301. Why sex is not sinful
301. WHY SEX IS NOT SINFUL
OK, here’s the biggie, the No. 1 reason modern Western civilization hates the Catholic Church. Church: Sex = Sin, Sex = No. Modern World: Sex = Joy, Sex = Yes. Final score: World 1, Church 0. Right?
Objection 6. Excess in the passions corrupts virtue. Now there is always excess of pleasure in the marriage act, so much so that it absorbs the reason, which is man’s principal good. Wherefore the Philosopher says that in that act it is impossible to understand anything. Therefore the marriage act is always a sin.
Reply. The excess of passions that corrupts virtue not only hinders the act of reason but also destroys the order of reason. The intensity of pleasure in the marriage act does not do this, since though for the moment man is not being directed (by reason), he was previously directed by reason.
On the contrary, It is written (1 Cor 7:28): If a virgin marry, she hath not sinned, and 1 Tim 5:14: I will . . . that the younger should marry, and bear children. But there can be no bearing of children without carnal union. Therefore the marriage act is not a sin, else the Apostle would not have approved of it.
Further, no sin is a matter of precept (obedience to law). But the marriage debt is a matter of precept (1 Cor 7:3): Let the husband render the debt to his wife. Therefore it is not a sin (S41,3).
Every act whereby a precept is fulfilled is meritorious if it be done from charity. Now such is the marriage act. . . . Therefore, etc. (S41,4).
I answer that, If we suppose the corporeal nature to be created by the good God, we cannot hold that those things which pertain to the preservation of the corporeal nature and to which nature inclines are altogether evil. Wherefore, since the inclination to beget an offspring whereby the specific nature is preserved is from nature, it is impossible to maintain that the act of begetting children is altogether unlawful and that it is impossible to find . . . virtue therein—unless we suppose, as some are mad enough to assert, that corruptible things were created by an evil god, whence perhaps the opinion mentioned in the text is derived. Wherefore this is a most wicked heresy (S41,3). Notice St. Thomas’ unusually strong language here.
Objection. The sacraments derive their efficacy from Christ’s Passion. But matrimony, since it has pleasure annexed to it, does not conform man to Christ’s Passion, which was painful. Therefore it is not a sacrament.
Reply. Although matrimony is not conformed to Christ’s Passion regarding pain, it is regarding charity, whereby He suffered for the Church who was to be united to Him as His spouse (S42,1).
Some say that whenever pleasure is the chief motive for the marriage act it is a mortal sin; that when it is an indirect motive it is a venial sin; and that when it spurns the pleasure altogether and is displeasing, it is wholly void of venial sin; so that it would be a mortal sin to seek pleasure in this act, a venial sin to take the pleasure when offered, but that perfection requires one to detest it. But this is impossible, since . . . pleasure in a good action is good, and in an evil action is evil; wherefore, as the marriage act is not evil in itself, neither will it be . . . sin to seek pleasure therein. Consequently the right answer to this question is that if pleasure be sought in such a way as to exclude the honesty of marriage, so that . . . it is not as a wife but as a woman that a man treats his wife, and that he is ready to use her in the same way if she were not his wife, it is a mortal sin. . . , (i.e., when) a man seeks wanton pleasure in his wife when he sees no more in her than he would in a wanton (S49,6).
A “wanton” is a whore. For a man to treat his wife as if she were a whore is indeed a mortal sin, for it is just as bad as for a man to treat a whore as if she were his wife. But for a man to treat his wife as his wife, to love her honestly, personally, and passionately, is a virtue, not a sin. This is so even by pre—modern, pre—John Paul II standards! The “Theology of the Body” begins with Thomism.