5. Does BLCC Violate the Creation Mandate for Fruitfulness?

Biblical principles related to the BLCC definition of fruitfulness

Have we broken the commandment to be fruitful and multiply if we stop at five children? At ten children? At twenty children? Why is it a sin to stop at any number when we can legitimately claim that we are multiplying? Keep in mind that the burden of proof is on those who believe it is sin to space children or limit the number of children (chapter 3). The commandment is to “be fruitful and multiply” - it is not a command to have as many children as is conceivably possible. Those two concepts are quite distinct (see chapter 7). Keep in mind that the official Guinness Book of World Records has documented a peasant woman in Russia as giving birth to 69 children, so why stop at thirty? This is not a trivial question, since our side of the debate claims to be fulfilling the dominion mandate, and both sides of this debate desire to have many children.

Interestingly God claimed in Genesis 49:22, “Joseph is a fruitful bough,” though Joseph only had two children at this point and no doubt desired more.¹²⁸ A farmer would desire far more olives than would be produced in the year spoken of in Isaiah 17:6, yet God speaks of the “four or five” olives on a branch as still being a “fruitful branch.” The point is that there is some flexibility in the concept of fruitfulness, and while I have already argued for large families, there are extenuating circumstances where the degree of fruitfulness might be legitimately limited, and it would still technically be fruitful to have “four or five.” Therefore, if the command to be fruitful has been fulfilled, unless some other passage proves us in sin, it is legalism to say we must have as many children as is physically possible. We may want more, but that is a different issue.

A second important question based on Genesis 1 is this: “Does the authority to take dominion extend to conception?” If not, why not? Psalm 8:6 interprets the re-articulation of the dominion mandate as God having “put all things under his feet.” Yet some who are opposed to conception control are passive in their theology of conception. Several NCC have told me that it would be sinful to have a surgeon repair damaged fallopian tubes in order to achieve pregnancy, because that is not trusting God to open the womb. Yet the heart of the dominion mandate is to be organizers and controllers of life to God’s glory. To passively allow creation to order itself is the opposite of the dominion mandate. Chapter 2 discusses this issue in much more depth.

Thankfully, most NCC are not consistent in applying their passive concepts of conception to other areas of life. They tend to be active in taking dominion of every other area of fruitfulness. So the question arises, “Why is one single activity in Genesis 1 removed from man’s dominion?” Every other part of man’s dominion involves planning, rationing, apportioning, starting, resting, stopping, etc. Though God is ultimately the one who blesses our efforts at animal husbandry and farming, man must still exercise his dominion over the “fruitfulness” he can handle as a wise stewardship.

Jesus implies the same in John 1:13 when He not only acknowledges that children come from God, but also speaks of procreation being the result of “the will of man.” Man’s planning was never removed from this mandate to be fruitful and multiply. If having babies has been entrusted to man’s “dominion and will” in exactly the same way as making the earth fruitful has been entrusted to man’s dominion and will, then it should be OK for man to plan the spacing of babies (see chapter 7) unless God’s word explicitly forbids it.

The Law of God itself places limits on fruitfulness

Of course, the general principles I have already outlined are made explicit in God’s law. God mandates that the fruitfulness of the field be planned and limited. For example, God’s law itself limits fruitfulness through His command for “rest.” Man’s dominion can never be a selfish dominion. It is a stewardship of land, animals, family, wife, and self for God. Consider the land. God mandated, “in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land” (Lev. 25:4). Failure to give the land a rest from fruitfulness resulted in God’s judgment (Lev. 26:34,43; 2 Chron. 36:20-21). Why is this rest not a violation of the command to be fruitful and multiply?

The same command of fruitfulness that was given to man was also given to the land (Gen. 1:11-12; Psalm 107:37; Ezek. 36:29) and was called a blessing (Deut. 7:13; Ezek. 36:19). Is failing to make the land be fruitful every year a “despising of God’s blessings” or a violation of His Dominion Command? Obviously not. The land has been fruitful for six years, and taking a year off (spacing) in no way violates the command. If spacing crops does not violate the identical command to be fruitful and multiply, I fail to see how spacing children (whether by six months, 12 months, or more) violates that command. This is using the analogy of Scripture to understand the command to be fruitful and multiply.

Of course, some will respond that God’s law alone can authorize how long anyone can rest from fruitfulness, and the law allowed the land to rest one year in seven, but only allows a woman to rest for 41 days after a male child is born (Lev. 12:3-4) and for 80 days after a female child is born (Lev. 12:5). This is looking at the letter of the law (which sets minimums on rest) and fails to see the spirit of the law, which is designed to ensure that we care for land, animals, and people under our stewardship. If the woman “who has many children has become feeble” (1 Sam. 2:5), it might be time to let her strengthen.

This objection also misses the point that nowhere in the law is it said to be a sin to give more rest to land or mothers. If some rest is mandated, then why would more rest be sin if it is needed? As chapter 3 shows, the burden of proof is upon those who say spacing babies is a sin. If (as we have demonstrated) the command to multiply is not absolute in its scope (God allowed rest from fruitfulness), then so long as couples are being fruitful and multiplying, they should not be judged.

To press the analogy of land fruitfulness in an ad hominem way, why not work the land as efficiently as possible (even if it gives more grain than we can possibly sell)? Is it appropriate to grow more grain than we can possibly harvest or sell, or is that bad stewardship? Or is it appropriate to do the reverse, and turn some good land into a recreational area? To apply this to the analogy of the Sabbath – is it sinful to take days off beyond the Sabbath day in our yearly schedules? Nowhere in the Bible does it speak about a Thanksgiving Day, Presidents day, etc. Is it sin to be idle on those days? What makes giving a very productive wife some rest from child-bearing a sin? Could this not justify spacing babies by one year or more to provide for the wife’s strength and health, and/or to save up money to be able to pay for the delivery costs of the next baby? Could it not be used to postpone having a child while the wife’s health was in jeopardy?

Consider other scenarios: If a woman was having chemotherapy for cancer, the chemo would endanger the baby’s life. This would certainly be a good time to exercise conception control. It might be objected that then we should not engage in sexual relations (since no child is being hoped for during the chemotherapy), a topic I will address below. The point is, it would have to be shown from God’s law for it to be sin to satisfy the sexual desires of a wife going through chemo, or to comfort her sexually in her affliction. If one of these exceptions is allowed for, it needs to be evaluated why it would not be allowed in other circumstances that are seeking to obey God’s Word (caring for a wife’s weariness, caring for her health, saving up so that they can have money to pay the midwife,¹²⁹ etc.).

People will say that God opens the womb and He closes the womb, and we should trust Him to close it when it needs to be closed and open it when it needs to be opened, but this too is to limit man’s dominion over medical attempts to open the womb.

The above points illustrate at least two ways in which the NCC advocates are not consistent in their understanding of the dominion mandate. Many more examples could be given, but these should be enough to discuss the issue of Dominion adequately. For more details, see chapter 1.