Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are discerned spiritually. 1 Cor 2:14
We tend to assume that what is artificial is bad and what is natural is good. In the supermarket we look for natural and organic products that have not been grown with chemical fertilizers or treated with pesticides. We flee from the pollution of the city to the clean air of the countryside. In the United States, for example, the Amish live as if they were still in the 19th century, rejecting everything that is modern. On the other hand, the word artificial reminds us of plastic and has many negative connotations.
The artificial are natural and the natural are artificial
This is how my professor of sexual morality, the late Jesuit Javier Jaffo, began the subject of contraceptives. Counting the days before and after a period, taking the temperature and checking the viscosity of the cervical mucus are, in theory, natural methods, but their application in practice makes them artificial, for in marriage the conjugal act is carried out not when the couple want but when circumstances permit it.
The artificiality of these methods lies in the fact that it is the circumstances and not the couple that decide the occurrence of the conjugal act; it can happen that when circumstances allow for it, the couple is not in the mood, or vice versa.
On the contrary, as my teacher used to say, the so-called artificial ones, by the church, the pill, the condom, the diaphragm, etc., (excluding the IUD and the morning-after pill because they are abortifacients), are the authentically natural ones, since they confer on the marriage the power to decide the conjugal act without any hindrance.
The Church has spent a lot of writing on this argument, and I, according to my teacher, have never understood why the pill is bad and the aspirin is good; Aren't they both artificial? That is, natural products of the human mind? Because it has side effects, some say; But if there are any chemical drugs that do not have them?
Once you accept the principle of the responsible paternity, that gives moral value to the limitation of births, it does not matter which methods you use. Use the ones that are more convenient to you. Or is it that the so called artificial are bad because they are more efficient, and the so called natural are good because they fail? Are you then counting on their failure?
Homo sapiens versus Neandertals
The Neanderthal man, who immigrated from Africa long before the Homo sapiens, was more inclined to adapt to nature; in fact, he lived like many animals in symbiosis with nature. If we carried on like this, we may never be able to fully free ourselves from animality, to oppose nature like the thumb opposes other fingers and become authentically human.
It's not clear why, but the Neanderthals who lived in Eurasia 350,000 years ago became extinct, perhaps supplanted by Homo sapiens with whom they interbred.
Unlike the Neanderthal, the Homo sapiens, as the word itself indicates, does not so much adapt to nature as to make nature adapt to himself. More intelligent than his counterpart, Homo sapiens manipulates nature in order to put it at his service. Since the invention of agriculture and the discovery of fire, when he made various tools to work in different trades, Homo sapiens through his creativity has emancipated himself from nature, cutting the umbilical cord that tied him to it in symbiosis.
In this sense, natural is what makes us like animals, artificial is what makes us like God. The word artificial comes from ars-facere, meaning to make art. The only difference between us and God is that He creates out of nothing, and we create by combining the elements found in nature, making new mixtures and combinations, and modifying them with our instruments.
What is natural in man is not to be enslaved to nature, obeying it in everything, but to be free from nature and, with his mind, to know nature in order to dominate it, to control it, and to seek in nature what is useful to him. What is natural to Homo sapiens is the artificial, in other words, to make art.
Our fallen nature
The human sciences are increasingly moving away from Rousseau's theory of "Beau Sauvage" and closer to Hobbes's theory of "Homo homini lupus". We are not born tabula rasa and learn evil through education, but we are born with evil already inside us.
We can learn techniques to do evil, but the spirit of evil does not need to be taught, it is innate in us, we all know how to do it. Everything that humanity has done wrong throughout history has become part of a database to which all individuals have access, something like Jung's collective unconscious.
Paul: The Natural Man or the Old Man
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15
St. Paul felt in his own flesh the drive of human nature, the natural inclination towards evil. This is what he calls the works of the flesh practiced by the Old Man.
This is the consequence of Adam's sin. He is our earthly father, our ancestor in sin; he ruined the human nature that God created, and it stayed ruined from generation to generation. We all inherit the Old Man with his natural tendencies and inclinations towards evil. Doing evil costs nothing, it is like a second nature, it is our natural inclination.
Paul: The Spiritual Man or the New Man
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:22-24
The flood was not the solution, the destruction of everything to start again with Noah, because evil had already seeped into human nature. God envisioned another plan that presupposed man's free choice. God sent his Son into the world, who is like us in every thing except sin, like Adam before he sinned, for sin is not a divine creation, but a human one.
Christ is the New Man who does not emerge after a flood, but from the same divine nature in collaboration with the human nature cleansed from sin in Mary. Christ was then grafted onto the Adam that God created, not onto what he himself had become. This graft, like all grafts, will produce the fruit described above and will gradually change the whole nature of the tree.
Christ: The Way, the Truth and the Life
"For those who want to save their life will lose it…
"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves…
"Love your enemies…
"Blessed are the poor…
"Do not invite your relatives and friends...
In the gospels, Jesus often uses paradoxical language to show that the model of humanity he proposes, far from being natural and logical, is artificial; it is opposed to human nature and goes against our natural tendencies. However, it is more than proven that there is no other way to happiness.
As the Italians say, "Si non è vero è ben trovato", that is, even if it was not true, it was well conceived. Even if the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist, the narrative that the four evangelists created around him is undoubtedly the best of all times.
The Christian is the measure of the human and the human is the measure of the Christian. It is the values that come out of the gospel that prevail and guide human beings, both in their personal and individual life, as well as in their social life. The United Nations Charter of Human Rights was modeled on the gospel.
Unarguably, there is no better model or archetype of human life than Jesus of Nazareth. His day-to-day behaviour, his deeds and his sayings are truly the way, the truth and the life for people of every time and place.
As an archetype or model of life to emulate, like a pole star for humanity, there is no equally valid alternative model to Christ in this world. In fact, Christ himself said: "Whoever does not gather with me scatters", it is not that a person can gather with someone else, he simply scatters if he does not gather with Christ. (Luke 11:15-26)
Conclusion: natural is what nature gives us, artificial from the Latin "ars facere", to make art, is what comes out of our mind. Human life is more artificial than natural.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC