By Januarius Asongu, PhD, author of Beyond Doctrine 

Valentine’s Day invites us to contemplate love not merely as sentiment, but as a theological and moral reality. Within Christian tradition, love is the highest good, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Yet the Church has long employed a concept—contra naturam (contrary to nature)—that produces a striking contradiction. In one context, love between LGBTQ+ persons is condemned as sinful because it is said to be contra naturam. In another, the Church venerates miracles precisely because they are contra naturam. How can the same category serve both as grounds for condemnation and as evidence of sanctity?

This tension is neither superficial nor semantic. It exposes a deeper inconsistency in how nature, divine agency, and human dignity are interpreted.

St. Thomas Aquinas, whose authority profoundly shapes Catholic theology, described miracles as contra naturam or praeter ordinem naturae—beyond the order of nature. He did not mean that miracles violate nature in a destructive or irrational sense. Rather, he understood nature as an ordered system created by God, with God remaining free to act beyond its ordinary causal patterns. In De potentia (6.2), Aquinas explained that miracles occur when God produces effects that nature alone cannot produce, or produces them in ways nature cannot achieve.

He classified miracles into three types: those nature cannot do at all, such as raising the dead; those nature can do, but not in that order, such as instantaneous healing; and those nature can do, but which God accomplishes directly without natural intermediaries. In all cases, miracles are not violations of nature but expressions of divine freedom. They are contra naturam only in relation to ordinary processes—not in relation to ultimate truth or goodness.

Indeed, the Church requires miracles as evidence of sainthood. To be declared a saint, a person must be associated with events that transcend natural explanation. The contra naturam becomes, paradoxically, proof of divine presence. What is contrary to nature becomes evidence of grace.

Yet when LGBTQ+ persons love, their love is often labeled contra naturam in a condemnatory sense. Here, the same category is used not to elevate but to marginalize. Love becomes sin not because it harms others, but because it is perceived as deviating from a presumed natural order.

This raises a fundamental theological question: why is being contra naturam sanctifying in one case and sinful in another?

The answer cannot simply be that one comes from God and the other from human beings. Aquinas himself taught that all being participates in God’s creative act. Human existence, including human capacities for love, arises within divine providence. If miracles demonstrate that God is not bound by rigid natural patterns, then the invocation of nature as an absolute moral constraint becomes suspect.

Moreover, Aquinas did not view nature as a closed mechanical system. Nature, for him, was dynamic and oriented toward higher purposes. What appears contrary to ordinary patterns may, in fact, reflect deeper truths about divine freedom and human dignity.

The contradiction emerges when contra naturam is treated as a fixed moral condemnation in sexual ethics while simultaneously celebrated as a sign of divine transcendence in miracle theology. In one domain, deviation from ordinary patterns is glorified; in another, it is stigmatized.

This inconsistency suggests that the issue is not truly about nature, but about interpretation, power, and theological framing.

If miracles reveal that God’s action transcends predictable structures, then perhaps love itself—especially love that persists despite rejection—can be understood as participating in that same transcendence. Love that survives marginalization, love that affirms dignity in the face of condemnation, bears marks not of disorder but of resilience.

Valentine’s Day reminds us that love often appears improbable. It emerges where fear predicts isolation, where rejection predicts silence. It defies expectation. It is, in its own way, praeter ordinem naturae—beyond ordinary calculation.

The Church has long recognized that holiness itself is extraordinary. Saints are not ordinary people; they embody a form of life that transcends conventional patterns of self-interest. Their lives are signs that grace operates beyond predictable limits.

If this is true, then the presence of love—faithful, self-giving, and life-affirming—cannot be dismissed simply because it challenges inherited assumptions about nature. For Aquinas, what matters is not conformity to mechanical regularity, but participation in divine goodness.

The deeper theological truth is this: God is not imprisoned within nature. God is its author and its fulfillment.

Perhaps the real question is not whether some forms of love are contra naturam, but whether our understanding of nature itself is too narrow to recognize the breadth of divine creativity.

Valentine’s Day invites us to reconsider that possibility.