I think there is middle ground. I appreciate them bringing the conversation to the table, but they need to be cautious. I write as a father of one who can have no more because of biological problems with my spouse. In the Lord’s eyes my quiver is full. He knew it was coming. does that make me less blessed then my friends with 4?
Inveterate in the movement is the belief that more children is more blessing. (at least how I take it) and I am afraid some people will purposely, pardon the expression here, “breed like rabbits” to recieve more of God’s blessing. God never said more kids is required to call down his blessings.
I think in a time and age where many couples I know are choosing not to have kids that this is a needed discussion, and an urgent one. But I am not to fond of the overall methodology. I also believe that God wants us to be prudent with our resources and if having more children means an undue burden on family, on the society, and ourselves as a whole then it needs to be thought thru very carefully.

In the agrarian society in which Psalm 127 was written, children were an economic blessing from the Lord. More kids meant more workers around the farm, more crops, and more money. Nobody at that time would use birth control–to do so would be economically disadvantageous. So, Psalm 127 isn’t arguing that children are a blessing, it is reminding all of the people who are desperately trying to have kids to “get ahead” that this blessing comes from God.
In an industrialized society, children are not an economic blessing. They are a joy for sure, but not a blessing in the same way that they were in the context of Psalm 127.
Catholics don’t refuse all forms of birth control. Most Catholics I know at least use the “rhythm method.” Catholics reject the birth control pill, but I don’t think it’s because they want to leave conception up to God, I think it is because in a certain percentage of cases the pill causes an abortion. (But I don’t know for sure that this is why they reject the pill.)
I don’t think God frowns upon family planning. The ancients saw disease as a curse from God. Does this mean I should go outside without a coat and “leave it up to God”? I don’t think belief in the sovereignty of God demands that we be careless.
Since birth control isn’t 100% effective, maybe the modern application of Psalm 127 is to thank God for no “oopses.”

Or better yet, not immunize my kids and “leave it up to God.”

I find this sentiment troubling when it is cast as a matter of the sovereignty of God. Why don’t we give God sovereignty over our teeth and forgo the dentist? Or sovereignty over our cells and forgo cancer treatment? After all – he controls all life. He will prevent decay or heal if it is His will to do so; and if it is not who are we to think we know better?

Would we also give God control over unmarried teenage (or adult, for that matter) pregnancy? If we place biblical restrictions on pregnancy, then the door is open.
Or what about statutory restrictions? There’s nothing in the Bible that says my 12 year old can’t get married and have kids, but the law says no. As does her father.
Or those who are mentally challenged to the point of not being able to take care of children? If He is in charge, then He is in charge.
Or, my wife can’t have babies, but pre-vasectomy, I could do my part. Should I have given or sold my seed to a married couple who were challenged in that area? Or would I be wrong to deny it if asked (through some strange occurrence beyond me….)? I know it’s legal, but does God have an opinion?
Not all of these get at the same thing and some are more “out there” than others, but there seem to be too many places where prayerful judgment are called for to make this a blanket commandment, so to speak.

Christians need to radically rethink and begin to encourage birth control, both here and globally.
Colombia prof Jeffrey Sachs says, “Global population continues to increase by large numbers and in the regions least able to ensure the health, stability and prosperity of the population.”
Given the fact that 15,000 children will die (again) today for stupid and preventable reasons, Christians should encourage, use, and provide birth control so that the limited resources of poor countries can atleast provide for the children they already have.
Next, imagine affluent westerners invested the tens of thousands of dollars we might spend on another child through out their young life, on a few dozen living souls in desperate need oversees.
Having children is no bad thing, but imagine that abstaining from having a child would save the lives of a few hundred children. That is a worthy trade off–don’t you think?
Birth control is like wise an ecological issue. The Sierra Club recently said, “The growing population [of the earth] and its consumption patterns have profound consequences for the global environment, including species extinction, deforestation, desertification, climate change, and the destruction of natural ecosystems. These global environmental impacts pose a significant threat to the earth’s sustainability and impact our quality of life.”
For all such reasons, it seems we should at least be thoughtful about having children, and perhaps encourage birth control as a new moral issue.

