numbers but to other more significant lacks, namely moral and spiritual deficiencies, not population deficiencies. Our failure there does not arise from our alleged failure to reproduce.

But if you think that the earth is not full enough, and that we need more persons (rather than better persons) in order to fulfill the linked commandment to subdue the earth, then, I wonder, at what number of billions -- if any -- would you be willing to say we have enough, and that the command to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it remains unfulfilled for reasons other than insufficient population to do the job. Paul Erhlich, of course, has nothing at all to do with it. Understanding and wisely applying the Genesis text has everything to do with it. It is unworthy and unwarranted of you to suggest insultingly that I am channeling him. My argument has nothing to do with him. My argument is that the command alluded to here does not mean that the purpose of marriage is procreation. That is not what this Genesis text is about. When marriage appears later in the text, its origin and purpose relate specifically to alleviating Adam's aloneness by means of a suitable helper, Eve. Textually, the origin and purpose of marriage is rooted in fixing what God himself said was not good -- Adam is alone.

George,
No, I don't consider that text proof that the purpose of marriage is procreation any more than you consider it proof that polygamy is morally permissible. Besides, if you think you can easily go to the law of Moses for your teachings on marriage, then I suppose you ought to go to Deut. 24:1ff and, in consequence, reject Catholic teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage because on this issue Moses and the Church are vastly different, and because you want to appeal to the law of Moses as authoritative. Appeals to OT law are very much more theologically and textually complicated than the sorts of citations you have employed.

ER Bourne,
Rob's objection is misguided, as is your defense. The Bible stands above the tradition. If they diverge, then the tradition must bow to revelation, not vice versa. Here they diverge. Rob wants to pit me against the tradition, saying that we diverge. Fine. I don't mind. Do YOU mind being pitted against Christ and Scripture? I ask you this because from Him and it you diverge. Invoking tradition will not prove that the tradition is correct in its interpretation and application of Scripture. That is what's in question, not the answer to the question.

So here's a question for you, ER: How would you know if the tradition ever were wrong on marriage and procreation? That is, by what means would you know it and prove it?

Wow. I asked two simple questions and neither one got an answer.

According to you they diverge, but again, where do you derive the authority to pronounce what the Bible means and what it doesn't? The very fact that you presume to know suggests that either you are an authority unto yourself or that the Bible is so clear that only one interpretation is plausible. The latter is obviously not the case or there would not be so many different Christianities each claiming to teach what the Bible actually says.

If Christian tradition is wrong on, say, abortion, contraception, the Trinity, etc., then Christianity is simply a false religion and not to be practiced by any right thinking person. Tradition, though, cannot be wrong because it is vouchsafed for us by Christ Himself.

If biblical interpretation is impossible to the individual believer there can be no justification for assent to any Christian doctrine. If the bible is mostly a vague jumble of elliptical meaning, what is the basis to accept that some part of it or the entirety of it is infallible? By virtue of being indeterminate, the basis cannot be stable, no matter who is doing the interpretation.

Your dichotomy is a false one, Step2. It is just not the case that because the Bible is terribly unclear and indeterminate about certain things, which it of course is, that therefore no coherent or clear interpretation can be made. The question is whose interpretation is correct. My argument was simply that the interpretation that has been accepted by most Christian Churches for almost two millenia allows us at least some clarity when speaking about Christian faith and morality. For instance, I can say with confidence that contraception has been deemed immoral by historical Christianity since its inception and that this belief was near universal until the 1920's. This same historical analysis may be applied to any number of beliefs: the Trinity, condemnation of homosexual behavior, etc. When addressing Mr. Bauman, my concern is not so much with whether or not contraception, for instance, is right or wrong, but whether we can call one of these positions authentically Christian. Now both history and tradition are clear: artificial contraception is a gravely immoral act. Therefore, anyone who holds that this is not the case is simply not a Christian if the word has any substantial meaning.

"If you wish to engage me on this point, then I encourage you to stick both with what Scripture says and with what I say about it."

Sorry, but I will not. After all, Irenaeus didn't have to "stick with Scripture" when dealing with Gnosticism did he? How about Athanasius and the Arians? Basil and the later Arians of his day? Nope, Sola scriptura is wrong and since I don't accept it I see no need to abide by its rules in a discussion.

You are putting your personal reading of Scripture above that of the entire Church, East and West, for 1900+ years. You might as well join the JW's -- they've accepted all the other heresies on the same exact principle.

"If you wish to engage me on this point, then I encourage you to stick both with what Scripture says and with what I say about it."

