Divorce and Re-Marriage in the Church
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Recent discussions of conscience-justified sexual unions tend to beg the very question to which they are addressed. The Church and Second Marriages (Catholic Theological Society of America Committee Statement, America [October 7, 1972], 258-260; and Origins [October 12, 1972], 251 ff.) semantically dubs a second union a marriage, without determining whether the first union was a marriage, or if it were invalid from the beginning, why the next union should be called a "second" marriage. Semantically also, in rejecting a "marital consent . . . aimed at the act of sexual intercourse, and primarily at the procreative aspect of this act" and insisting on a "marital consent oriented . . . to a total community of life and love" the statement could be interpreted as a support for any consensual living together of an "odd couple," which would be terminable upon the hindsight decision that they had had no "capacity for marital community" (which is nowhere defined). The title of the Statement presupposes the suggested conclusions, since the Church should, in fact, do nothing but accept second unions if, indeed, they are true marriages.
Marriage, as a sexual union between two members of opposite sex, is sacramental between baptized Christians. Once consummated, this sacramental union is traditionally indissoluble (incapable of being annulled, undone, broken, decomposed, disintegrated) and permanent (continuing, enduring-without-marked change, to the end: per + manere).
As a union, matrimony could be a purely logical entity, existing in the minds and wills of the partners alone. In which case, marriage is dissolvable at the mind-will change of either or both partners. Such a union could in no way be dubbed indissoluble (not able to be dissolved). The couple could only strive to keep their union indissolute. When either or both no longer continued to choose each other, their mind-will union is metaphorically "dead"—non-existent. But then it was only metaphorically or fictionally "living." Such a union is never consummated (made perfect), since it is not an objective reality. In no case could a judge attempt to keep them together, nor could they or he decide any "validity" of initial consent. Even if they intended to remain together for life, no reality would have been created in an objective order, since a logical-voluntary bond exists only so long as it is thought of, at least habitually. Society— civil or ecclesiastical—could only approve or disapprove of effects, which impinge on the community, e.g., uncared-for-children. In this case, indissolubility is nothing but a legal fiction—a legalism.
The matrimonial bond could be an essential reality of ontological nature, independent of the continued consensus of the partners once validly contracted and consummated (completed, become perfected). Then indissolubility would be a real property of an objective essential reality. It would exist as a real potency to be activated day by day. As such a property, indissolubility would yet need to fructify in a lifetime of effort. It might be violated by adultery, separation and lesser attacks; it could be sinned against by hatreds and infidelities; it might be inadequately achieved in terms of its promise; but it can no more be lost than can God's commitment of being to a person who commits suicide; God's devotion to his faithless people (Isaiah 49,15; Hosea; Ezekiel 16), the mutual devotion of Christ and a Church semper reformanda (Ephesians 5,22-31). This is the tradition of marital indissolubility from the beginning. To the question, whether a man could put his wife away for any reason at all, Christ answered: "for no reason." Nor did he allow for conscience unions when he said: "Everyone who divorces his wife . . . forces her to commit adultery" (Matthew 5,31-32; 19,1-12; Mark 10,11-12; Luke 16,18; cf. Anchor Bible, Matthew, p. 65; 225-227). In this analysis of the essential property of indissolubility, consummation is achieved when the partners enact the sign of total commitment which is open to unconditioned love and life—when the intentionality of the act is actuated by the intending actors.1
The sacramental union of matrimony could be existential (ontic) in the more recent sense of the term (existence precedes essence). In such an interpretation, matrimony is a coming-to-be and undissolvedness is an achievable which is never the property of indissolubility until, as a matter of fact, the couple has achieved its being at the death of one partner. In which case, indissolubility ceases at the moment of achievement. Since, in this view, marriage is always a coming-to-be and ceases at death, the perfection of consummation is never achieved either.
It is submitted here that indissolubility can only be considered a property of matrimony in an essential ontological union. Contractual union leaves indissolubility only a legal fiction or a promise without fixity, a velleity. Existential (ontic) unity makes indissolubility a non-achievable and therefore a non-property.
No doubt there are people who are incapable of marital commitment, which brings essential marriage into being along with its essential property of indissolubility. This incapacity could possibly be physical (impotence), mental (inability to understand the nature of marriage), emotional (inability to feel marital love), or moral (inability to choose or promise). These certainly need further research, but the research is in no way furthered by the CTSA Statement, least of all by the imprecision of a metaphorical "psychological impotence" or a vague "defects, which would disqualify a person for marriage." Lack of income should disqualify from marrying, as should moral turpitude; but these conditions would hardly invalidate matrimony.
