Fatherhood is True Manhood: The Exceptions
Having established the reality of the norm of fatherhood for men, and for all humankind, it is now time to consider the exceptions. But, really, what sort of exceptions are there? There are, in fact, only two. The rest are not, actually, exceptions.
If a couple is infertile, then clearly, a man will not be able to procreate. (We reject as immoral and unChristian such things as IVF and surrogacy.) This, surely, is an exception to the norm. And yet not even this exception prohibits a man from becoming a father, for he may surely adopt a plurality of children and become father to them, and in so doing he will find himself accomplishing that end for which he is a man.
The other exception we may consider as such is the scenario in which the wife and potential mother will risk significant debilitation or even death from the pregnancy. By risk, of course, I mean more than the normal risks entailed by all mothers, for in our fallen world, no pregnancy is without some risk. Rather, I mean that it is known--because the wife and potential mother has a particular condition or set of conditions--that the risk of significant debilitation and death are much higher and more certain than what is normal. It would be cruel and unmanly for a husband to insist on biological fatherhood in such a scenario. But once again, this does not irrevocably bar him from fatherhood, for adoption can once again remedy that which a fallen world has marred for him.
So, what have we seen? We have seen that the two very real and very painful conditions in which biological fatherhood is denied to a husband, do not, actually provide the sort of exceptionalism which would free him from the obligation and blessing of fatherhood.
But, one is quick to ask, what about the celibate? What about the monastics? What about those who wish to focus on the eschaton and the coming of the Kingdom and renounce marriage for prayer and discipline in community?
First, let us note some things. Most men normally seek marriage and fatherhood. Of those who do not seek fatherhood, many seek marriage. And of those who seek neither fatherhood nor marriage, most seek sexual intercourse. In other words, those men who refuse fatherhood but seek the enjoyment of the marital act are engaging in two active perversions: the perversion of the sexual act away from one of its essential ends in procreation, and the perversion of manhood away from its essential end in fatherhood. They have reduced sexual intercourse to genital stimulation, and manhood to copulation. (I will return to these thoughts and the objections they raise in a moment.) But in all these men here noted, none of them seek monasticism.
Secondly, let us note that monasticism is a special form of renunciation. It is a renunciation of marital and familial ties, it is a renunciation of social and political ties, it is a living death to self in an intensified way. Nor is it simply a renunciation, but it is also an embrace; a tenacious grasping of the eschatological aspects of present Christian existence, the living out of the fully realized Kingdom when none will marry nor be given in marriage, and in which, we are instructed by the fathers, sexual intercourse and procreation will cease. Thus the monastic is not renouncing fatherhood, per se, but this present age. He is not embracing childlessness, per se, but the future Kingdom which is both now and not yet. And further, let us note, monasticism is a charism of grace, a spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit allocates to whom he will. So the invocation of the monastics as childless men does not, in fact, prove an exception to the norm of fatherhood completing true manhood, but reinforces the norm in the most radical of ways, by pointing to its eschatological fulfillment in the Kingdom.
We have noted that Jesus is no exception to the norm of human fatherhood precisely because of his perichoretic union with the Father of all. He is not the Father, but is one with the Father, and in that unity, the Fatherhood of God completes and fulfills his manhood.
No, what I am addressing is that perversion of Christian manhood that our culture promotes, which is primarily that sexually active males can escape the end of their manhood in fatherhood. For a man to enjoy all the benefits of marriage, but to renounce procreation, is a perversion. Let us note that procreation is not the only end of marriage and sexual intercourse. The sanctified pleasure, recreation and love a couple gives and receives in conjugal union is God-honoring. The spiritual and emotional union experienced in the marital act is purposefully designed by the Creator for the stability and permanence of the marital bond and the home built around it. But procreation is not just an incidental consequence of sex. It is as wholly an end, a purpose of sex as is God-honoring pleasure and spiritual and emotional union. The "one flesh" the couple becomes is, in part, the flesh of their child. In all their sexual intercourse, then, the couple must be open to procreation, even if, in one specific moment the other ends of the marital act are sought with more focus and intentionality. Men are meant to be fathers. Women are meant to be mothers. This is the fundamental fact of the Christian understanding of manhood.