Jeff,
Good points. I have heard (and I can’t remember where I heard this) that the natural result of industrialization is a decrease in the birthrate.
Agrarian societies need lots of kids to work the fields. When these societies have poor medical care, a high birthrate is necessary to compensate for the high infant mortality rate. When modern healthcare is introduced, it takes while for society to adjust to the lower infant mortality rate. (Thus you have overpopulation problems.) When a society has modern healthcare and an industrial sector, the birthrate naturally drops.
I think that the countries that have overpopulation problems are the ones that have modern healthcare (and thus a lower infant mortality rate) but an insufficient industrial sector.

RJS beat me to the sort of examples I was going to use.
How is what Quiverfull is doing any different from saying “I trust God with my health, so I won’t go to the doctor” or “I trust God for my comfort so I won’t wear clothes” or “I trust God for my children so I won’t educate or discipline them”?
And Jeff Cook raises a good point. It has been said that “be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth” is the only one of God’s commands that humanity has actually fulfilled. Even today as many Christians are more engaged with stewardship of creation, the glaring contribution of overpopulation to environmental problems (and resource problems) is like a “third rail” that we are afraid to touch. While there are reasons to be wary on the issue (like forced abortions in China), we need to at least discuss that, in our current situation, bringing too many children into the world may be poor stewardship of God’s creation.

With that argument why plan anything – just leave it up to God. Don’t both to plan church services or to evangelize, if God wants it to happen it will. Or why work? If God want to bless you he will.
I do think culture and the environment do need to be factors in understanding this issue. But beyond the issues of birth control itself, my biggest concern is with the theology that accompanies movements like quiverfull that assumes a woman’s identity is solely in producing and caring for children. When adherents refuse to let their daughters receive an education because she is destined to simply be a womb and a helpmeet, they restrict the ways God can work in their lives. This isn’t just restricted to birth control – it is an entire way of being and view of women (and our identity and freedom to serve God) as well.

Having had a vascetomy this very week, I’m not exactly on the same page as the Quiverfull movement (though we do have three kids already, which would be illegal in some countries)! That said, I have given serious consideration to official Catholic moral teaching on contraception, and have a good deal of respect for Catholic ethicists like Robert George, who make the case against all artificial contraception as strongly as it can be made. In the end, though, it seems to me that the Catholic Church has got itself into one awful mess by going beyond Scripture and taking such an absolutist line on contraception. Given the problems caused by Aids in Africa and massive population growth, the ban on contraception has undermined the moral credibility of Rome and makes it easier to dismiss the Church’s teaching in areas where it is dead right. So I can’t see the wisdom in Evangelicals following where Rome leads on this.

I agree with what RJS and Julie said. I’m not impressed with the “quiverfull” idea in the least. At best, it’s a misinterpretation of Psalm 127 — which is, contra to Matt (#2), I think, saying children are a blessing from God, but which in no way states an ethical imperative to have as many children as one is biologically able to have. At worst, it misapprehends what it means to have faith in God — which is not simply to let the chips fall where they may, but to trust that God provides medical and other technology for our benefit and to use it wisely.
That said, I do think it’s good in our culture to emphasize that marriage and sexuality are not only about the man and the woman. It almost seems sometimes that even in the Church we’ve reacted so much against “Augustinian” ideas about sexuality that we forget the central importance of children in God’s economy of the family and sexuality.

While there are consistency issues in how this movement applies the sovereignty of God, these people are at least attempting to take seriously the statements in the Bible about God opening and closing the womb. This theme plays an important role in redemptive history. What do the rest of us think of those statements?
Those I know in the movement are some of the finest Christians I know. I also suspect that few of them will post here… Too busy with other things to be blogging.

I just can’t accept the implication that an argument from practicality isn’t necessarily within God’s will. If Scripture is clearly against something, I’m willing to concede practicality in favor of following God. But at least as often as not, Scripture isn’t anything like as clear as certain people argue that it is, and I’m not willing to do the “unpractical” thing if it isn’t sufficiently clear that God doesn’t want me to be practical.

Matt in #2,
Most Catholics I know at least use the “rhythm method.” Catholics reject the birth control pill, but I don’t think it’s because they want to leave conception up to God, I think it is because in a certain percentage of cases the pill causes an abortion. (But I don’t know for sure that this is why they reject the pill.)
I’ve heard this, too (my sister-in-law and her family are Catholic). But it’s also my understanding that Catholic reject the use of condoms, of which the “abortion problem” can’t be used as an excuse. If I’m mistaken on that, then my apologies….

