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THREE Humanae Vitae: Preliminary Philosophical Considerations ON JULY 29, 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his long-awaited encyclical on the question of moral means for limiting family size. 1 Humanae Vitae is a succinct text that does not offer much elaboration of the claims that it makes. Such elaboration is the work of this chapter and the next. This chapter will establish some of the foundational perspectives of natural law theory; it will consider the claim of the Church to be a teacher on moral matters and will provide an explanation of the claim that organs and their related acts have purposes. We will clear the way for sound natural law arguments by eliminating some of the arguments that have wrongly been identified as those used by the Church against contraception. This will also give us an opportunity to see how the principle of totality and the principle of toleration of the lesser evil have been utilized incorrectly by those attempting to justify contraception. The text of Humanae Vitae mentions both arguments. Chapter 4 presents the arguments, based on natural law ethics, for the immorality of contraception. Humanae Vitae is more than a condemnation of contraception; it is a carefully fashioned response to problems of the times. A brief commentary on the complete encyclical, section by section, can be found in Appendix 2. The commentary summarizes the content of the footnote references given by the encyclical, references that often clarify the moral principles used in the document. 68 Preliminary Philosophical Considerations 69 Natural Law The principles of Catholic moral teaching are based both on natural law and divine revelation. Natural law provides a foundation for those moral precepts that Man is capable of discerning through the power of his reason, that is, apart from any special divine revelation. Shortly we shall describe natural law more fully and sketch out several possible natural law arguments against contraception . Yet first let us note (as does Humanae Vitae) that the Church teaches that Man need not rely on his intellect alone to determine what is moral and what is not. God has given Man the gift of divine revelation, available through Scripture and through the tradition of the Church. Divine revelation reveals to us moral truths that we cannot grasp by the power of reason and also affirms truths that are accessible through natural law. It is customarily taught that most of the Ten Commandments represent moral truths that Man can know apart from revelation. The commandment "Keep holy the sabbath" is an example of a moral truth that is solely based on revelation, 2 but prohibitions against adultery, lying, and stealing, for instance, are considered accessible to Man through his reason. Furthermore, it must be noted that the Church constantly speaks of "interpreting" and "guarding" the natural law, not of inventing it. Section 18 of Humanae Vitae states: "Since the Church did not make either of these laws [the natural law and the law of the Gospel], she cannot change them. Nonetheless, she is, as it were, their guardian and interpreter; thus it would never be right for her to declare as morally permissible that which is truly not so. For what is immoral is by its very nature always opposed to the true good of Man.,,3 Section 4 of Humanae Vitae explains that it is within the competence of the Church to interpret the moral law and thus to answer the questions raised in this document. Christ imparted this power to the apostles, and through apostolic succession this power has been preserved in the Church. No demonstration of this claim is offered, not even in any of the references given in the footnotes. In fact, only a few of these references give any justification for the claim to apostolic succession; they speak primarily rather of the nature of Man and Christianity and of the nature offaith and reason; 70 Humanae Vitae they seek to show that there can be no true conflict between these (a summary of these references can be found in the commentary in Appendix 2). Obviously, no philosophic demonstration could ever be given for the claim that the Church is competent to interpret natural law, for the Church is a supernatural reality, whose "nature" is not within the competence of philosophy to determine. But, nonetheless, a kind of evidence for the truth of this claim is offered through the footnote references. When in her consideration throughout different ages and in different contexts the Church returns to the...

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