Is Contraception Biblical?

CHILD BEARING

The mandate: “Be fruitful and multiply”
The sphere: marriage
The purpose: “Fill the earth”
The problem: sin
Casuistry Questions:
a) Is it OK to plan the size of our families?
b) If so, under what principles we determine it?
b) Is Contraception legitimate?
d) If it is what methods of contraception are legitimate?
e) How do we raise our children?
f) Home Schooling or Public/Private Schooling?

This is where the issue of child bearing presents an apparent ethical conflict

1. If God commanded Adam to fill the earth, is refusing to have children sinful?

2. If God commanded Adam to be fruitful and multiply, is a willful limitation of the number of children one can have, forbidden?

3. Has a variant in the divine “purpose” of the mandate to fill the earth been introduced after the Fall?

The sphere for reproduction

• This is not viewed equally by Reformed and Roman Catholic Theology

• For Biblical Theology sex ought to be marital, unitive and procreative but it is also recreational and preventative

THE PROBLEM: SIN

THE CASUISTRY QUESTIONS

1. Is there any qualification to the creation ordinance of “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and judge it”, after the entrance of sin?

2. Should we have all the children we possibly can? Or is “planned parenthood” legitimate?

3. What is illegitimate in a “planned parenthood”?

4. What are Biblical Guidelines for “planning” a family?

5. How many children should we have?

6. Is contraception permissible? What contraception methods would be permissible to a believing couple?