Thoughts on Marriage

Thoughts on Marriage:  Scripture and Natural Law

A Primer as SCOTUS Prepares to Rule

The Supreme Court of the United States is set to hear two important cases in the ongoing litigation regarding Marriage in our nation.  The first is relative to Proposition 8 in California, the second is relative to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.)  While the press, politicians, and various action groups are jousting in the public square, it is important that Christians take some time to reflect on this issue, regardless of how the culture or the Court conclude their thinking.  The two primary categories summarized below belong to the classical categories of Special Revelation (Holy Scripture) and General Revelation (Laws of Nature.)

Summary of Biblical Witness to Marriage

            Genesis 1-2.  The creation of the world by God, with design and intent, undergirds the whole of Christian understanding of the coherence of reality.  God, who is a God of order, imposed order upon the creation, so that it would no longer be formless and void.  This order includes the way in which God created man and woman in His own image, and created them to live complimentarily while bringing forth and shaping the next generation of people.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”Gen. 1:26-28, NKJV

            Matthew 19.  Lest we miss the centrality of the doctrine of creation given in Genesis, and of the order instituted by God for the relationship of men and women, Christ comments on this text while answering a question of the Pharisees:

⁴ And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”NKJV

            Man and woman are created particularly for each other, and complete each other in the order of creation.  As they are joined together, they become one flesh, such that no one should attempt to separate them—for what God accomplishes by joining them, ought not be undone by the will of man.

            Ephesians 5.  The Apostles continued to reflect Christ’s understanding of marriage in the order of creation, as they reflected that image forward into the Church.  Christ referred to Himself as the Bridegroom, and His Bride as the Church.  St. Paul makes this point clear, when discussing marriage with the Church at Ephesus, when he writes:

³¹ “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. NKJV

Some Biblical Conclusions Regarding Marriage

Marriage is established by God at the creation

Order of Creation includes the order of Man and Woman

People recognize God’s order—they are not free to change it

Marriage is ordered toward the intention of procreation

The blessing God gives to Marriage is related to the order and purpose of Marriage

The union of one flesh, is related to the created order and purpose of Marriage

The order and purpose of Marriage, foreshadows Christ and the Church

Christian Marriage is a sacred mystery, reflecting Christ and the Church

Christ (Bridegroom) is head of the Church (Bride)

Christ sacrifices Himself to save and sanctify His Church

The Church submits to her Bridegroom in all things (hears His Word, and keeps it)

The order and purpose of Marriage is given to the Church by Christ

The Church is not free to change what Christ has created and ordered

The Church is not free to bless what Christ has not blessed

Summary of Natural Law Related to Marriage (General Revelation)
            Natural Law, or the observable laws of nature, bear witness to the fundamental nature of human marriage as distinct from all other relationships between people.  While friendship and camaraderie can be shared by people of all cultural and genetic distinctives, the procreation of children and the furthering of the human race are only accomplished by the union of a man and woman.  There is no other mechanism given in nature for the continuation of the species, though laboratory experimentation with the genetic material of human beings may attempt to prove otherwise.  Every person alive today, and alive since the dawn of our race, has come into being through the agency of a father and a mother.
            Natural Law also shows that while any combination of men and women may result in the procreation of children (cf. polyamory and polygamy, serial monogamy, and even rape, incest, and pedophilia) the observation of cultures east and west over millennia have found that the most healthy environment for the care and maturation of children, is by a single father and mother devoted to this cause.  Thus, cultures have attached their children to their parents through law, and encouraged the most natural and healthy environment for the formation of the next generation, knowing that the continuation of the culture and the society depends on the link between generations.  Poorly or insufficiently formed children become destructive to the cultural order (crime, disturbance, ignorance, low productivity, etc.,) and make for poor citizens.  Insufficiently formed citizens undermine the society, and eventually cause it to fall under either its own weight (society no longer able to support itself) or under the weight of a stronger foreign culture (society no longer able to defend itself against attack and domination.)
            Further, a society that desires to continue from one generation to the next, must curb the desires of the current generation, in order to protect the formation of the next.  Thus sexual ethics in many world cultures restrain the passions of adults, in order to preserve the best possible environment for the formation of youth into fully developed adult citizens.  This is recognized by many great thinkers of human history, but is well summarized by the ethical maxims of the 18^th century philosophical giant, Immanuel Kant, when he articulates his Categorical Imperative in the Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

            Like many other observers of Natural Law, Kant perceived that we do not act as a society based on the limited morality of personal observation and opportunity, but on the moral deliberation that extends that personal action out into community.  If a society embraced a sexual and marital ethic contrary to natural marriage, in which the best potential environment for developing the citizens of the next generation is abandoned for something else, this new universal law would weaken the society and eventually bring about its fall.

 Natural Law Conclusions Regarding Marriage

n     World cultures, across time and place, recognize the utility of natural marriage

n     Modern sociological studies recognize the utility of natural marriage

n     Only a union of man and woman, can produce new human beings

n     Only a single father and mother household, is best for the healthy formation of children

n     If the replacement population of a society is insufficient, it will collapse

n     If the formation of children into sound citizens is insufficient, the society will collapse

n     The society has a vested interest in the multigenerational continuity of the society

n     The society ought to bound the freedoms of the adult citizens, to protect the formation of the youth into the next generation of fully developed citizens.

Concluding Thoughts

            While society in our time and place may have little regard for Holy Scripture, the Holy Scriptures form the source and norm of Christian society and culture.  The Church exists through the Word Made Flesh who saves her, and gives to her His Word Written that she may continue in communion with Him forever.  Inside the Church, the debate about Marriage is settled doctrine, because it is clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures, with a distinct order, purpose, and sacramental mystery.  The Church stands alone on the Holy Scriptures, because they alone are breathed out by God, and useful for teaching the faith.  This is the Special Revelation of God to man through Jesus Christ, which is received by faith, and lived by grace.

            If the world will not hear the voice of God in His Special Revelation of Holy Scripture, the Church may also bear witness to the world from General Revelation.  That which God has crafted into the very fabric of His creation, is manifest for all to see, whether they are of the household of faith, or not.  Any rational person may observe the Natural Law, and in so far as General Revelation reveals the Law of God, they may heed or discard it at their own peril.  To ignore the Laws of gravity is a fine academic experiment, until one steps off a cliff, where the Law shows its supremacy over individual delusion.  The same can be said of Marriage and the procreation of society—Natural Law makes clear what is both necessary and best for the multigenerational continuance of a society.  The society may heed or discard Natural Law at its own peril, but the Laws of Nature will continue to exert their dominance over individual delusion, if the society decides to step off the cliff into oblivion.

            The Church must make her witness (a martyrdom, of both General and Special Revelation,) in our time and place.  If our society is to survive, the Church must speak truth into the darkness of error, in every possible way.  For if we, who have the clear Word of God, in both Scripture and Nature, do not speak and warn the erring to turn from their error, they will indeed perish according to the Law, but God shall hold us accountable for their fall.  If we speak truth to them, and they turn from their folly, then let God be praised that our society has been spared a plunge off the cliffs of insanity.  If the world refuses to hear our witness and plunges into darkness, then their fall is on their own hands—though we shall all share in our society’s collective suffering.

            Let the Church pray for the nation, and intercede for her to God.  And let the Church bear witness to the truth God has given us, that our nation may yet turn, and live.  Amen.