Commitment
When is a person "sufficiently mature to make a marriage commitment"? According to the CTSA theologians, when he can "see beyond the natural attractiveness to properly assess the long-range problems of this (marital) commitment". From the existential coming-to-be point of view, this is precisely an impossible condition. What is not yet cannot be assessed. The marriage vow is precisely an essential commitment, which prescinds from the existential result, though open to it. This is why we vow: "For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness, and in health; till death do us part." The maturity required by our theologians can never be reached. This is proved by the very example they use. They exemplify the need for such maturity by citing requirements for vows of celibacy. Our recent defections from perpetual and "solemn" commitments to the priesthood and religious life in the name of fulfillment would indicate that such a needed maturity has not yet been reached. The recent numerous dispensations from such vows have already been adduced by many married people as reasons to leave their own spouses and remarry, despite their lack of any conviction that their first promises were invalid. A number of the marriages of those dispensed from religious vows have already been declared "dead" by those who contracted them. This criterion of maturity would also demand that we question the validity of all, and even successful, marriages. Since such a maturity is non-verifiable even when people stay together, all unions are suspect. Though the Statement says: "It would be rash to assert that every first marriage that has failed was invalid from the beginning…" it also says: "The much higher divorce rate currently associated with teen-age marriages forces one to question whether many young people are sufficiently mature to make a marriage commitment." A happy event would no more retroactively answer such a question affirmatively than failure answers it negatively.
Erik Erikson lists eight ages of identity crisis for every human being.2 At least the last four of them intimately affect the progress and success of a marriage. Would a human failure to properly mature through these after a wedding indicate a fundamental immaturity sufficient to invalidate original consent?
As a matter of fact, maturity does not so much found a valid commitment as a valid commitment brings about maturity. A truly mature and free decision is one, which chooses to pursue a future contingent and bring something into being, which does not yet exist. But the decider cannot know with absolute certainty what it will be; or whether he will be happy with it when it comes to be; or whether his perception of it as a good-in-the-future is real or apparent. No one could choose, repent of his choice, sin, live with the results of his choice, be responsible, if he had to know in advance the precise outcome and its future desireability. By definition, choice, especially of a partner-for-life, cannot be a choice with precision for the future. Human beings are too unique, too free in their coming-to-be, too contingent upon unforeseen events and causes. Choice must be implicit and irreversible de futuro, else it is not responsible choice. (It is immoral to bet on a sure thing.) Risk and openness is of the essence of choice.
Nor can the knowledge of this precise marital union (as Adam knew Eve, Genesis 4; 1) ever be obtained without antecedent commitment. The dialectic of "be reasonable" and "be responsible," of cognition and conation (Lonergan), of intention and intentionality (May) is a psychological necessity for the reality to exist. Our young people are not immature and incapable of valid contracts because they do not know or cannot assess; but they do not know or assess, or even achieve or fail—because they will not choose. You cannot assess until you take a stance towards, take a risk, allow openness to the yet-to-be. May points out that it is apathy and refusal to choose that leads to the dropout, suicide, meaningless rebellion and violence of modern life. Lonergan says:
When a man and woman love each other but do not avow their love, they are not yet in love. Their very silence means that their love has not reached the point of self-surrender and self-devotion. It is the love that each freely and fully reveals to the other that brings about the new situation of being in love and that begins the unfolding of its life-long implications.3
Freedom of choice and commitment is a game of chance, a bet. A young doctor wanted to instruct his eleven-year-old daughter about the risks of pregnancy from regular intercourse. He blindfolded her and asked her to pick a single marble out of a random mixture of eleven white and three black ones (black for pregnancy). When, after being thrilled to escape in two selections, she cried at "coming up pregnant" the third time, he instructed her in contraception.4 It never occurred to the man that his solution was like teaching the risks of gambling by teaching how to inject adrenalin into the horse. This is why the more available contraceptives become—in and out of marriage—the more unwanted pregnancies will result, and the more attempts to abort and reject children retroactively. The child would not play the game if all the marbles were white. She will begin to become an adult when she begins to learn that the only way not to lose a game freely entered (even with skill pitted against obstacles) is not to play, and the only way to really win is to commit oneself to an irrevocable choice of an uncertain result.
