Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Life Can Only Be Understood Backward...


but unfortunately "...it has to be lived forward." said Kierkegaard.

From Catholic News Agency:

"Vienna, Jan 11, 2009 / 02:10 am (CNA).- The chemist who made a key discovery leading to the invention of the birth control pill has written a commentary calling demographic decline in Europe a 'horror scenario” and a “catastrophe' brought on in part by the pill’s invention.

Mr. Carl Djerassi, now 85 years old, was one of three researchers whose formulation of the synthetic progestagen Norethisterone marked a key step in the creation of the first oral contraceptive pill, the Guardian reports.

In a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Djerassi said his invention is partly to blame for demographic imbalance in Europe. On the continent, he argued, there is now 'no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction.'”



Kierkegaard wasn't exactly right. To a certain extent, life can be "understood forward" if one's anthropological understanding includes "human nature"--which was in fact all human anthropological understanding until quite recently. That's why Pope Paul, whose anthropology did include a normative human nature, was able to exactly predict the development that Mr. Djerassi laments.

"Humanae Vitae"


Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

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