Be fruitful and multiply, Part Three

In the first two posts in this series, we looked at some Scripture verses, as well as a few selections from papal encyclicals , which, in my opinion,  offer evidence that it is the will of God that the population increase, and therefore, there are reasons to be concerned about the moral and spiritual health of our nation (and many other nation’s) declining birthrate.   In this post, we will step back briefly to discuss some practical effects of under population.  (We will return to the spiritual in the posts after this one.)

1)      When a nation under populates, it must rely more on immigration to support itself.  When a nation is desperate for people to support its economy, it naturally becomes easier to immigrate to it, whether that is intentional or not.  In these circumstances, it is difficult to manage who comes into a country.  Unfortunately, this means these nations are more vulnerable to terrorist threats.   One sees this with great vivacity in Europe with the number of recent terrorist attacks in Britain and France. 

2)      When a nation under populates, it loses its culture and identity.    In the first post of this series, we noted that all of the countries on the President’s travel ban have higher birthrates than the United States, and just about every other industrialized country.   These countries have large populations that do not like America.  They deem us as  “morally lax” because we give women rights, and allow gays and lesbians to live freely and openly like the rest of us.  They think we are imperialistic.  They do not like democracy or capitalism.   As their population increases, and our decreases, then their values will take hold, and ours will lose their ground, not necessarily in the truth of our values, but in their living out, simply because we do not have enough people to defend them.

3)      When a nation begins to under populate, it ages.   There will not be enough working people to support the elderly population.  Pensions will decline.   The temptation to euthanize will become greater.  An economy where more and more of a percentage of its population cannot work becomes less viable.   Taxes will have to be raised on those who are working to support the aging population.   It becomes a vicious cycle.

4)      When a nation under populates, it creates a labor shortage that goes well beyond having economic consequences alone.   Less labor equals less capital.  Capital comes in many forms; economic, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual.  There is simply no replacement for a human being when it comes to capital.  A machine lacks the creativity that a human person does.  A machine may be able to produce things, but it cannot design or create things.  Only human persons, made in the image and likeness of God, can create.  When a nation loses its creativity, it not only loses economically, it loses culturally.

5)      When a nation under populates, contrary to popular wisdom, the environment suffers.   Common wisdom dictates that the more population is controlled, the better for the environment.  I do not believe this to be true.  (We will discuss population control efforts in more detail in a future post in this series.)  Think of it this way.  The more people we have, the easier and less expensive it would be to build things like electric cars and wind turbines.   The more people we have, the more opportunities there are for work, and therefore, less travel needed, and less fuel used.  Sometimes, we just have to sit back, and really think through some of our assumptions.

6)      When a nation under populates, workers face severe financial consequences.  With lower population, there is less demand for things.  With less demand, comes a corresponding call for lower production, which means fewer jobs, and fewer wages for the jobs that do exist.  When workers earn less, the standard of living falls.   Savings and retirement goes down, which means people have to work longer to survive. 

7)      When a nation under populates, important societal structures receive less support.   The government receives fewer taxes.   It cannot support the military like it should, and a nation’s ability to defend itself weakens.  Families do not have the support they need.   There are fewer doctors, nurses, teachers, fire, police, and soldiers.  And institutions like the Church have fewer people to support it.  (We will go into more details on the effect of under population on the Church in a future post in this series.)

There are probably other effects that are not listed here, but this should give you the idea that when we do not reproduce as we should, very concerning things happen.  It really is interesting to note that one does not hear of these things in modern popular discourse.  As I have stated, it is really the opposite we often hear, that we are overpopulated.   We see things like hunger, environmental degradation, and disease, and we instantly assume there is an overpopulation issue.   The world cannot sustain itself, we think.  We have too many people to feed.  We have too many people and it is causing the environment to decay.   We have too many sick and old people.

Why do not we think differently?   Instead of thinking this way, I propose we think of these issues another way.   Instead of thinking about there being too many people to feed, think that we do not have enough people to feed them.  Instead of thinking the environment is being hurt because there are too many people, think instead that we do not have enough manpower to build and invest in alternative energy sources.  Instead of thinking that there are too many sick and old people in the world, and therefore, we need to eliminate them, think instead there are not enough people to take care of them, and that, not the sick and old people themselves, is the problem.

I think it is important that we develop a new mentality to the problems facing us in society today.  Man is not the problem, man is, rather,  the solution!  We need more men and women, with vitality and creativity, to address the problems we face.  The problems will not get better by practicing population control.   They will get better by realizing the genius that the human person is as the pinnacle of God’s creation.   Read and meditate on these words from Psalm 8, and tell me afterwards that decreasing the number of these creatures on the Earth will solve our problems!

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals  that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Wow, what a beautiful expression of the dignity of man.

And we want to decrease their number?  Heaven help us.

Joseph, some have said, was the perfect man.   He was humble, obedient, and charitable.  Whether he was perfect or not, the truth is he was a man.   We read in the Infancy narrative,  In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David (Luke 1:26-27)

Joseph, spouse of the Mother of God, pray for us.