But what, it may be asked, about those men who want children but think it wiser to wait for them? What about economic stability in the home and familial provision, the maturity of the marriage, overpopulation, and so forth? All of these share, if I may risk a categorical judgment, a tendency toward salvation by works and a failure, however small, of faith. Do we mistake who it is that really provides for us? Do we really forget that it is not by the provision of our own hands, but by the grace of God's shining love that all our needs are met? Do we think that the successful parenting of our children really rests on our own ability to be perfect parents? And if we are not ready to parent a child, are we ready for marriage? And do we really think the issue of overpopulation is really anything else but the Pelagian notion that we can do anything about the productivity of the planet (or, conversely, its destruction) through our own efforts? Does He not sustain all things by His Word? Is it not in Him, that all things hold together? And would not the raising of children committed to the Lordship of Christ make permanent changes in the just and equitable allocation of the planet's resources?
No, again and again we come back to the norm of fatherhood for men, and that it is always already God who sustains us as fatherly men, and completes us as men by making us fathers.
Posted by Clifton at December 2, 2005 09:51 AM | TrackBackCliff,
All of these share, if I may risk a categorical judgment, a tendency toward salvation by works and a failure, however small, of faith.
They may indeed "share...a tendency toward...a failure...of faith," but not an absolute tendency nor nor a consistent failure. There is something to be said for using the minds God gave us.
My problem with where your questioning goes is that it appears to supplant human freedom and replace it with (oh, Blogodoxy...how I've missed ye) "baiting the Holy Spirit." In other words, I fear it steps too close to the line (or, in some instances, could run the risk of crossing it) of throwing all caution to the wind on the firm reliance God will "bail" us out. Is that not toying with the possibility of "tempting" God?
I don't believe you can place categorical rules on the choices of married couples to have X number of children at Y time in Z intervals. I do agree with your basic restatement of the Christian position on marriage and manhood; I just don't see it as rigidly categorical as your questions might imply it needs to be. If a couple were so destitute that they clearly could not bring a child into the world without opening it up to needless suffering, is it not prudent for them to try and wait? (I have no illusions that trying ever ought to be equated with an automatic guarantee of success.)
Perhaps another way to think of it concerns the nature of virtue itself. If Christians believe it is more virtuous for a man with $5 to his name to give all of it to the poor and not so virtuous for a man with $500,000 to give $100, can we not apply that to a Christian couple's approach to procreation? Has not the couple with limited resources done more towards the end of marriage by having one child than the couple with an upper tax bracket status who has two? Perhaps the math gets sketchy and surely material wealth is never an absolute constant, but I'm sure you get where I am going with this.
I really see the matter coming down to what is truly in the hearts of the married couple. I will defer to St. Basil on this, and "be fruitful and multiply" is not a command we must seek to rabidly obey; it is a blessing from God so that we too may know what the act of creation is. Like all blessings, we ought not to abuse it nor take it for granted; just like marriage itself. I have no doubt that the modern ethos can infect even the best intentions of the most devout Christian couple and surely you would agree with me that the couple should always confer with their Spiritual Father on such matters.
You obviously know this is a question I have spent a good deal of time wrestling with (perhaps too much of it in the "public" eye). Of course, regardless of the accusations and thoughts of certain individuals who shall remain nameless, I don't think anyone ever got a full grasp on what I really believed about the matter. I guess they'll all be soon to find out.
[*cough* hint hint hint *cough*]
As always, I look forward to your thoughts (if you have the time, pops!).
P.S. My general reply to any Christian couple that is truly and honestly concerned about overpopulation is this: ADOPT! Not just one, but two, three, four...heck, grab nine; then you'll have your own baseball team.
Posted by: Gabriel Sanchez at December 5, 2005 12:45 AMGabe:
I think you are seeing things that aren't in my overall argument.
You first address what seems to be a lack of freedom, but I'm not sure that your charge of "replacing" freedom with an absence wisdom or practical judgment is any less freedom. One is still free to act in wiser or less wise ways, its just that the consequences of such freedom differ to some degree.
