Without the dogma, the values wilt

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 28, 2012

The final section of Sigrid Undset’s Stages on the Road (see my review Correcting History Personally: Stages on the Road) is filled with cultural and religious wisdom about marriage. This section is entitled “Reply to a Parish Priest”, and it deals with the question of why, even before her conversion, Undset was known to refer to marriage as a sacrament.

At one point she discusses the decline of marriage (and many other things) in Europe following the loss of Catholic belief, and contrasts this with the conviction, common at least in the days of her youth, that European values were the result of a process of natural evolution, and that the inevitable march of progress would preserve and improve what is good in European culture even if the old dogmas are no longer believed or honored. This belief in progress is still very common now.

But Undset understood that a society without these dogmas is doomed either to drift in a different direction or actually to work against the values the dogmas produced. Here is what she wrote:

And my intention in writing this article is in the first place this—to beg Catholics, here in Scandinavia as elsewhere, to understand that it cannot be otherwise. We must try to make this clear to ourselves—we have no right to assume that any part of European tradition, cultural values, moral ideas, emotional wealth, which has its origin in the dogmatically defined Christianity of the Catholic Church, will continue to live a “natural” life, if the people of Europe reject Christianity and refuse to accept God’s supernatural grace. One might just as well believe that a tree whose roots were severed should continue to bear leaves and blossoms and fruit.

A sentimental clinging to this or that particular section of Christian tradition is of no use. Break off a few sprigs of a felled tree and put them in vases for indoor decoration—and see how long they will keep fresh!