In early Christian history, especially before Constantine, Christians were not concerned about having large families. Indeed, they felt the eschatological ramifications of the incarnation, and as such, thought the world itself was soon to come to an end. Paul shows us what this meant in relation to family life: they believed it was better to be celibate and live out the eschatological mystery single than it was to marry, have children:
Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does. Do not refuse one another except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control. I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. (1 Cor. 7:1-9 RSV).
There remained a great indifference to if not distaste for marriage in the early Christian community. Sometimes, this lead a few to denigrate marriage so much that they would declare it sinful, and so, an evil, even if it were a necessary evil; the foundations for that argument often were agreed upon by those who defended the validity of marriage, but the conclusions differed. Christian used Paul’s words to suggest that marriage was a concession, and one which contained some grace, which is why it should be permitted and accepted as a good (albeit a lesser good). St. Ambrose certainly continued with that line of thought, and so, he would often highlight the advantages of celibacy and the disadvantages of marriage.
The celebration of celibacy and virginity indicated Christianity did not believe marriage, and with it, having children, was necessary for everyone. Early Christians did not think it important to emphasize the good of family life. If Christians did not marry, the faith would live in, not through children, but through converts. Eventually, as the mission field dwindled, and Christianity became more attached to history and worldly concerns, Christian understanding of marriage and family life changed. The good of childbearing and family life would become emphasized, especially after the onslaught of plagues (such as the Black Death). After centuries of such concern, many Christians, contrary to the spirit of early Christianity and the relative value Christ gave to family life, looked upon those with small or no families with suspicion. Christianity inverted itself with its concerns, and in doing so, have caused many to think that sexual matters are among the most important matters of the Christian faith. They think any question of the family structure as it developed in modernity, or any question concerning the idealization of large families, is itself an affront on Christian values, when in reality, it often come from an engagement with earlier Christian values, seeing how they could and should play out in the modern context. This has become especially true for Christians who are concerned about the possibility of overpopulation in the world. Despite what some might have been led to believe, there is a limit to what constitutes a healthy population size, both in local situations (cities, countries) and in the world at large; while scientific advancements can often allow for greater populations than in pre-modern times, there remains a limit before which overpopulation becomes a problem, as resources will become scarce; once that limit has been met, the world at large suffers as it becomes exploited in order to preserve or allow for greater populations than it can ideally sustain, leading to long-term community and environmental harm.
Vatican Council II agreed that overpopulation can become a problem which needs to be addressed“ Finally, in certain parts of the world problems resulting from population growth are generating concern.” [1] And as a result, it was said: “This council realizes that certain modern conditions often keep couples from arranging their married lives harmoniously, and that they find themselves in circumstances where at least temporarily the size of their families should not be increased.” [2] It is a concern, not only for the married couple, but for civil society as a whole, and when overpopulation is causing problems, the state has a right to find legitimate solutions to the problems it creates:
Governments undoubtedly have rights and duties, within the limits of their proper competency, regarding the population problem in their respective countries, for instance, in the line of social and family life legislation, or regarding the migration of country-dwellers to the cities, or with respect to information concerning the condition and needs of the country. [3]
Nonetheless, the council also wanted it to be made known, it did not always agree with all concerns some have raised in relation to overpopulation:
But there are many today who maintain that the increase in world population, or at least the population increase in some countries, must be radically curbed by every means possible and by any kind of intervention on the part of public authority. In view of this contention, the council urges everyone to guard against solutions, whether publicly or privately supported, or at times even imposed, which are contrary to the moral law. [4]
Thus, we see a balance was made, one in which the council recognized overpopulation can be a problem, but it didn’t want the problem used to suggest or promote immoral solutions, or to think all the issues modernity has brought into the world are really connected to overpopulation. Indeed, it realized many of them came as a result of countries not working for the common good. The poor did not have the resources they need, resources which could be and were available. Those who do not help poor families, it can be said, make the problems connected with overpopulation worse. And if there is no engagement with social justice, some people end up thinking the only solution lies in population control: “Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate.” [5] Poverty, Pope Francis realizes, makes the situation worse, and with it, leads to all kinds of crime and violence, crime and violence which is increased in areas which are overcrowded; the solution, which might still require looking into the population size and how to deal with overpopulation, requires the community, the state, and the world as a whole to truly embrace communitarian ideals, to work together for the common good instead of having everyone fighting each other to fulfill their basic needs:
The extreme poverty experienced in areas lacking harmony, open spaces or potential for integration, can lead to incidents of brutality and to exploitation by criminal organizations. In the unstable neighbourhoods of mega-cities, the daily experience of overcrowding and social anonymity can create a sense of uprootedness which spawns antisocial behaviour and violence. Nonetheless, I wish to insist that love always proves more powerful. Many people in these conditions are able to weave bonds of belonging and togetherness which convert overcrowding into an experience of community in which the walls of the ego are torn down and the barriers of selfishness overcome. This experience of a communitarian salvation often generates creative ideas for the improvement of a building or a neighbourhood. [6]
Questions surrounding the size of the human population, and what is and what is not ideal, and the consequences of human overpopulation (in local areas, as well as in the world at large) are valid questions. The concerns which are raised must be acknowledged and dealt with. Certainly, in one respect, it can be said humanity can continue to live in the world with the population size it has today (just over eight billion), but in another respect, it does not appear it really can, as it is clear the environment suffers, and will only continue to suffer more as more of those eight billion people try to live and engage the world in the way “advanced” “First World” nations do. So long as we have not learned how to engage the environment, or embrace the common good, large families will threaten to make things worse, not better, and there will come to a time when all our technological advances will not be able to sustain the human population. Some think we will not reach that stage, that we will soon see a decline in the population size, but the thing is, that is something for the future, and is not yet here;[7] we have a large, growing population engaging the world through a consumerism which is indifferent to the needs of the earth and its welfare, and as such, they are destroying the earth.
