Because I'm a thinking person with my own mind. Saying this is the way it is because he said so just doesn't satisfy me. Onan was sent to his brother's widow to perform his cultural duty of giving her a child to raise as her dead husband's heir. Onan refused to inseminate her, and God killed him. The main reason I can discover for why Christian theologians have focused on the coitus interruptus and not the duty to impregnate the brother's widow is that culturally Christians were not engaged in the practice of taking care of widows in that fashion. Not even in the early church which was much more closely connected to Judaism than the church of today. And so I am left with the question of how much of the sexual morality lesson you've discussed is a result of culture and how much is theology.
Reading the related scriptures in several different versions, I see that Onan deciding to not produce offspring for his brother is an integral part of the story. And I don't see anything that says God killed Onan specifically for spilling the semen rather than for refusing to impregnate his brother's widow. So I have to ask myself, what makes theologians focus on the semen rather than Onan's intent? Intent almost always has more to do with sin and God's judgment than the actions themselves. The obvious answer, to me, is the culture in which the theologians lived.
Oh, but it is incorrect to assume that the theologians did not look to the duty of Onan to impregnate his brother's widow. Remember that Jewish teachers also taught (and a sect of Judaism still teaches) that contraception is wrong, especially in specific circumstances. Both Jerome and Augustine discuss Judah, Tamar, and Onan.
So if we're going to use the story of Onan as a basis for a moral statute, I need a reason why I'm supposed to care about Onan's coitus interruptus but not that he was refusing to impregnate his brother's widow.
Because Christ defined marriage as a sacrament from God (Matthew 19:5-6). Augustine made that clear when he addressed the Manichaens.
I get that you're asking why the judgment of the church, at least the Protestant side, seems to have changed regarding contraception. I'm ultimately asking is the issue purely theological, or is there a significant element of culture involved both in the change and in the prior theological opinion(s)? In my opinion, I think the latter question has to be answered before an answer to the former question can be found. And I think culture is deeply involved. So when our culture changed, our approach to the theology changed.[/color]
I think that is a fair questions and statement. Theological approaches and interpretative approaches do change over time. The problem in that question is that it assumes that the Church has not reviewed the issue either. She has, on many occasions - one of which I posted was Paul VI encyclical of
Humanae Vitae. The Church has had councils and disagreements over this issue, but nothing to warrant a change in the overall precept.
I think there are two problems people have with any teaching that is anti-contraceptive. First, there is a misconception that this is some sort of strict rule that is arbitrarily waved about by the Church (or more sinister minds have claimed that it is part of some nefarious plot by the Church). Of course this is not true. The
rule if it must be called that, is born very much out of love and as I said, was once accepted by all of Christendom. It holds marriage in the highest possible regard as a union of man and wife into one flesh. A Christian marriage cannot be dissolved. It is a calling (just as the presthood, or a religious vocation). More than that, it is
vital to hold women to the highest regard. From Epiphanius and Augustine to Paul VI have come warnings that contraceptives will bring degredation and objectification of women.
The other problem is that people are so deeply engulfed in a society that is accepting of contraceptive use that they cannot imgagine a modern society without them. Western nations heavily prioritise constant economic growth and improvement of living standards (at least for segments of their population) and it has become accepted that population control is a part of this economic formula. To emulate that success, poverty-stricken third world nations follow suit. Along with contraceptive use comes abortion as a means to control family size or keep individuals within a certain economic range (children are expensive!).
But, it is interesting that in Germany, once a country that frowned upon women having children, they are now providing many incentives (mostly tax breaks) for women to do just that. So we might see a time where these views change, at least somewhat.
