20 May '05 02:16>1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderAargh!
You're being ridiculous; if all you were trying to provide is the biblical references, there was no need to provide the citation to the article: the citation to the passages would have been sufficient. You were citing the art ...[text shortened]... you quote the same source! You have my chutzpah award for the day.
Let me see if I can explain this very very simply. On the matter of whether procreation is the natural law purpose of sex, there are three possibilities:
(a) The Church teaches that procreation is the natural law purpose of sex.
(b) The Church teaches that procreation is not the natural law purpose of sex.
(c) The Church simply has no official position either way on the subject.
Now, suppose I write a document that says "Procreation is the natural law purpose of sex" and apply for a nihil obstat (no objection), the following will happen for each possibility listed above:
(a) Obviously, I will get a nihil obstat.
(b) Obviously, I will not get a nihil obstat.
(c) I will get a nihil obstat because I am not contradicting any stated Church teaching.
Since the nihil obstat is obtained in both cases (a) and (c), you cannot infer from my document whether the Church actually teaches the assertion or not. All you can say is that the Church definitely does not teach the opposite.
However, suppose my document asserted "The Church teaches that procreation is the natural law purpose of sex", the following would happen:
(a) I will get the nihil obstat
(b) I will not get the nihil obstat
(c) I will not get the nihil obstat (because the statement is a lie)
In this case, you can infer that the Church definitely teaches the assertion.
What you can infer about Church teaching from a document of this type depends on the type of statement being made.
In the document cited in the other thread, the key assertion was "Procreation is the natural law purpose of sex". Follow the logic above - you will see why your subsequent inference that the Church teaches this assertion is fallacious. That was, indeed, a fallacy of the excluded middle. Which is why I asked you to produce direct Church statements on the matter.
In this case, my reason for providing the link was to provide the hermenuetics for the Bible references cited (because none of them actually use the term "purgatory" ).
LH
PS - You can keep the chutzpah award. Give it to me when I commit a real offence.