Further, I'm afraid that you set up a false dichotomy; i.e., either procreate profligately or don't procreate at all (or only 1 or 2 kids). It doesn't seem to me that there's any warrant in my own argument for such a conclusion, and there certainly isn't in the general position for which I am arguing. That is to say, it is precisely freedom and wisdom that are called forth from us (and given to us) in answering the blessing-command to procreate.
This dichotomy is reflected in your comment "I don't believe you can place categorical rules on the choices of married couples to have X number of children at Y time in Z intervals." I said nothing of the sort, nor is such a position necessary to my argument. I am in full agreement with you that these matters are ultimately matters with which a couple will engage in prayer and discussion with their spiritual father. It is no change to the argument to remember that there are canons and there is economy.
I would like to comment a bit on the presuppositions you have regarding overpopulation. While I firmly hold that all Christian thought must be both truth and wise, or, rather, if it is true it is also wise. Thus, it is at radical odds with my argument to assert that Christians should blindly procreate. We are not bodily creatures only, but pneumopsychosomatic creatures. We are called upon to govern our bodies with our spirits, or our mind/intellects. It is no contradiction to assert a blessing-command to procreate and to do so wisely. I think in general this will mean larger families than is currently the case with many Christians in industrialized nations, but I do not think this means ten kids per. Some families may have two or three, others may have five or six, in all cases, prayer, thought, wisdom and free obedience to God's call and command will undergird everything.
That being said, I think that it is extremely dangerous for Christians to buy into arguments deriving from secular sources regarding overpopulation and sustainability and then to extrapolate from those sources applications and opinions that are morally binding upon Christians. Christians cannot advocate the moral positions of "no breeders" and radical ecoactivists that diminish humanity in the face of a pagan view of nature. As I said in my post: Christians can both affirm and practice a procreative view of life while at the same time teaching and living a responsible stewardship of creation. We can let the culture-of-death folks beat the drumbeat of global overpopulation (a concept, by the way, that is nowhere evident in Scripture or the fathers).
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at December 5, 2005 11:00 AMCliff,
A few clarifications...
My address about "lack of freedom" isn't to assert there can ever truly be a "lack of freedom" in any human decision. I think it is dangerous, however, to ever assume that can be the case and so choices are made in the belief that God will "take care" of the rest. I see it akin to jumping into a river to save a drowning man when I have either a limited or no ability to swim and assuming God will scoop us both of the river.
That is to say, it is precisely freedom and wisdom that are called forth from us (and given to us) in answering the blessing-command to procreate.
In reading the post again, I still don't see this point coming from very clearly, especially when it ends with a series of questions couples often have to struggle with and your followup questions seeming to imply that the couples who ask the initial ones are suffering from a lack of faith.
I said nothing of the sort, nor is such a position necessary to my argument.
I should have used "we" there or made it more clear "you" was supposed to be second person plural and rhetorical. I'm sorry if I made it out that it was you personally making that specific claim.
Christians cannot advocate the moral positions of "no breeders" and radical ecoactivists that diminish humanity in the face of a pagan view of nature.
I agree to a certain point, but aren't you making an a priori judgment about all such information when you quickly attach it to the claims of "'no breeder'" and "radical ecoactivists" with their "pagan view of nature"? If it could/is demonstrated that there are sustainability issues in certain parts of the world or we are reaching a level of overpopulation, would you still advocate that the right Christian position is to ignore it? One might be reasonably unconvinced of the case made for either of those positions thus far, but I would hope that arises from scrutinizing the data itself and not just those who interpret it to mean X.
Christians can both affirm and practice a procreative view of life while at the same time teaching and living a responsible stewardship of creation. We can let the culture-of-death folks beat the drumbeat of global overpopulation (a concept, by the way, that is nowhere evident in Scripture or the fathers).
That's a reasonable position for the time being and I hope that it will always be the reasonable position. Of course, the planet also goes through cycles (as we know from natural history) and there is no reason to believe it will be able to sustain current population levels forever. Though I am not neccessarily attaching this to your argument, I will say that a number of Christians I have spoken with on this very topic tend to show an alarming abount of faith in the Enlightenment ideal that we have finally managed to tether nature.
Posted by: Gabriel Sanchez at December 5, 2005 12:04 PM