Question: In a discussion with a member of the Reformed church, the topic of birth control and abortion came up, and the Reformed church's change in their policy on these issues. The argument used by this person to support his church's changing position was referred by him as the "theological suspension of the ethical". He recalled to me occasions in the OT where according to the Will of God, principles of the mosaic law were suspended by a direct command of God. These occasions altered the genealogical progression of some of God's people. His point was that if God in his infinite wisdom could invade in our natural systems of what is right and what is wrong to accomplish his Will, He could do the same now. What would you say to this?
Answer:
Two things:
1) This is the principle of Graded Absolutism used by the Reformed to justify the genocide which God required in Canaan. All moral laws in this view are absolute, but when there is a conflict between absolute moral principles, there is a graded hierarchy of rules where the higher rule "trumps" the lower rules. Thus the laws remain absolute in a graded fashion. The highest law is the will of God.
It is based on the via moderna principle of Voluntarism in which whatever God wills is good because He has willed it, not because it is good in itself. Supposedly if the latter were true, then God would be bound to a standard that sits above Him and in judgment on His actions. If he is to be truly sovereign in their eyes, He must be free to do whatever He pleases.
This is garbage. It is just a fancy form of relativism. The goodness of God is part of his nature and inseparable from his will. God can only will that which is good because he is the source of all goodness. If this Graded Absolutism were true, God could change his covenant with man just because he wanted to & for no good reason so that he could damn the righteous while saving the unrighteous. This in fact was explicitly in William of Ockham's concept of absolute predestination.
Aquinas by contrast insisted that there is an Eternal Law of God which is imbedded in the very warp and woof of the created order. This is what is called natural law. Part of it is positive Law enacted by God and placed in creation by his fiat. On this, God can grant clemency (e.g., the Sabbath rest laws). The deepest part of it comes from God's own nature and even He cannot violate it without contradicting himself. This is the reason why damnation is possible. When what we have done places us in an eternal conflict with the very nature of God himself, no forgiveness is possible. This is the unforgivable sin: the refusal of the creature to repent of serious sins that put him in fundamental opposition with God (i.e., mortal sin).
Bottom line, God can never authorize anyone to sin ever. He can forgive sin but only when it is his prerogative to do so or when the creature has repented of the most serious sins and received regeneration through grace.
2) Even if we believed in Graded Absolutism, there is no evidence that God wills either contraception or abortion in any case. This is just the arrogance of apostate man refusing to submit to God's law and then imposing his own will over and against the revelation of God and in disobedience to the Magisterium God himself has founded.
Ask this fellow to show you where God has revealed that the ban on contraception and abortion has been authorized. It is not in the Bible. Tradition knows nothing of this. Until the beginning of the 20th Century, none of the prot cults had authorized these abominations, so this must represent a post-biblical revelation in recent times. QED: Good bye sola scriptura! He is in trouble.
Art Name
The Catholic Legate