Sorry, but I will not. After all, Irenaeus didn't have to "stick with Scripture" when dealing with Gnosticism did he? How about Athanasius and the Arians? Basil and the later Arians of his day? Nope, Sola scriptura is wrong and since I don't accept it I see no need to abide by its rules in a discussion.

Who is trying to convince whom?

I didn't waste a post to merely to disagree with Dr. Bauman, but I suppose I'm taking the opportunity now.

Dr Bauman wrote: "Matt 24: 19, 20, for example cites a circumstance in which parenthood is actually woeful. I do not believe the this passage exhausts the times and ways in which parenthood might not be the right choice." I don't agree that the passage supports his argument. And I know of God's command to be "fruitful and multiply" and the example of Onan, but I had my doubts whether they would persuade Dr. Bauman; it turned out that I guessed correctly.

The point is that I don't accept his interpretation of Scripture, and so I doubt that he would accept mine. On that basis, we've got no common ground in which to debate over Scripture. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the efforts of those who did introduce Scriptural support for procreation in marriage. It's possible that something might convince Dr. Bauman.

I've kept Chesterton in mind during this debate, and I hope I always will. From The Dumb Ox:

If there is one phrase that stands before history as typical of Thomas Aquinas, it is that phrase about his own argument: "It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves." Would that all Orthodox doctors in deliberation were as reasonable as Aquinas in anger! Would that all Christian apologists would remember that maxim; and write it up in large letters on the wall, before they nail any theses there. At the top of his fury, Thomas Aquinas understands, what so many defenders of orthodoxy will not understand. It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by proving that he is wrong on somebody else's principles, but not on his own. After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours.

During my long return back home into the Church, I was given the grace to realize that once anyone accepted contraception as morally acceptable, then they had no defence against against any sexual perversion. If the purpose of sex was not tied to procreation, then homosexual sex acts are not immoral. It would have done no good to cite Scripture to me at the time -- which declare that homosexual sex acts are immoral -- I would have seen that sort line drawing as arbitrary. And it is arbitrary line drawing.

When I realized that only the Catholic Church held the line against contraception, I recognized __the__ Church which taught the truth. When I read Humanae Vitae, I encountered common sense.

I know that contraception is immoral. But I don't know that I'll convince Dr. Bauman on Scriptural grounds as he interprets Scripture. If I get to choose which Scriptural interpretation I'll accept, then it's obvious that I'll choose that of the Catholic Church over Dr. Bauman. But that won't help move the dialog.

If you want to convince Dr. Bauman you'll have to do it on his terms. If Dr. Bauman wants to convince you or me, he'll have to do it on ours.

It is just not the case that because the Bible is terribly unclear and indeterminate about certain things, which it of course is, that therefore no coherent or clear interpretation can be made.

Your statement is pure gibberish.

...my concern is not so much with whether or not contraception, for instance, is right or wrong, but whether we can call one of these positions authentically Christian.

So you think a position could be authentically Christian and also be wrong? Yes or no.

Just because you did not understand it does not mean that it is gibberish. If something is unclear or vague than it can more easily give rise to many interpretations. Mr. Bauman, for instance, has, in his above posts, used Scripture to attempt to justify his supposedly Christian belief that marriage is not for the sake of procreation. My point was that since this interpretation is both ahistorical and anti-traditional it cannot be called Christian in any meaningful way. I will say again, for almost two millenia Protestantism, Catholicism, and the Orthodox Churches taught against this. If you think they are wrong, fine, but do not attempt to call your position Christian if all of Christian doctrine and history are against you.

Your last question rests on another misunderstanding of what I wrote. If we can say unquestionably that a practice was condemned by Christianity for most of its history then we can say that to oppose it is to oppose authentic Christian doctrine. When I said that the question was not about whether contraception was right or wrong but about whether it was Christian, I meant that I was addressing one issue and not the other. Let as many people oppose Church doctrine and think it wrong for as long as they want, but do not let them portray themselves as practitioners of "true" Christianity which ignores both history and tradition.

"If we can say unquestionably that a practice was condemned by Christianity for most of its history then we can say that to oppose it is to oppose authentic Christian doctrine."

I believe you mean "uphold authentic Christian doctrine" in this sentence? If a practice has been condemned, and we also oppose (condemn) "it" -- that practice -- then we are *upholding* doctrine, yes? If we do *not* oppose (condemn) the practice, *then* we would be opposing doctrine.

"Be fruitful and multiply" seems more like a blessing than a moral command. Not only is the same blessing given to the birds, but the particular blessings to man- male and female - are seen as already accomplished: "And it was so done." The same blessing is given to Noah on the occasion of his disembarkation, along with a prohibition against murder. There is, however, no sense given of how many people per square mile would satisfy this charge.