We must bring people together so they can better share and use the resources they have. We must make sure we are not wasteful in our engagement of the world. If we don’t follow better environmental policies, making sure each particular person has a far less impact on the earth than they do currently, then the increasing size of the human population might lead to disaster, as the population will become too big to be sustained in the way it currently lives upon the earth. Thus, if better ways of using the resources are not embraced and engaged, the only other solution will be to engage population control (albeit, of course, in the most ethical manner necessary). Christians need to accept that the concept of population control is not an afront to them and their beliefs and practices; they need to realize why Christians slowly embraced the notion that having large families was a virtue, reasons which are not valid for the world they live in today. For example, when infant mortality was great, having large families was a way to sustain the human population and make sure family lines continue from generation to generation; now it can become a hindrance, threatening the families, indeed, humanity itself, as infant mortality is much lower, and so large families no longer merely sustain the population, but allow it to grow exponentially. To help Christians see this, looking back to Scripture and early Christian understanding of family is important – not because we need to go to the extremes held by those in the past, but to recognize the points they made which we have forgotten, using them to produce a better, more nuanced understanding of the family and its value.
We need to recognize the good of the family (and not just the modern notion of the family), the good of the community, and the good of the environment; going forward, we must find a way to balance all those goods so that they can help us form a more harmonious engagement with the world we live in. This means we need to find a way to overcome the consumeristic individualism which runs rampant in the world today: “Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”[8] We must not, therefore, reject the value of families, and certainly, we must not make families a luxury of the rich alone, but on the other hand, we have to take care and look to the greater, holistic picture, recognizing the good of families is relative, and that is exactly what Christ and the early Christians understood. It is a good, but we must recognize other goods, and the needs surrounding those goods; we must not act as if large families are necessary, or even a good to be promoted, shaming those who do not have such families. Instead, we must address our collective responsibility to the world, recognizing that not everyone should have a large family of their own. We must recognize the good, not only of those who have large families, but those who have small or no families of their own. Then, as a community, we need to truly come together, working together to make sure we do not overextend ourselves, and in that overextension, cause our own demise (such as many thought happened on Easter Island). Population size can be a real concern. Overpopulation remains a possibility. Even if what constitutes overpopulation might differ from context to context, the problems which it creates remains real, and so we must discern when those problems arise, and what we can and should to deal with them. What we must not do is shrug off the notion of overpopulation as if it were an impossibility. Human history shows otherwise.
[1] Gaudium et spes. Vatican translation. ¶47.
[2] Gaudium et spes, ¶51.
[3] Gaudium et spes, ¶87.
[4] Gaudium et spes, ¶87.
[5] Pope Francis, Laudato si. Vatican translation. ¶50.
[6] Pope Francis, Laudato si, ¶149.
[7] “Though billion-mark milestones tend to provoke a sense of alarm, humanity’s population growth has actually slowed, according to the UN, and is currently at its slowest rate since 1950. There’s a slurry of good and bad news driving these trends. Thanks to increased access to healthcare and declining mortality rates, especially in infants, people are living longer — but it really comes down to where in the world you reside,” Troy Farah, “The Population Has Reached 8 Billion — But Experts Aren’t Worried About Overpopulation. Here’s Why” in Salon (11-15-2022).
“While 8 billion is a significant milestone, its magnitude is misleading. The population growth rate peaked 50 years ago (around 1962-65) and is now less than 1 percent per year. Globally, the average number of births per woman is now 2.3, little more than ‘replacement level’ — the 2.1 required for a population to stay the same. We are certainly not facing an ‘empty planet’ or ‘ population collapse.’ The U.N. projects that the world population will peak at over 10 billion in approximately 2086,” Melanie Channon and Jasmine Fledderjohann, “The World Hits 8 Billion People; Is That Good or Bad?” in HowStuffWorks (11-14-2022).
[8] Pope Francis, Laudato si, 49.
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