It is psychologically interesting that young people today are demanding unconditional love and commitment from parents, society and their peers. Their "alienation" flows from a basic conviction that "nobody loves me unconditionally for myself, but only for my performance, contribution, function, role as a cog in the social machinery." "Feminine liberation" too makes its devotees say: "I refuse to be defined by (limited to) my role of wife and mother; I must be accepted in my personhood." Yet both the young and the rebel women seem to refuse to commit themselves unconditionally to another person in marriage. If no one commits himself unconditionally, how can the need for unconditional love be met? Love is a faithful unconditional commitment to another person, with openness to self-vulnerability ("You always hurt the one you love"). Christian marital love adds the sacramental exclusivity of love for the one God ("You shall not have strange God before me," Exodus 20,3) in Christ ("This is a great sacrament," Ephesians 5,32) which risks new, exclusively unique and personal life ("I have come that you may have life," John 10,10).5
It seems to this author unconscionable of the theologians to present the legal definitions of Canon Law (inadequately) and then to dismiss them as legalistic. This author knows of no theologian or canonist who has taught that, "marital consent was aimed at an act of sexual intercourse, and primarily at the procreative aspect of this act." By Canon Law, marital consent is concerned with a right. The right is specified by a certain kind of act but includes all that this act signs and entails. The procreational aspect is not the focus of the act, but that which specifies the kind of act and community built on it, precisely as marital. Is a contract for sodomitic intercourse between a man and woman a marriage? Further, law can deal only with rights and duties in an objective order. The civil law may wish respect and love for country but it can only command external signs, acts, and services which should flow from that devotion.
Nor does Vatican II "see marriage and marital consent oriented to a total community of life and love" without further specification."6 Marital community is specified by the orientation, intentionality, meaning of heterosexual intercourse open to total experience of self-in-other and other-in-self, and open to the vitality of the beloved. If love is the choice of being, and the highest of being is personal living being, then real love is open to personal being (child) and the highest of personal being is open to love. Christian marital community represents, makes present again, the life-giving community of Christ and the Church, as well as the spouses' mutual, exclusive, forgiving acceptance of each other in Christ.
Since the Christian community is never simply accomplished, nor does the Christian ever mature enough to "properly assess the long range problems" of his Christian commitment, upon the principles of these theologians, we could suggest the marriage of Christ and the Church as dissoluble. Such a conclusion would take all meaning from such parables as the buried treasure and the pearl of great price (Matthew 13,44-46); all sense from the tale of the rich young man (Matthew 19,16-26); all depth from Christ's refusal to allow excuses for those invited to the wedding feast ("I am newly married, and so I cannot come," Luke 14,30). Though Jesus tells us to assess the difficulties of commitment to him ("If one of you decides to build a tower, will he not first sit down and calculate…?" Luke 14,28-30), he in no case allows implicitly conditioned commitment de futuro ("Whoever puts his hand to the plow but keeps looking back, is not worthy of me," Luke 9,61).
Sexual intercourse is a sign, a symbol, a sacrament (that which tends to, is oriented towards, is purposive of, has the intentionality towards, makes present what it symbolizes) of life and love. It is a sign of risk specified by its openness to exclusive, faithful, totally involving (and possibly unrequited) love, and to new, unique, personal (irrepeatable, sui juris) life. Procreation is not reproduction—mere replacement of mammalian individuals. What is replaceable can be rejected and substituted for by an equivalent, at will. Since God must allow himself to be open to cooperation with the personal life that the couple might procreate, so must they leave their action open to such a divine personal gift of love-life. As God cannot withdraw his commitment to them as persons, to their union, or to the personal being of their offspring, neither may they. He cannot cancel out persons who do not "work out," even though he foresees they will reject him for all eternity. He cannot cancel out his "people" who might not work out (the Chosen People) nor his Church in Christ, despite its derelictions. Neither may they withdraw their consent to a marital commitment, which might not work out, since they represent his covenant with men in Christ. Nor may they withdraw their consent to the being of an unwanted child, whether the unwanting is antecedent or consequent to his conception, whether the withdrawal is physical (contraception, abortion or infanticide) or psychological (direct unconditional antithetical will in rhythm, rejection, hatred).
Future Effects
Our authors wish to make consent invalid because they believe "the intention of those entering marriage may often be at least implicitly conditioned." It is strange that they can accept a negative implicitness against an unknown future condition, but do not accept clear explicitness in favor of accepting the unknown future. No love song celebrates conditions, dissolubility or even success. ("Till the End of Time," "Forever and Ever," "We've Only Just Begun—to Live," "Love, Look at the Two of Us—Strangers in Many Ways.") Our wedding ceremonies read: "Till death do us part" and "I join you in marriage, so long as you both shall live." Are the spouses who speak these words asleep? Liars? Giving "implicitly conditioned consent"? If so, there can be no unity for any couple, since one cannot come to know what one does not intend.