In Matt. 19, when the Lord describes marriage and the celibate life, he compares the call to celibacy to eunuchs, obviously meaning those who cannot have children, but as a counterexample to those who marry. He equates those that cannot marry with those who cannot have children. He is saying that while it may be preferable to not marry, not all can do this. At this point, Matthew immediately turns to the episode where the Lord asks that the children be allowed to go to him. This juxtaposition shows the desirability of children to God, and is an encouragement to get married (to have children) if the celibate life is not your calling.

As St. Paul would later write, "better to marry than to be burnt" (1Cor 7:9). In Corinthians St Paul's concern is not that the two should have children, but that those who marry do a good thing by being husband and wife, and fulfilling their obligations to one another. There is no sense that they what they owe each other specifically is children, however much that is likely to result.

Yet the subject of children does come up in relation to the role of women and men in worship. While St. Paul enjoins women not to preach at assemblies, and to dress modestly, he uses the claim of Adam's being made first, and Eve having made the original error. Yet he claims that "she shall be saved through childbearing" (1Tim 2:15). He immediately follows this up with recommending that bishops and deacons be chosen for having good wives and obedient children. Again, he tells Timothy that it would be good for young widows to "marry, bear children, be mistresses of families" (1Tim 5:14).

There is everywhere an expectation that marriage includes the bearing of children. St. Paul even connects it to salvation. He himself claims to be a spiritual father to Timothy. Even amongst the unmarried, he expects elders to be treated as mothers and fathers. That every man and woman must be respected as such heavily implies that they should endeavor to make themselves worthy of that respect. As for the man who is good enough for a woman but not a child, St. Paul condemns the notion that "that one should have his father's wife." What else could such a woman be?

"Mr. Bauman, for instance, has, in his above posts, used Scripture to attempt to justify his supposedly Christian belief that marriage is not for the sake of procreation. My point was that since this interpretation is both ahistorical and anti-traditional it cannot be called Christian in any meaningful way. I will say again, for almost two millenia Protestantism, Catholicism, and the Orthodox Churches taught against this. If you think they are wrong, fine, but do not attempt to call your position Christian if all of Christian doctrine and history are against you."

Something is Christian if it agrees with Christ and with Scripture. It can agree with the tradition and not be authentically Christian because sometimes the tradition is opposed to Christ and to Scripture. Conversely, something can disagree with the tradition and still be authentically Christian. God's people can, and God's people have been, colossally wrong, sometimes for centuries on end, as was the case with the Jews throughout the Old Testament and beyond. The tradition that now styles itself "Christian" -- indeed thinks itself the very measure of things Christian -- has not escaped that fate. That's why, under the providence of God, there was a Renaissance and a Reformation. In other words, the appeal to tradition is not the clincher argument some think it to be. The weaknesses of tradition, and the ways tradition militates against the Word of God, still obtain, as they did in the days of Jesus (Matt 15:1ff.)

William,
If you look again, I think you'll see that I answered both questions -- and more. I have explained in detail what I think those verses (and others) mean and how they apply, trying all the while carefully to give proper weight to the context in which we find those verses. I think I have shown from the Genesis text the origin and purpose of marriage, the origin and purpose of multiplying, and the context in which multiplying and filling the earth are given, both with regard to Adam and Eve and with regard to their offspring.


Bob,
"If you want to convince Dr. Bauman you'll have to do it on his terms. If Dr. Bauman wants to convince you or me, he'll have to do it on ours."

I think that is exactly correct, Bob. Because we do not give equal weight to tradition, an appeal to it might hold much more weight for you than for me. But I assume we both hold the Scripture in highest esteem and recognize its supreme authority. To me, then, it seems best to place the discussion there, where we have something much more like a common ground.

"To me, then, it seems best to place the discussion there, where we have something much more like a common ground."

Except the very question is about whose interpretation is correct and how do we know? Anyone can appeal to Scripture -- heretics do it all the time.

Sola scriptura may have been fine as a polemic instrument, a sort of battle cry, but as an epistemological method, not so much.

Rob,
If you want to know, for example, what things Edmund Burke really said and meant, you make an appeal to his texts, historically and grammatically understood. You don't require the church's declarations to know what he meant. You're an intelligent man, Rob, you can do it. The same holds true for, say, Augustine, Dante, Cicero and Groucho Marx. And, more importantly, the same is exactly true for the Bible. If you want to know what the Bible says, you appeal to the Biblical text understood grammatically and historically. It's got nothing to do with the invocation of principles like "sola Edmundo," "sola Groucho," or "sola scriptura." That's just how hermeneutics works. If you want to know what the Bible teaches, you go to the Bible. If you want to know what Margaret Thatcher says, you go to Margaret Thatcher. If you are incapable of doing so regarding the Bible, then that's too bad for your assertions about the Bible.