Brian,
I know several good Christians who feel that a large family in this fashion is God’s call for them. I have no problem with that – for them.
I do have a serious problem with the tie here to sovereignty of God over our lives.

as someone who exists as the result of an unplanned pregnancy (outside of marriage, in this case) i think that our culture too often thinks of having children in terms of the parents and their lives and not often enough in terms of the children and their lives.
i am miraculously fortunate. my parents married because of me, fell into a deep love, which in time was made complete when they came into The Church, had three additional children, and are together to this day, 36 years later. but my life could have been very, very different.
as a Catholic i am, as you said, passionately pro-life. all life is sacred, and a gift from G-d. but the life of a child is not a gift from G-d TO THE PARENTS. it is a gift from G-d TO THE CHILD. my pro-life passion, my believe that all life is sacred, forces me to conclude that no child should be born who is not brought into existence through a clear, conscious and explicit desire to raise a child.
for me, being passionately pro-life means being vehemently anti-unwanted/unplanned children.
if you are too ignorant or too lazy to plan pregnancies, how can you possibly be informed enough and pro-active enough to be a good parent?

I agree generally with most of the other comments.
a few random trains of thoughts as I think about this:
Are there stewardship issues? I know of one family who are in ministry that wanted to go into overseas missions, but they loved having kids. They’re at a point where they have too many kids to make fundraising feasible, so, they were rejected by missions agencies. What then?
If you’re taking birth control out because of trusting in God, why couldn’t the same be said about any sort of medical practice? if disease comes because it’s God’s will, shouldn’t you trust God will take it away instead of going to a doctor?
It seems to be treading dangerous waters in rejecting practical decisions by accusing a lack of faith. You see that in use of money as well in terms of coerced giving.
Are there other life decisions that you make that is based on faith as well as practical decisions? In figuring out what job to take, not only did it come from having faith that God would lead me in the right direction, it took careful planning, action, and practical decision making for me to come to where I am. If I simply resort to “faith”, I could be in a pretty horrible situation right now. Why shouldn’t sex have the fusion of practical planning and God’s faith. It’s not like contraceptives are 100% anyways. God will do what he does in the midst of our practical planning.

Hit post too soon.
I also have a serious problem with the “anthropology” that some people (not all) tie to this movement. For some (not all) our purpose as people is simply to beget more people – and the purpose of a woman is tied solely production and care of children. I think that the creation commands are much deeper and more meaningful than this.

as the only child of an only child with an only child–(say that 3 times quickly) I’m obviously not a follower of the “quiverfull movement. Although I do think that family life and the raising of children is a great way to better understand the love of God–I worry that the quiverfull people judge the childless and the under-reproducers as not spiritual enough. Thus creating more reasons for despair for those who desire children and can’t have them–or who lose them for many reasons– or those who know that they are meant to serve God in other ways without children, or with only one or two.
I saw a couple on Dr. Phil once who kept having children that they couldn’t afford to raise because they believed God wanted them to.–this type of family may be a stereotype but I see a lot of evidence around me to support the perception that the people who can least afford to raise their children seem to have more.

I’m not sure I see the difference between this attitude and the attitude that you shouldn’t take antibiotics–it’s up to God to decide whether you should have an infection or not.
Surely it’s relevant that one of our first commands as humans was to be stewards over this planet. In a world in which we are already overpopulated to the point of rapidly using up non-renewable resources, it seems quite selfish and arrogant to make it even harder for everyone else to have the resources to survive because you think your genes are so valuable the world ought to be blessed with a surplus of them.

I can admire devotion to something, and commitment even in the face of being unpopular. That’s good, but can we do it for good causes? Can we do it with some bit of intelligent thought behind it? This is “God’s Sovereignty” gone too far. God sovereignly decided that sex would produce offspring. Therefore, if we have sex all the time for 25 years, God isn’t sovereignly going to choose that we have only 2 kids. That’s just silly.
I admire their devotion, but i think it is misplaced, and misplaced devotion is more often harmful than it is anything else.

There are two Brians here today.
As I said in #12, there are consistency issues in how the movement handles sovereignty. However, many of the “if God is sovereign then don’t intervene in area X either” arguments being presented here don’t address how the Bible specifically talks about God’s role in opening and closing the womb. We can’t bypass that theme in the name of logic.

Brian #1,
No all examples are not the same. I agree. But the sovereignty of God is expressed in the Bible over many different aspects of life, not just the womb.