"…the growing divorce rate clearly indicates a lack of interest in continuing it if it does not work out. There is a recognition of permanence . . . but considerable less acceptance of absolute indissolubility." "All these considerations, where applicable, raise serious questions about marriages that have failed" (Italics mine). I submit that these considerations are applicable to all marriages, not merely those, which have failed, since our authors insist that they are induced by our culture. An event, which happens never retroactively, validates a conditioned consent de futuro. It is true that a tribunal facing the facts of public commitment, public vows and lack of evidence of contrary intention, can only decree non constant de nullietate. But our theologians, in their concern for presumptive lack of maturity, absence of realistic assessment of the future, suspect declaration of intention, de facto non-achievement of community of an unspecified life and love, could only decree of all unions, non constat de validitate--even of those which "worked." It is precisely the openness to the risk of an unknown future of life and love, which makes matrimony indissoluble. Only a closed, narrow, antecedently conditioned contract is invalid. Psychically and legally, a permanent union, which is not absolutely indissoluble, is a contradiction in terms.
Our theologians think that something must be done for all problem marriages by declaring them null, that freedom to marry should be presumed no matter how many previous unions have happened, because the right to marry is basic. It is indeed basic, but not absolute. If it were absolute, then my right would obligate someone to marry me; the Church would have no right to regulate the marriages of her baptized members and to set impeding or diriment impediments (DS, 1803). No incapability could be established except non-personhood (non sui juris, no rights). This would bring about the ultimate in contradictions. An individual would be able to establish original invalidity on conscientious judgment because of presumptive personal freedom to marry unless obviously not present. His basic right to marry would then be presumed to establish freedom to contract validly and indissolubly in a second union, which in turn could be presumed invalid and dissoluble upon consequent doubt of sufficient maturity, etc., and so ad infinitum.
Conscience is a decision-making faculty, with emotional factors as part of its input (guilt, duty, etc.). It cannot ascertain a fact, an ontological reality, an existential reality, or even a universal truth. It can also be wrong as it tries to decide what ought-to-be. Correct conscience must be based on the truth of what is with a view towards what might be put into being by free action. Conscience is certainly not correct in deciding to bring into being what is directly contradictory to reality (goodness) already in existence. I may not, in correct conscience, shoot at a moving object nisi constat de absentia hominis innocentis—no matter how personally hungry, no matter how many obligations to a present partner or children.
Further, our theologians argue for a rather individualistic conscience and responsibility. Matrimonial commitment demands social norms, social approval, social disapproval, social pressure. No single individual will is responsible only to itself, but to another and others, and to God. God alone is responsible to himself. Only he can make his own rules, and give reality to his own meanings. All others must discover the meanings in reality. Obligation is not freely assumed, it is a will-bond, and is answerable for choice with reasons able to explain and justify the choice before others and God. It is the responsible-only-to-the-self theory of sex, which is condemned in Humanae Vitae as arbitrary. It is strange that our modern theologians and young people demand total social condemnation of events in maximorality (war, racism, poverty) but reject any demand for social norms in minimorality (sex and marriage).7
Our theologians attempt to justify conscience judgments of previous commitments by appealing to the social influence of frequent divorce and cultural unwillingness to continue in a union, which does not work out, but they reject the right of society and cultural influence to teach and demand responsible commitment. This is a reinforcing, spiralling, self-fulfilling argument. It demands support for invalidity, and interdicts support for validity, i.e., society causes weak will; probably conditioned consent; insufficient maturity; presumptive invalidity. The Mystical Body must respect the consciences of individuals so formed, and must not interdict separations and new unions. Further family disruption leads to more immature children and more and more invalid unions. This is a far cry from Christ's: "If he ignores even the Church, then treat him as you would a gentile or a tax collector" (Matthew 18,17-18); or St. Paul's "…by his kingly power, I charge you to preach the word, to stay with this task whether convenient or inconvenient—correcting, reproving, appealing— constantly teaching and never losing patience. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but following their own desires will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears" (2 Timothy 4,1-4). This approach is totally disruptive of community in the name of individual freedom and conscience. Community demands a common field of experience, common understanding, common assertion of truth, common decisions and common choices "resulting in permanent dedication."8
The Christian community must indeed respect the person in the way Christ did: "Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on avoid this sin" (John 8,11). Without doubt, we must respect the possibly good consciences of compulsive masturbators, affectionate fornicators, devoted adulterers, helpless alcoholics, pathological liars, and active homosexuals, as well as contraceptors who cannot at the moment embrace chastity as a way of life in marriage (Humanae Vitae, par. 25). But the Christian community cannot allow that kind of conscience to remain erroneous. We must teach that masturbation, drunkenness, fornication, adultery, contraception or homosexual union, are objectively morally evil. In our teaching we may not permit Christians to accept conscience (feeling?) as the determiner of these things as good or indifferent in themselves, or to believe that good intentions alone render any action good. Our obligation must be carried out socially by teaching, preaching, example, persuasion and even penalty.9
