Contraception and God's Plan

(p. 2)…What this line of discussion comes to has far-reaching implications. Now that contraception is largely accepted in contemporary society, and now that individuals (married or not) have the "choice" as to whether their union will or will not produce offspring, does this mean that we can no longer see ourselves as part of God's Plan? Given the current situation, is it still possible for any of us to relate our existence to a divine plan that imbues our life with a transcendent meaning? Are we creatures who are part of God's plan? Or are we merely creatures of human choice? Are we children of God? Or children of chance? We can be grateful to God for our existence because God is a person. But we can not be grateful to choice, especially since, in respecting choice, we must have equal respect for the contraceptive choice that would have prevented our coming to be…

(p.3 )…Choice and plan are compatible with each other, but only insofar as choice submits to plan. When choice is made into an ideology, however, with its unremitting emphasis on freedom, it becomes completely divorced from plan, and consequently, from order, coherence, and direction. If there is to be any discernible meaning in life, choice must submit to plan…

God has a plan for us, but our often willful and licentious exercise of choice can easily obscure it (though it cannot obliterate it).Contraception breeds a mentality of individualism that severs choice from any semblance of a plan. The absence of any discernible plan leads to a sense of disorder. The perception today is that there is so much disorder in the world that despair seems to be more realistic than belief in some over-arching Plan. Yet this mentality is characteristic of Plato's cave dweller. It is possible to rediscover a sense of God's Plan for human beings. In order to follow this road to discovery, which leads out of the Cave, one must assume the mentality not of the contraceptivist, but of the detective. Philosophers and sleuths have often been compared with each other since they are both trying to solve a mystery by starting from effects and carefully, and logically proceeding toward finding the cause. The first place to begin our detective work is by studying the Natural Law.