RJS,
So the question broader question is, how does the Biblical framework of sovereignty carry over to us? The question needs to be asked both in general, and in regard to specific issues, such as this one.

I am a little surprised that no one has appealed to a broadly based Christian ethics. This would take into account God’s Word and sovereignty, but also address human freedom and responsibility. It isn’t only in the area of reproduction that we make choices, but in nearly every other area of our lives. When the first knife was applied to a human being for medical purposes, it seems to me that we were interfering with God’s sovereignty, as some conceive it. Surely some of these decisions are difficult and unclear. I think it is an important distinction, that someone made, between being pro-birth and pro-life. To see pro life broadly means caring for the earth and its ecosystems, as well as the many lives burdened by poverty, disease, war and abuse. How a modern approach to Christian ethics would not seriously consider population issues.

While (see #8) I am no fan of this movement, at least their reasons for having many children are more sound than “we have to outbreed the Muslims”, which I’ve heard from a few Christians.

First of all, I also think we need to get over this modern notion that prior to the invention of modern birth control people were just having children willy-nilly without any control over their breeding. A quick glance at historical birth rates around the world will demonstrate that this is not true and is simply ridiculous to claim or think. Birth rates have been known to fall to modern post-birth control pill levels many times in the past. People have understood conception and how to avoid it for millenia. So the question isn’t really whether the use of modern contraception is moral or not given that modern contraception is simply the more convenient, technological form of something that people have partaken of forever. There are really two things that influence birth rates far more than access to modern birth control: whether a person lives in a agrarian or urban setting and the extent to which women are empowered. Neither of these is influenced by access to modern forms of birth control.
At any rate, I think that the real issue that protestants need to look at isn’t birth control per se. I think it is the ethos which surrounds the issue of children. Do we think children ought to be wanted or welcomed? Often it will be both, but how do we deal with those times when the wanted is missing? Are children still welcomed as gifts from God? Is it right to want children to the exclusion of also having a welcoming attitude which allows God’s plans to supercede our own? Should the birth of a child ever be considered a tragedy? If a child comes into a family who had previously thought they did not have the resources to provide for the child, do they trust God’s opinion that they have what is needed to provide for the child, even if it means that each person in the family will make do with less? Or is having the individuals in a family do with less a sign of irresponsibility? I think that many protestants are on shaky ground when it comes to answering these sort of questions. Faithful Catholics will generally say that the birth of a child, expected, wanted or not is always a blessing to the world. That any child, in any circumstance ought to be welcomed as a matter of course. That welcoming a child into the world is FAR more important than wanting a child could ever be. That if a child is brought into the world, God will bless the welcoming and care of that child even when it means doing with less.
I think that when protestants get themselves right with regards to the ethos they apply to having children, then they will be in a position to think faithfully about matters of how many children to have and when. I do not think that holding this ethos automatically leads to either the RCC position or the quiverfull position. But I do think that it is a necessary prerequisite to any faithful thinking on the matter.

I think there is a misunderstanding in a number of these comments of the position of the Catholic Church on artificial contraception. The Catholic position does not make the case against artificial contraception in the same way that the Quiverfull movement does. The Catholic Church holds to a natural law ethic that wants to argue that things should not be separated from their proper ends. Because they hold that one of the ends of the sexual act is procreation, they argue that procreation cannot be separated from the sexual act (so they will say that artificial forms of birth control are thus inappropriate because they take procreation out of the picture). Catholic teaching does allow for natural family planning (which is by the way, much more sophisticated and effective than the rhythm method) whereby family size can be limited. It is also important to note that for similar reasons, the Catholic Church teaches against some forms of assisted reproduction like IVF and surrogacy. It is important to know that the Church doesn’t teach that people should have as many children as they possibly can and it does teach that couples should prayerfully consider their family size and in this way, its position is very very different from the position apparently being taken by the Quiverfull movement.

I don’t want to take a stand one way or the other on this. I just want to offer some thoughts from a Middle-Eastern perspective.
I have noticed several references to agrarian societies here, and I want to make the rather obvious point that arrows and quivers are not farm implements. They are weapons. The people of the Near East still see their sons as weapons. Social, political, actual weapons. Sons are power. Your extended family and tribe are your source of practical protection and power. The Biblical writer was just stating the obvious when he observed “blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” Attempts to make this verse about letting God determine how many children you will have are missing the intent. Maybe they should use the story of Onan instead.