You have turned ecclesiology into epistemology, as if church were a way of knowing. It's not. You argue about Bible content as if appeal to those who agree with you is a convincing appeal. Yes, we know that you agree with the tradition on this point, which doesn't mean the tradition is correct. I've already shown how God's people can be, and have been, wrong for centuries about important things -- and how Jesus sometimes excoriates tradition as anti-Biblical.

That would be fine, Michael, if the Scriptures were simply a "text" like any other text, which they most assuredly are not. The Church and her Tradition antedated the NT writings; in fact, the former was the matrix out of which the latter grew. Therefore, the former is necessary to interpret the latter correctly. See Irenaeus on this.

Rob,
The Scriptures are precisely like all other texts in that they are a text, and in that they are to be interpreted historically and grammatically, as are other texts. They are unlike other texts in that they are inspired and therefore authoritative. That fact does not suspend the rules of sound hermeneutics (as is evident from the way Christ and the apostles interpreted the OT text).

We disagree on the origin of the NT canon. You argue as if it came from the Church. I argue that it's Christo-centric, not ecclesio-centric. That is, just as we want the OT that Christ used and therefore authenticated for us, even so we want his NT as well. But because Christ did not write a book, so far as we know, then we want the books that come from those whom He taught or from their close circle of acquaintances. We don't need the church to tell us what texts those are, or what they mean. Besides, the church got wrong both the OT canon and the meaning of many parts of the NT.

"The Scriptures are precisely like all other texts in that they are a text, and in that they are to be interpreted historically and grammatically, as are other texts."

Christ and the apostles were not bound by the historico-grammatical method, which is certainly helpful in understanding Scripture but is in no way the exclusive method of hermeneutics. To claim so is to bind oneself to Enlightenment epistemology. The writer to the Hebrews is a perfect example: good luck with limiting his interpretation of the OT to the historico-grammatical method.

"We disagree on the origin of the NT canon. You argue as if it came from the Church. I argue that it's Christo-centric, not ecclesio-centric."

The two are not mutually exclusive; the NT has the Church, Christ's body, as its origin, and Christ the head as its center.

"We don't need the church to tell us what texts those are, or what they mean."

Oh really? If Luther had had his way James wouldn't be in the NT and Hebrews would have an asterisk beside it. And of course this has nothing to do with the fact that there are 20,000 denominations all teaching different things and all claiming "the text" for their authority.

"the church got wrong both the OT canon and the meaning of many parts of the NT"

Thus saith Michael Bauman. And your ipse dixit on this is valuable because....?

Rob,

You'll notice that I am not the issue. Nor is the fact that I say a thing the issue. The truth of the statements made -- that is the issue. Until you see that, you'll not make any theological progress by simply translating everything into an ad hominem. Nothing is either right or wrong simply because I say it. Theology is a far more sophisticated enterprise than simply rolling out your RC ad hominem argument machine every time a Protestant makes a challenge to Catholic doctrine.

Your hermeneutics and your history both are deeply flawed, as are the false conclusions you base upon them. You have neither refuted my statements nor substantiated your own. If, for example, you wish to prove that reading a text historically and grammatically is a faulty hermeneutic, you'll have to do better than simply to label it "Enlightenment" and to toss out a passing reference to Hebrews, or to adduce Protestant plurality (which is just ad hominem writ large). Yes, Luther's view downplays James. So? His assessment is either right or wrong. Is there proof from James itself that you'd like to introduce to show that Luther is wrong? The same with Hebrews. Its canonicity was spoken against for decades in the ancient church. Give me proof that, in the end, the canon arrived at was correct. Simply because a church says so is not proof. That's the question, Rob, not the answer -- Is the church right about Hebrews?

When you set about answering that question, be sure that you do not continue to argue in circles: You cannot say that the church's authority is based upon the Bible (in places like, say, Matt. 16) and then say that the Bible rests upon the church's authority. That is simply to say that the authority of the church rests upon the authority of the church. So, let's hear your non-circular argument about James, in particular, and about the canon, in general. You cannot appeal to the Bible for proof that the Roman church has authority while appealing to the Roman church that the Bible has authority.

The NT does not have the church as its origin. It has divine inspiration and the testimony of Christ as its origin and its authentication. A text can be inspired and no church recognize it; it also can be inspired and every church recognize it. It's a matter of inspiration, not ecclesiology. The marks of inspiration are known by reference to Christ, not by reference to a church that got the OT canon wrong.

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