An Anthropological Vision of Christian Marriage

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VISION OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE GERMAN MARTINEZ Fordham University Bronx, New York VIEWED FROM the institutional, interpersonal, or religious standpoint, marriage is not a distinctively Christian phenomenon, but it is a human partnership with inherently religious symbolism. Consider the complexity of its dimensions : it is a personal bond that is consummated in a sexual relationship; yet its full human reality contains different levels of meaning which point to a transcendent mystery; it is secular and social and at the same time spiritual and personal. Philosophical anthropology and the phenomenology of religion explore these dimensions and stress the complexity of marriage. An entire range of questions stem from the nature and mystery of the conjugal bond as well as from the multiplicity of forms in which this human partnership has been realized in different historical periods and cultures. Precisely because marriage actually takes place in a concrete historico-cultural context, theological reflection must recognize the complexity of this human experience, and this calls for interdisciplinary study. Theological anthropology sees a profound meaning in the created reality of marriage, for it recognizes therein the essential components of a community of love open toward God. An understanding of human values reveals how the experience of marriage touches the roots of people's lives; an understanding of redemption reveals how marriage belongs to both the order of creation and the order of redemption. An anthropological approach is essential. " In good theology one can no longer adopt the simplistic distinction between ' natural mar451 452 GERMAN MARTINEZ riage' and 'sacramental marriage....'" 1 Marriage is not only a meaningful sign of an anthropological reality but also the expression of the human response toward transcendence. Furthermore, the lived experience of marriage in modern society makes us more and more conscious of human existential needs, and theology has to interpret and respond to them in correlation with the content of faith. Against the background of the human sciences and our awareness of the present historical reality , study of this complex experience that is marriage calls for constructive reflection on its anthropological roots. That is where the sacramental mystery is anchored. The crisis in the theological understanding of marriage stems primarily from a crisis of culture, and new anthropological perspectives can establish the possibility of a more personal theology. In fact, the underestimation of its human values or, more precisely , the lack of a personalist anthropology and of an adequate theological consideration of sexuality has been at the root of the weakness of the traditional approach to marriage.z As Theodore Mackin puts it, " The marriage sacrament, like all sacraments, has as its matrix a complex human experience. And there is no understanding of the sacrament unless we first understand its 1 W. Ernst, "Marriage as Institution and the Contemporary Challenge to It," in Contemporary Perspectives on Christian Marriage, ed. R. Malone and J. R. Connery (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984), p. 69. The following studies are especially valuable in terms of an anthropological approach to Christian marriage: J. Ratzinger, "Zur Theologie der Ehe,'' in Theologie der Ehe, ed. H. Greven (Regensburg 1972), pp. 81-115; H. Doms, "Zweigeschlechtlichkeit und Ehe,'' in Mysterium Salutis, ed. J. Feiner and M. Lohrer, vol. 2, pp. 707-750; T. Mackin, "How to Understand the Sacrament of Marriage ,'' in -Commitment to Partnership; Explorations of the Theology of Marriage , ed. W. P. Roberts (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 34-60. z Two major Catholic documents of the magisterium insist on the need for further theological reflection in terms of the personalistic reason behind the theology of marriage: John Paul II, The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family (see Origins, 2 (1981): 438-467); Gaudium et Spes, 47-52 (ed. W. M. Abbot, pp. 249-259). " The beginning, the subject and the goal of social institutions is and must be the human person, which for its part and by its very nature stands completely in need of social life" (Gaudium et Spes, 25; Abbott ed., p. 224). VISION OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 453 matrix-experience." 3 In theological terms, the covenant v1s1on governs the partnership reality, but that divine call without this created reality would be meaningless. While the present essay does not include all the...