Given the vast majority of responses above, what criteria do we use then for making the following decisions:
1. When to start having kids?
2. When to stop having kids?

Father of Three,
I don’t know, but we should not make these decisions out of fear or guilt. Those two factors seem to be reasons why some do not want to increase their family size. You should, however, make a reasonable assessment about what you can handle and then increase that by 1 more. : )

Dental care is not similar to our blessing to become co-creators with our creator. The mystery, or the profundity of the procreative act in light of man’s behavior and artificial contraception becomes skewed and cheap. A fifteen year old boy is only to happy to know his 15 year old girlfriend is now using birth control. Follow the dotted line to the 30 year old man dulled by a contraceptive marriage… “and we will discuss having children some other time.” Lets keep things as they are. In Contraception I Trust. Science and popular opinion know more than God. The real power to abstain from having children suddenly is more powerful than the procreative act and its end. And certainly the Church is too old fashioned and out of touch to understand the physical and spiritual needs of our children and ourselves!

My wife and I (before she was my wife) researched these ideas prior to our marriage. We looked at Roman Catholic, as well as Eastern Orthodox, teaching regarding birth control. We are “Evangelical Christians” but found a glaring lack of attention given to this crucial area of life in our traditions, so we looked beyond them. We found something very interesting: that in some Eastern Orthodox churches there is no “rule” about deliberately starting or stopping the process of having children, and that couples were encouraged to discuss these matters with their priests to arrive at personal convictions.
That seemed to us a very helpful way of looking at things, which embraced the idea that children are both a gift, as well as a responsibility, in God’s normal plan for marriage (I say normal, and not normative, since there are cases like those above where pregnancy seems impossible due to physical conditions, etc.)
At any rate, I do observe that most of the time the idea of “birth control” or even “family planning” (I mean this in the generic sense of cultivating a theological/biblical sense of their implications) is not valued as an area of discipleship in churches like ours — which really is regrettable.
We are expecting our fourth child — and very likely our last one — in the interest of transparency (smile).

Is there any place, Biblically, for a couple who decides to marry but NOT have children in order that they might be freer to serve God? Would this be equivalent to Paul’s advice about not marrying in 1Cor 7?
How do these kinds of questions fit into the larger Biblical STORY, in which we are moving from creation to new creation? It seems to me that many of these family-oriented questions are based on “creation” wisdom and ethics rather than “new creation” ones. How should Christians who have to live both in the “now” and “not yet” think and make decisions about such matters.

I’d like both extremes to leave the rest of us alone.
If you argue that we can’t use birth control to honor the sovereignty of our all-powerful God, I’ll ask you why you use seat belts.
If you argue that we have to limit our number of children to provide more for people in other countries, I’ll ask you if you have a tv or air conditioner or internet connection. There are a lot of things you can give up before you have to give up a child.

Thank you for this thought-provoking post. No one ever told me before my marriage that one could just trust God to give you children on His schedule. I struggled through a miserable year on birth control pills with the mood swings and physical problems that go with them before I gave up and just trusted God. It is so peaceful to know that we will have the number of children God wants us to! I hear my friends worrying about when it a good or bad time to have another baby. I just trust God.

Child-bearing is inextricably bound up with and to our sexual behavior. I won’t go so far as to say that it is the only purpose. It’s clear sexual union has other purposes than just childbearing.
But child-bearing is a big part. To me it’s obvious. Look how much effort we go to to prevent pregnancy. It’s clearly part of the deal.
On one hand, I am baffled by Christians who choose to never have children. On the other hand, the sanctimony of the “Quiverful” types I’ve met really turns me off and makes people who may be sympathetic to them cringe.
Furthermore, if we’re committed to marriage being the site of sexual congress then it’s my opinion that if you never want kids, then you shouldn’t get married. Again, these things are all bound up with each other. At the same time, some common sense and co-creation/cooperation with God is part of the picture too. Hence, I think a Christian couple in good conscience can determine how many children they want without ruling them out altogether. But that’s just me…
Again, these things all go together to some degree…

Thank you all for your very insightful and civil discussion of my post. I have gained new and wider perspective on the issue.
Now to show my own hand on this issue, I am a 29 year old childless youth pastor. My wife and I have been married for 3.5 years and have chosen to wait until we are more settled and financially stable. Being the young youth pastor couple in a church full of young families we are asked weekly when we’re going to start having children. My auto-response is usually my own application of 1 Cor 7: “What do you mean? I have 50 teenagers keeping me quite busy enough – operating as a entirely different kind of birth control – if you catch my drift!” We are free to minister in ways our peers with children are not able. Yet we are looking forward to beginning our own family soon enough – when we are more ready and if God wills.
So we are not with the Quiverfull or RCC. But I still appreciate some of their convictions while disagreeing with many others. Your comments have reinforced many of my own thoughts on the issue and have expanded my thinking. Thanks!