Eucharist
The argument in favor of admitting an invalidly united couple (even when they cannot in conscience allege invalidity of their first union) to the Eucharist is most specious. It is argued that a couple would be "deprived of integral participation in the life of the Christian community" as though this were an unfair deprivation (which, of course, begs the question). This kind of argument would demand invitation to integral participation for any person—even one who denies all the truths of faith, so long as the denial were conscientious. I know of no one who can complain of being deprived of integral participation in the country club who refuses to pay his dues, attacks the membership, does not replace all divots, cuts in on the back nine, or plays softball on the tenth fairway. A community, by definition, asks its members to deprive themselves of integral and indeed of all participation when they no longer "hold these truths," live by the rules, make the same decisions, and live by the same choices.10
The fear of scandal is more than justified by the very argument of the Statement. It argues that marriages are breaking up; that social and cultural influences are suggesting invalidating conditions de futuro; that, hence, marriages are often (mostly?) invalid; that therefore, second unions should be accepted without external judgment of any kind. Surely, this will encourage anyone in difficulty to presume the invalidity of his own union, and go into a second union with an erroneous conscience. Remember that scandal is not only the inducing of conscious sin, but also of objective sin. This kind of argument leads to the kind of active Church participation granted to, for example, known Mafia members who are "conscientiously" defending members of the "family" against unjust aggressors (other gangs, police). This scandal was presented in the baptism scene in The Godfather. Our theologians were probably shocked at the callousness of the entire baptismal party and the presence of a presiding bishop.
Unwillingness to accept brother-and-sister arrangements and the "impossibility of sustaining this relationship without marital (sic!) union" is an argument based on the ever-increasing conviction that sex is necessary for happiness, that happiness is an absolute requirement for a Christian in this world, and that sex and love are mutually interchangeable. Such a set of reasons precludes the obligation to continence or even chastity in any existential way, even in marriage. At most, continence and chastity are ideals to be pursued until "impossible in the situation." This takes chastity out of the realm of temperance and places it merely in the realm of attempted loyalty. Why pursue chastity at all? We have consciously or unconsciously rejected all inherent orientation, intentionality, purpose, or meaning in sex (orgasm, coitus), according to which it ought or ought not to be implemented by a moral choice. It now becomes a value-in-itself to be given or refused further meaning according to the wish of those involved, i.e., growth for a masturbator; affection for petters; knowledge for mutual explorers and those who want to discover other (cf. the movie John and Mary; after weeks of coitus: "By the way, what's your name?"); love for those who accept other into self, however temporarily or homosexually; begetting at will, in or out of marriage, in or out of coitus.11
A recent Kinsey-type survey in France indicates that two out of three Frenchmen believe that an active and satisfactory sex life is necessary for happiness—for all. Yet only half of them believe they have such a satisfactory sex life. What petite mal writhing must be going on in France. But this denies the revelation of Christianity. Happiness is not promised in Christianity, except as the by-product of divine service. Happiness as the possession of a consciously chosen good is never reached. When the good is absent there is pain; when it is present it brings satiety.12 Our theologians do not want to re-write only the theology of marriage but nearly all of theology.
If Baptism is "only (sic) properly understood as part of a life-long process of commitment which is constantly being renewed" then a baptized person is never constituted a Christian and no congeries of "evidences of total life as a Christian" are ever a basis for being a Christian, but only of becoming one (which can always be reversed, except at death? Or, are we out of process after death? Will our fundamental option be still reversible then? Why not?). Therefore, one is never certainly a baptized Christian, and no marriage is a sacramentally indissoluble contract, since no one is simply and validly, essentially, a Christian. Since the Church has claimed that only consummated unions between baptized Christians are indissoluble, the Church can now declare any such union dissolved, and the couple can privately do the same without the Church, for the good of souls. This is simply, it seems to this writer, a circuitous method of denying previous doctrine. Note too, that this makes of all unions "nothing but" legal contracts. The theologians who accuse the Church of a "nothing but" legal approach to coitus now end up holding a legalistic approach to contractual marriage. Consummation is, of course, never achieved in a process, which is neither defined nor concluded. Physical consummation, considered heretofore as a sign of inherent intentionality, (total gift, open to irrevocable loving, exclusive, procreative), which the couple was presumed to intend unless certainly incapable or unfree, is meaningless in process thought. It can only have the meaning assigned by the partners arbitrarily as the end-in-view. Since this meaning can be recognized only when explicit, and is presumed implicitly conditional de futuro (cf. above), then the meaning can be withdrawn and new meanings assigned at will. This can only result in mere tentative commitments, registered in some file until recalled. Back to legalism again—legal fiction!
