Taken together, does it make sense? If we hold to these presuppositions, then we are saying that: 1) God made our bodies to naturally and reliably produce babies whenever a man and a woman have intercourse at the right time of the month; and 2) God expects us to find ways to either time our relations or develop other techniques and technologies to control when conception will occur so as to limit our number of children.

Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 7, for husbands and wives not to deprive one another, seem to run counter to the idea of avoiding relations at a certain time of the month in an effort to prevent conception. The one reason Paul cites as acceptable is a spiritual reason, and then only for a limited time and by pre-agreement. Trying to consistently avoid relations on likely fertile days will invariably run into conflict with the command to not deprive one another and to meet one another’s needs.

Also it is not so easy to know with certainty when the fertile days will be. Many women's cycles have just enough irregularity to keep you guessing. Even with the use of special thermometers and temperature charting, efforts to either conceive or avoid conception often fail. In fact, a great many pregnancies result from relations at times when the charts say there should be no fertility!

Isn't it interesting how differently God made many animals? There is no problem knowing when a female dog or goat is fertile. The female knows, as does all the males around. When the female is in heat, she is receptive and conception seems to almost always occur. But the animals don't use this knowledge to try and prevent births, but rather for the opposite reason. All mating occurs when conception is almost assured.

So why would God make birth control so easy for the animals but so hard for humans? Perhaps because the animals would instinctively follow His commands to be fruitful and multiply while the humans would tend to resist and rebel - desiring to control every aspect of their lives themselves? Does God really desire us to control the number and timing of our children in accordance with what we think is best, while also commanding husbands and wives to meet each others needs regularly? If so, why didn't He give us a "fertility off" switch? Think about it!

If God desired every husband and wife to regularly have relations and, if this would naturally result in pregnancies every 9-12 months, but He only wanted them to have just a few children spaced apart at their own choice, then what was He thinking?? Look at how difficult He made it to prevent and time births while having regular marital relations! Even with all of our modern science and medicines we have a hard time doing this with a high degree of reliability and without inflicting other harm to our bodies through surgery or hormonal tampering.

Think about the different forms of birth control man has been able to invent after these many thousands of years. Consider the ones that have very serious side effects for some or sometimes result in abortions. Consider the other devices and how unnatural they seem, what they take away from the experience and yet how they occasionally fail also. Consider even "natural family planning" and its dependence on very regular cycles, monitoring, the requirement of sometimes refraining from relations when they may be most needed by one of the partners. And look at the frequency at which pregnancy still results in spite of these attempts. Does birth control really look like a part of God's wonderful design for us?

Is this really the way God designed us? And is this really what He expects us to do with His design? If anything, the evidence is that God favors a sort of birth control than maximizes conception rather than restrains it. For the Jews under the Law, God prescribed certain times during and just following the woman's menstruation when relations were forbidden. The point when relations were again permitted coincides closely with the approximate time of a woman's greatest fertility. Doesn't this sound more like a plan to encourage large families rather than small ones?

Is use of birth control like use of medicine? I know some compare birth control to modern medicine. If we think we should make use of modern medicine to help us when we are sick, and not just trust God alone, how is that any different from using birth control? Well, for most of us, birth control has nothing to do with something going wrong in our body. Our bodies were designed to produce babies. Becoming pregnant is not a sickness from a bacteriological or viral attack, nor is it a breakdown in our body systems. Modern birth control medicines and devices are uses of modern science to thwart rather than aid God's design.

Where else will this viewpoint lead? Much as Darwinism had an impact on people's worldview far beyond the scientific theory itself, even so the worldview that accepts birth control as both a right and a responsibility has far reaching impact. Without this acceptance of birth control and its philosophical justification, we would not have legalized abortions today. Without its widespread availability we would probably not have nearly the incidence of immorality and infidelity that we have today. Even one of the very things birth control was supposed to help - out of wedlock births - has in fact become much worse! Faith in birth control has encouraged many more to be immoral with less fear of consequences. Yet neither the birth control methods, nor their personal application of them, are perfect, resulting in more rather than less out of wedlock births.

Where next? A great deal of research is being devoted to genetics today. Ostensibly the results are to help prevent and repair genetic problems prior to birth. But when the accepted philosophy is one of planning and choosing your children and "no unwanted children", the use may be something altogether different. Would not many want to choose everything about their child? Will it be a boy or a girl? With what eye and hair color and shade of skin? What facial features, height and build, or personality type would you like?

Will the scientists ever achieve this? I don't know, but I am sure many would jump at the chance to use it if it were available! If you believe life is all a matter of biology and chance without God, just how far will you go to try and control life? Have we perhaps already gone too far with our efforts to control things that God did not intend us to control?