Essays on Church, State, and Politics

Chapter III

412 u chapter iii u On the Positive Laws Concerning the Duties of Marriage§1. So far we have shown to what extent it is possible to teach the duties of marriage on the basis of natural reason alone. We must not be surprised, therefore, if we often see pagans being uncertain about how to derive their arguments, for which we as Christians can provide very clear reasons, and to see them appealing to some obscure law, which is unwritten, inborn, or something similar.§2. Divine wisdom did not want man to enter this society, which is very natural and the seedbed of humankind, by following the guidance of reason alone, not even in the state of innocence. Marriage was established by God as soon as the first parents had been created, and it was reinforced by certain positive laws binding all humans, to which God, after the fall from grace, added others concerning the duties of spouses.§3. Do not expect us, however, to inquire into the reason for this divine institution and to ask why God in that state of perfection added positive laws to the laws of nature: the humble reverence we owe toward the supreme God commands us to refrain from inquiring idly and with guilty curiosity into the reasons for God’s deeds, which the Creator did not deign to reveal to us. It will be enough to contemplate with piety and devotion those laws which his benignity has added to those that have already been promulgated, to the extent that this is necessary for declarative, extensive, and restrictive interpretation. book iii 413§4. But we shall always take into account the requisites of divine positive law, as we defined them above. As far as the rabbinical traditions are concerned , we will not reject them out of hand, but will always subordinate them to the authority of Scripture.§5. Divine laws are publicized in two ways, either explicitly in Scripture or by the fact that an institution is established by God. There is no doubt that the former type of divine law binds humankind. In the case of the latter it has to be supposed that (as the theologians demonstrate more fully) every divine institution is at the same time a divine law.§6. There can be no doubt that the institution of marriage has the force of law. Our Savior, the best and authentic interpreter of the divine laws, often resolved matrimonial controversies on the basis of that original institution , as if on the basis of a law.§7. Perhaps it is not inconvenient, therefore, if we present these divine laws in chronological order, beginning with those that accompanied the state of innocence and progressing from there to the laws that followed the fall from grace. Yet it is sometimes doubtful in which state of humankind they were promulgated, as we shall emphasize, and it is also to be feared that the students, for whom we are mainly writing this, will be confused if we follow a different method from that which we used in the previous chapter. We therefore thought it better to follow this order [which we used in the previous chapter], and to examine the degree to which the precepts of natural law have been supplemented by God and certain acts that are indifferent in terms of natural law have been commanded or forbidden by positive law.§8. Therefore, concerning the command to enter matrimony, God repeated this in the first benediction, in the words “Be fruitful and increase in number.” Like the subsequent words, “and subdue the earth,”32 these 32. Genesis 1:28. 414 institutes of divine jurisprudence do not merely permit something to humans, but without doubt have an obligation linked to them.§9. In that passage God, however, reiterated the law of nature, and, as everyone will agree, did not increase its obligation or want to restrict humans ’ liberty to an even greater degree than had been done by the dictate of reason. It necessarily follows that what we have added above by way of limitation and explanation to the precept on entering marriage is applicable here, too.§10. Hence, I fear that the power and efficacy of the divine will may not be conveyed properly by saying that all humans should enter matrimony. For even if the dictate of reason on entering marriage binds all of humankind without exception, yet the precepts...