We must now redesign the sacrament of Penance and rewrite the theology of sin, since "if a couple decides after appropriate consultation, reflection and prayer that they are worthy to receive the sacraments, that judgment should be respected." Such a judgment, "to be responsible (to whom?) must center on the quality of the present union, its fidelity and stability, the conscience of the couple, the quality of their Catholic lives in other respects, their acceptance by the community, etc." Clearly, this statement removes all necessity for sacramental absolution, judgment of the confessor; eliminates all effort to judge the past as sinful and perhaps unrepented; allows the priest only the role of pastoral counselor; demands no judgment about the moral past. This is a far cry from: "…whose sins you shall retain are retained . . ." (John 20,23). Further, we now have a new infallibility in morals, arbitrary conscience.13 By the way, what happens when two such consciences disagree in their certitude?
The pastoral theology of marriage preparation becomes a shambles. Even couples properly instructed should be refused the good offices of the Church, if they are to be presumed immature, giving conditioned consent, unwilling to commit themselves to marriage as it is. How does this square with an antithetical demand that we accept any ceremony or no ceremony as sign of commitment? Must the demand for the Eucharist be granted, but the demand for matrimony be refused? Is it a good idea to disabuse them of immature decisions ahead of time, and then risk "bad faith" when they go ahead anyway? Should we not keep silent and thus make probable that their future failures will be easily re-done?
We must now rewrite the criterion for revealed truth and the norms of faith, the determination of past facts. No longer do we have a teaching magisterium or even a believing people of God. We have a Babel of conscientious infallibilities. According to our theologians, we must now have a "convergence of the Church's public witness (doctrine, law, practice) with (sic!) the inner life of individuals and their judgments in conscience." (Italics mine)
Principles
It seems to this author that the Statement of the CTSA Committee on the Problem of Second Marriages is based on the following unexpressed principles:
I) The public witness and therefore the teaching of the Church ought to conform to the inner life of individuals and their judgments of conscience. Since these can be contradictory in what might appear to be identical circumstances, and can never be formulated in universals, no teaching is possible. At most, we can witness to temporary statistical generalizations.
2) Physical sexual expression is necessary for every human being, and especially for any couple who live together. Sex is inherently good (is this an intrinsic good?) and can be abused only if it is imposed upon someone against his/her will. Unwillingness to accept a continent relationship (brother and sister arrangement, "impossibility" of living up to it) justifies sexual orgasm (in or out of coitus?).
3) Sex has only that meaning given to it, and assigned explicitly by one or more of the partners at the moment of exercise. It has no inherent meaning, which can be presumed, nor can any implications be drawn from its nature (permanence of union, procreation, etc.). Indeed, implicit conditions de futuro, which might be antithetical to such possible meanings are to be presumed. ("We question whether many [read "any"?] young people are sufficiently mature.")
Many conclusions follow inexorably from these principles. One might protest that such conclusions need not follow, since people are not always logical. But, the point is that there can never be a reason why they may not follow. Arbitrariness may arbitrarily stop short of conclusions, but there is no way in which this may be explained to anyone else. Each one will then have his own inexplicable "reason" for doing what he wills. His impulse to go further or stop short will be nothing more than an impulse.14 Members of the sexual revolution are already drawing such conclusions and, I predict, will go further.
From the first principle, we can conclude that all previous teaching or belief, which leads to conduct (and all truth eventually demands an evaluative as well as a cognitional assent followed by moral action), must cede to present conscience practice of individuals, no matter how that practice is reached. (It could be an arbitrary, rationalized, or purely rational [technical], pragmatic decision). This would make morally acceptable or even obligatory: "I know it is wrong, but I can't help it" (because it is unfree, it is good); "What else can I do in the situation?" (morality is never universal but merely situational); "It's the lesser evil" (the lesser evil becomes the commanded good); "I can't hurt you" (an evil action becomes good out of love); "I make up my own mind about what's right or wrong" (that is good which I choose; conscience determines reality, truth, value. I confer being, value upon reality.)
Therefore, all previous, even de fide statements on matrimony are changeable as new antithetical elaborations are developed:
—as simply correct in their own time but irrelevant or even erroneous at present;
—as purely relative (and, since process cannot be judged as forward or backward by a processing judger who judges from a processing norm) with no judgment as to true or false, right or wrong, advance or retreat;
—as merely disciplinary statements (even anathema sit) to maintain common teaching at the moment. Further, historical analysis of doctrine is meaningless for the present, except as illustrative of change, since the only absolute is that there is no absolute. (A logical and metaphysical contradiction).
