C. S. Lewis on contraception, part II

In C. S. Lewis on contraception, I wrote that I didn't know of any statement of Lewis' that would indicate a clear position against contraception. I had forgotten about his statements in Mere Christianity. On page ix of the Preface, he writes,

In Book III [of Mere Christianity], which deals with morals, I have also passed over some things in silence, but for a different reason [than controversy over doctrine]. Ever since I served as an infantryman in the first world war I have had a great dislike of people who, themselves in ease and safety, issue exhortations to men in the front line. As a result I have a reluctance to say much about temptations to which I myself am not exposed. No man, I suppose, is tempted to every sin. It so happens that the impulse which makes men gamble has been left out of my make-up; and, no doubt, I pay for this by lacking some good impulse of which it is the excess or perversion. I therefore did not feel myself qualified to give advice about permissable and impermissable gambling: if there is any permissable, for I do not claim to know even that. I have also said nothing about birth control. I am not a woman, nor even a married man, nor am I a priest. I did not think it my place to take a firm line about pains, dangers and expenses from which I am protected; having no pastoral office which obliged me to do so.

In Book III, however, he does mention contraceptives, though not to state a “yea” or “nay” position (p. 76 in the chapter on sexual morality):

...before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of the strip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times. Nor is the hypothesis of “starvation” the only one we can imagine. Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations.

Lewis' mention of contraception here differs on three points from statements in his other works:
1. He does not present contraceptives in light of natural law, as in The Abolition of Man, or of eugenics, population control, or any other manipulation of human reproduction

2. He presents the idea that sex (or some sex) within marriage is an indulgence

3. He mentions the “cost” of procreation


A few comments:

Lewis' statement on contraception here comes from a practical angle more than a philosophical one.

The suggestion that marital sex, in general, is an indulgence may be a bit careless on Lewis’ part; I think (though of course I don’t know) that if one had asked him, Lewis would’ve granted that God didn’t give married people sex merely for indulgence and children (“the biological purpose of sex is children”) and nothing else. Certainly the nature of sex within marriage is different from that of sex outside of marriage in major underlying ways, although in other ways it is the same, as are many of the effects. But I think that the purpose of Lewis’ statement is 1) to allude to the idea of separating the major biological consequence of sex from the pleasure of sex, which is a common dissension, and 2) even more than that, to merely state that there is probably more sex occurring within marriages because of contraceptives than there would be without them.

It is interesting, though, that Lewis states that the sexual appetite, in general, grows by indulgence. Applied to marriage, this is a curious statement. Surely he means that the sexual appetite as a primary driving force grows by indulgence; not the appetite in context of and in service to a marriage.

Lewis does acknowledge, both in the Preface and in the later chapter of Mere Christianity, that there is a cost involved in procreation. This cost is often regarded as irrelevant or unworthy of consideration by supporters of natural family planning or those who eschew family planning altogether. However, I think that the issue of cost involves a myriad of aspects with varying degrees of legitimacy. (what is legitimate and what isn’t being itself a matter of dispute) The cost will be different for each family, though many points of cost will be the same among families if to differing degrees. Cost in itself is certainly not something to be avoided (at all costs...), but the nature of each cost certainly must be considered and dealt with. I believe that this matter belongs in the category in which Lewis puts it, namely, of minding one’s own business and not assuming one knows someone else’s.

The issue of faith also plays in, insofar as saying that if one obeys God, one will find oneself provided for. But, alas, for every story “proving” this, there is another that disproves it. (Anecdotal evidence, i.e., “testimony,” is plentiful, but more reliable evidence is hard to come by.) This is not to say that God does not provide, but God has made us stewards and caretakers, not just of the earth but of those things He gives us. He may not “rescue” us if we are irresponsible. He may not even rescue us if we are responsible. He gives us freedom to make decisions that affect the well-being of our families. Some may say that the only decisions we can make are ones either of faith or from lack of faith, and this may be true. But if that’s the case, and if God is the giver of faith, then where does that leave us? How does faith relate to obedience? Do we need a certain amount of faith in order to obey? It seems to me that sorting out issues of obedience vs. faith on the subject of contraception is a very complicated, not to mention personal, matter.

I include this discussion of Lewis’ statements and views from Mere Christianity because, awhile back, I wrote a series on The Abolition of Man, in which Lewis mentions contraception, as well as a series on contraception itself (of which this post is the latest installment), in which I saw fit to include what Lewis said about contraception in TAOM. Part of the context of the debate over contraception relates to the point of TAOM, which was to suggest the effects of technology upon mankind and his future in relation to his essence as a natural and spiritual creature (natural law). This led to focus upon Lewis’ opinion on contraception in general, for whatever instructive purpose it may serve.

On a tangential but related note, I think that Lewis' views on contraception ought to be taken into account when, as seems to be happening of late (as has happened before), one considers questions as to the integrity of his own sexual practices and how they correlate with his writings and the way his writings ought to be considered. Either he was inconsistent, and led the dual (or multiple) life that some suggest, or, he wasn't, and he didn’t. This is not to say that he may not have committed, at some times, things that he believed were morally wrong, but it is different from saying that he consistently lived a lifestyle inconsistent with his stated moral beliefs.

(update/clarification: Lewis's standards and conduct in the sexual arena were quite different prior to his conversion to Christianity than after it; it would be improper to discount this when considering his post-conversion writing on the subject. I daresay that in comparing his behavior and thinking from both before and after his conversion, he was able to see the difference in stark contrast and appreciate that much more keenly the truth of what he was saying about sexual morality in Mere Christianity.)