Frustrating the primary end and subordinating it to the secondary is completely different than simply having the primary end be absent or unattainable. CC actually treats quite extensively of this. One may indeed have marital relations when only the secondary end is attainable. That's why couples may have relations during infertile periods, in their older age, etc.
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Thank you for the reply.
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To me, it seems that subordination and frustration deal with the exact same thing. When the act's primary end is frustrated, it is subordinated to secondary ends. There's not much use distinguishing between frustration and subordination-- the latter follows from the former.
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That being the case, I think that to "frustrate the primary end" is more or less controvertible with "subordinating the primary end to secondary ends." They're not two different things and Pope Pius XII didn't "ignore" anything by treating the one and not the other.
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It's all about the formal intent. If I am intending to frustrate the primary end so that I can enjoy the secondary end only, that's clearly subordination. Indeed, it's intrinsically permissible to have relations during infertile periods ... and that isn't intrinsically immoral. What's immoral is when I intend to have relations ONLY during the infertile periods because I want the secondary end but don't want the primary end.
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To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure you know what you want to say here.
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Mental prioritization isn't the same thing as proper subordination, which in the context of CC and the natural law follows from some
act. I may prioritize the taste of a meal over its nutritive qualities, and I may be motivated to eat the meal because of its smell or appearance rather than out of a Aristotelian appreciation for its participation in an intricate network of causality and ends. And in so doing I would never be subordinating the primary end of consuming the meal to a secondary end. That's just boilerplate human behavior. Now, if I eat the meal and then go to the bathroom and purge, I'm frustrating the primary end of nutritive consumption and subordinating it to secondary ends.
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So if you want to argue that there is devious, even sinful intent in having marital relations only in sterile periods, let's argue that, but let's just be really clear that such an argument has nothing to do with the natural law, frustration, or the subordination of ends.
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If trying to achieve the secondary end while avoiding the primary is not subordination, then I don't know what is, honestly.
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Condoms. Birth Control Pills. And so on. Those all directly frustrate (not avoid) the power of the act in a way that makes the realization of its primary end virtually impossible. That is true subordination. What you're describing is, at
worst, an interior disposition of "not wanting to conceive
right now." Not a perversion of the
act itself, which is the problem with birth control.
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But the NFPers argue that it's permissible precisely because it's not intrinsically immoral to have relations during the infertile periods. But that's where the formal intent comes in and is forgotten about by the proponents of NFP.
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Well, it's permissible because it isn't intrinsically immoral, and only when the conditions set down by Pius XII are met. Those include a grave reason and as I recall, consultation with one's confessor. Point just being that I'm in this for Pius XII's honor, not because I have any interest in defending the gross abuses in the
Novus Ordo, where NFP is taught indiscriminately as something that married couples "just do" because it's "all natural" or whatever other tripe. I hope you understand that.
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I'm not forgetting about intent. I've said-- twice, I think-- that a person can
absolutely sin in "using NFP," and Pius XII says quite clearly that "The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the nature of the act and are even ready to accept and bring up the child, who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives."
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So the burden of proof is on the NFPers to explain what formal intent can be present that would absolve people of trying to subordinate the ends of marital relations.
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Well, that's simple. As St. Paul says, husbands and wives are not to refuse the debt. Better to be married than to burn, etc.. Supposing the usual caveats (health, privacy, etc.), married couples are
obliged to render the debt unto one another, and the obligation is uninterrupted and continuous throughout the life of the marriage. That, indeed,
is the marital contract. The giving up of the body to the spouse forever. Fulfillment of the vocation, then is the motive. Similarly, a decent way to judge-- if one were to find themselves in a situation that they might think "qualifies" for the licit use of NFP-- is to ask the same question. Will I be able to fulfill my vocation if I have another child in nine months? Is there good and serious reason that it would kill me, leaving my other four children motherless? Is there good and serious reason that another child will exceed even our basic needs, and my wife and (now) five kids will be living in the street? And so on. At any rate, this is Pius XII's reasoning and the reasoning of any of the author's who treat the matter. It's not at odds with CC, that's for sure. For no other reason than the fact that
even if NFP is abused, it is not the sin of contraception. Even if NFP is
impossible to use licitly (which is not my position), it's not the sin of contraception.
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