On the second principle, if sex is necessary for human fulfillment, especially when people are living together, then extra-marital chastity is not defensible for two people of any age or sex, or relationship (father-daughter?) who need mutual support (e.g., illness, age, ability to work, temporary cohabitation). Struggle with masturbatory self-control is useless and possibly harmful. It is positively good to masturbate, if it promotes transitional development. Celibacy is at least undevelopment and probably contrary to human fulfillment. (How interesting that an attack on the traditional morality of contraception, divorce, and the wisdom of celibacy, seems always to lead to an attack on the other two.) More, there can be no such virtue as chastity within marriage. The only sexual sin might be to force oneself upon a partner, or to violate an agreement to stay with a partner and go with no one else. But then, if the conscience judgment must be respected, that agreement is terminable upon conscience conviction, and if one is free upon conscience conviction, certainly the other is free because the unity cannot be terminable for only one half of the union.
Since sex has no inherent meaning (cf. below) and is necessary there can be no argument about what is correct in sex in marriage. There is no inherently honest or dishonest sex. (cf. the treatment in the Summa of St. Thomas on honestas.)
Regarding the third principle, sexual union either has inherent meaning (along with some further assigned meanings given by the couple, e.g., apology, consolation, etc.) or only the meaning assigned explicitly by the couple. A meaning assigned without reference to an inherent meaning is arbitrary. (The word does not mean wilful or thoughtless, but meaning conferred, invented, assigned by the mind of a maker). If sexual coitus has inherent meaning (signification, import, purpose, intentionality, orientation), assigned by a creator, it may be morally exercised in a way consonant with those meanings. If the meanings should not be implemented for the moment, the action should not be performed. If there are distinct meanings in the one act one may not directly intend and act contrary to the intentionality (though one's positive intending need only be implicit or habitual, i.e., open). If these meanings are also separable by a second (antecedent, present or consequent) act, then it is unreasonable (i.e., contradictory, dishonest) and therefore sinful to perform two acts in contradiction to each other.
Paul VI insists that coitus has such an inherent meaning; that there is no indication that man designed sexuality; that man is the minister of the design; and that he is not the arbiter of coitus so that he may assign meanings in contradiction to the inherent meanings (Humanae Vitae, par. 13; 17). Any common sense observation of coitus must agree that it is a natural sacrament (a sign which tends to make present the immaterial reality which it signifies) of love-life and life-love. It is inherently oriented to the kind of experience of other-in-self and self-in-other, which is open to new life. If this observation is valid, then coitus is freely moral only when enacted implicitly or habitually (not necessarily explicitly) according to its integral meaning, with a partner who can assume the same meaning, i.e., responsibly and irrevocably living with the vulnerability to total gift of love and the life that is signed by and follows from it. Therefore, coitus implies a heterosexual union with vaginal penetration and openness, insofar as the action and its implicit openness of intention are concerned, to a child, and involving a life-time responsibility for mutual caring and proper education of the child(ren). Such an act must be in an indissoluble situation, approved and supported by society, firmed up with a decision (vow).
All other coitus is therefore, immoral—fornication, homosexual and heterosexual sodomy, oral-genital intercourse, incest, sado-masochistic intercourse, rape, adultery, or remarried sex after divorce.15 Obviously, not every properly performed coital act achieves a sense of loving, or results in a conception; but then not every listening results in perception; not every intellecting produces an idea; not every communication gets through; nor, for that matter, does every contraceptive act prevent conception.
If, however, sex has only the meanings assigned explicitly (and therefore arbitrarily) by the activators thereof, then it need not be coital at all. Sex may be assigned the value of maturing in masturbation; of mutual discovery in petting; playfulness in affection, of conception in vitro, or by artificial insemination. (Strange how those who accuse Paul VI of biologism are so willing to promote functional biologism with their veterinarian syringes.) If there is coitus, and this can be assigned any meaning acceptable to the partners involved, then the value of love can be assigned for any hetero-sexual intercourse, in hetero-homosexual sodomy, oral-genital penetration, fornication, adultery or group orgy. In such a case genital ceases to be a meaning word, and becomes merely a body-geography word for site of orgasm. (The incidence of venereal disease is increasing throughout the country in all mucous membranes—vaginal, penile, anal, oral—even among the married. Cf. Secretary of New England Obstetrical-Gynecological Society, private conversation.)