Wow, I wish I had seen this on Friday when it was posted. My wife and I have 8 kids ages 17 down to an infant. We’re not part of a movement, but we decided not to prevent any life in our family.
I look back with no regrets and say that I can’t imagine having prevented any of my children.
It is expensive, I must admit, and I struggle as a single-income provider to keep up. But the payoff in contentment overcomes the financial.
The arguments I hear for preventing life are usually better arguments for not being married in the first place. For example, if you are a Youth Pastor and want to devote your life to the church kids, then why get married. When you are older and have some kids, perhaps you will look back and ask, “Who is missing in this family? What potential did we waste?”
Derek Leman

Well, I’m so late, probably no one will read anything I say anyway . . .
I see a lot of people saying the sovereignty of God argument is not a good one. Why not just forget about the seat belt and trust God?
I thought better of most of you in terms of ability to lay out a good argument with philosophical backbone. Seat belts and doctors and dentists are things inherently good. They save and restore life and health. A condom is essentially negative, providing a way to have the pleasure of sex without the good that comes from sex — new life.
I think a better form of the argument in favor of having many children and avoiding birth control is better described this way: we choose not to prevent life but to receive all the life God would give us in the natural course of our marital love.
This is not abstract but concrete. If you look at my family, you can see examples of children who would never have been born had we followed the usual philosophy of life.
Also, someone said this is demeaning to women and makes women producers of children only. Well, my wife does a lot more in her work to join God in the repair and healing of this world than have kids. I admit raising kids is what she primarily does, but through these kids she and I are contributing to the repair of the world. You will never have better disciples than your children.
Derek Leman

Derek,
In this particular area I don’t want to criticize the choices made by anyone else, or calling felt by anyone else, with respect to living a life aimed toward the kingdom of God and repair of the world.
But since you note my examples in particular, I will respond. I think that we are called to live out and participate in the mission of God in the world. In this process I think that God calls different people to different things and we can’t simply rest on the sovereignty of God to discern the call.
I think that this quiverfull movement is misguided because it is exclusively or primarily home-centered – and self-righteously so, centering the argument on the sovereignty of God. If the sovereignty of God rules all life and death decisions, then it should do so consistently – both on the life end and on the death end. If any form of family planning is forbidden as counter to the will of God – so also should be health care and cancer treatment.
But many are called to a broader focus on the mission of God. And this means stewardship of time and resources. I don’t think the extreme approaches of either “as many children as God chooses to give” or childlessness and “a eunuch for the kingdom” are the only appropriate responses or forms of a God-centered life.
A family mix – with a call to be both inward focused with children (perhaps limited in number) and outward focused with work in the world – is a reasonable alternative path for many. But all decisions should be made, not on the basis of personal preference and convenience, but with prayer and an eye toward the mission of God.

RJS:
You have some good points. I won’t deny it.
But your argument on this point is problematic for a reason I’ve already laid out: “If any form of family planning is forbidden as counter to the will of God – so also should be health care and cancer treatment.”
Health care and cancer treatment save life and are inherently good. Birth control prevents life. What we are debating is whether preventing life is inherently good. But in any case it does not follow that IF we should do nothing that prevents life then we should ALSO do nothing that saves it.
You may have many sound arguments against the philosophy of child-bearing that we follow, but that is not one of them.
Derek Leman

I agree Derek – and I am not trying to make a statement against the philosophy of childbearing you follow. The argument in favor of life is a consistent one. I would pose other questions in trying to think through the issues there, issues like stewardship and call – and I might even come around to your point of view … too late.
My issue is with the argument that it is the “sovereignty of God.” When this is the argument then we are not talking about favoring life consistently, we are talking about submission to divine will. I think that this argument is flawed.