I finally wrote a response to the Catholic position about birth control. I think my position comes from a slightly different theology of marriage:
God instituted marriage as the greatest sign of his relationship with his people.
Marriage blesses humans in many ways, but its most important function is to point us to the eternal relationship between Christ and his bride, the Church.
The Catholic position, on the other hand, seems to say that marriage has a human 'end.' They believe that marriage's primary goal is to achieve God's perfectly designed human relationship--a relationship more perfect than that between Adam and Eve before the fall.
I have to disagree with Catholic theology on this point because I don't think that marriages have a perfect human model. They are modeled after Christ and the Church and will be dissolved when we fully experience that union in heaven. Even Adam and Eve's relationship was modeled after the relationship between Christ and his Church.
I find myself with a different position on birth control than the Catholics because I see human marriage primarily as a sign of something greater than a thing reaching toward a goal.
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One way human marriage points to the eternal heavenly marriage of God and his people is in the creation of new life. Married couples have children, and God gives new life to his children.
The decision to have children keeps this 'creation element' in marriage. Controlling when to have children does not remove this creation element. Birth control vs. natural family planning are only an argument about means. The element of having children is what is important.
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