If the only meaning permitted to the act is that assigned explicitly by the actors, then no one can argue to the contrary, and each actor may withdraw the meanings assigned, at will. A person can say "I love my wife, but oh you kid!" without violating St. Paul's clear denunciation of one who "sins against his own body" (I Corinthians 6, 18) or even Christ's denunciation of lust (Matthew 5, 28). More, an arbitrary meaning is, by definition, arbitrarily retractable. If a procreative meaning has been assigned arbitrarily, then it may be as arbitrarily withdrawn, even after the event. If a child has a right to be only because the couple explicitly and deliberately opened coitus to conception, then it is sinful not to use a contraceptive when procreative meaning is not assigned, and a contraceptive accident not only may, but must be aborted. (Bless me Father, for I have sinned— I did not use a condom when I felt I should not have a child; I did not have an abortion when I found I was accidentally pregnant with an unwanted child; I felt loving, but did not have sex with my wife because I didn't want to risk a child.)
If the child can be only when explicitly wanted, if he turns out to be conditioned other than the couple "sufficiently mature to evaluate" could have foreseen (crippled, defective, handicapped, ill, psychologically disturbed, hateful, rebellious), may he be eliminated physically or rejected emotionally?
Finally, if the meaning of coitus is only what the couple explicitly assigns to it, then all mental health efforts, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy is senseless, since they attempt to find hidden and erroneous meanings and set them right. If meanings are arbitrarily assigned, there are no right meanings.16
Process Theology
I suggest that the whole above analysis forces us to reconsider the validity of process theology.
If sex is a process, any step in sexual experience is good on the road to something more mature. But process, by itself, cannot judge process as good or bad, better or worse, advance or retreat, mature or immature.
If being-a-Christian-at-baptism is a process, then no marriage of "baptized Christians" exists as valid and indissoluble.
If maturity is a process, there is never a presumptively sufficient maturity to validate a permanent commitment.
If marriage is a process, consummation (perfectedness) never takes place.
If the person is a process ("the fetus is not a person, but tissue with the possibility of becoming (in most cases) a person, also recognizing that personhood is not possible without physical form.") (cf. Statement of United Methodist Church, October 1971), then we never know when he comes into being or drifts out of existence, nor when physical form is present. Therefore abortion, infanticide, euthanasia are permissible when one judges the process not sufficiently begun, or personhood sufficiently lost.
If choice is a process, no choice is final, no sin possible, even for a fundamental option, which, if life continues after death, is still in process. (If life does not continue, choice does not matter.)
If commitment to person is simply a process then neither virginity nor marriage can be irrevocably chosen, nor can any one state be irreversible—repeatedly! (Can a married priest become celibate again?)
If God is process, there can be no vows, because a moving God cannot witness to a moving promise as immovable.
In a fixed world, our theologians could be called heretical in view of the anathemas found in the Enchiridion Symbolorum, but there can be no real sin in a process world, because even a rejection of God might be conditioned de futuro, and therefore not final; doctrine is in process and therefore not definable; faith is in process and therefore one need not be committed to any movable doctrine at any one moment in any explicit sense.
"If speaking the same language, they have started to do this, nothing will stop them later from doing whatever they presume to do. Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says" (Genesis II, 6-7). Have we reached this Babel in modern times?
Endnotes
1 Cf. Rollo May, Love and Will (New York: W, W. Norton, 1969), 223-42.
2 David Elkind, "Erik Erikson's Eight Ages of Man," New York Times Magazine (April 5,1970), 25ff.
3 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder, 1972), 112-13. Italics mine.
4 Jane Brady, "Illegitimacy," New York Times (March 14, 1971), sect, E, p. 7.
5 Cf. Richard Roach, "Sex in Christian Morality," The Way 2 (1971), 148-61; 235-42.
6 "The Church in the Modern World," par. 50: "Matrimonium et amor conjugalis indole sua ad procreationem et educationem prolis ordinantur."
7 Cf. Donald Barr, Who Pushed Humpty-Dumpty? (New York: Atheneum Press, 1972), 60.
8 Cf. Lonergan, op. cit., 79.
9 Ibid., 356-68.
10 Cf. John C. Murray, We Hold These Truths (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 27ff.
11 Cf. Robert Francoeur, Utopian Motherhood (New York: Doubleday, 1970) and Eve's New Rib (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Javanovich, 1972).
12 Cf. Robert Fitch, The Decline and Fall of Sex (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1957), 99-104.
13 Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, "Aslan and the New Morality," Religious Education LXVII (1972), 419-29.
14 Cf, James Schall, Human Dignity and Human Numbers (Staten Island: Alba House, 1971), 85-121; C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (Encyclopedia Brittanica Great Books of the Western World).
15 Cf. Thomas Howard, An Antique Drum (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1969), 116-42; Paul Quay, "Contraception and Marital Love," Theological Studies 22 (1961), 18-40; Roach, op. cit.
16 Cf. Fitch, op. cit., passim.
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