Faith, Contract, and Sacrament in Christian Marriage: A Theological Approach (original) (raw)

1991, Theological Studies

T HE TITLE of this essay spans several theological questions which, though they appear theoretical, have practical pastoral consequences, and therefore demand reflection. I shall formulate them as theses to be explicated: (1) Christian faith is a person's comprehensive "yes" to God revealing himself as the person's savior in Christ. (2) Faith is necessary for salvation and for both the validity and fruitfulness of a sacrament, including the sacrament of Christian marriage. (3) Faith is necessary for right sacramental intention, again including the sacrament of Christian marriage. (4) Marital contract and marital sacrament are not separable in marriages between baptized believers; they are separable in marriages between baptized nonbelievers who can, therefore, enter into valid civil marriages. I shall consider each of these questions in turn and develop a theological approach to each of them. Though these questions have troubled the Roman Catholic Church for the past two centuries, they have not as yet received genuine theological solutions. In the nineteenth century, political skirmishing between the Church and emerging European states cast both the questions and their solutions in terms which were political and juridical, but which have posed ever since as theological. In the early twentieth century, though their identity was far from theologically traditional, the 1917 Code of Canon Law decreed identity between marital contract and marital sacrament in matrimonium inter baptizatos. This juridical action put an abrupt end to the theological discussion which was, and continues to be, needed to generate theological solutions to theological questions. This essay is in dialogue with two previous essays which have appeared in this journal. Ladislas Orsy concluded an essay in 1982 with this statement: "About the doctrine and law of Christian marriage, we ought to think afresh." 1 Susan Wood, in an essay in 1987, invited "criticism and refinement of the theological principles involved." 2 I accept both 1 "Faith, Sacrament, Contract, and Christian Marriage: Disputed Questions," TS 43 (1982) 398. 2 "The Marriage of Baptized Non-Believers: Faith, Contract, and Sacrament," TS 48 (1987) 280. The essays of Orsy and Wood do not exhaust the writing on the subject(s) of this essay. I shall mention here only collections in which a reader will be exposed to both sides of the questions: Foi et sacrement de mariage (Paris: Chalet, 1974); Walter Cuenin,