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The Relation of the Juridical and Sacramental in Matrimony According to Thomas Aquinas

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The Relation of the Juridical and Sacramental in Matrimony According to Thomas Aquinas UNIVERSITÄT FREIBURG FACULTY OF THEOLOGY BETH M. MORTENSEN THE RELATION OF THE JURIDICAL AND SACRAMENTAL IN MATRIMONY ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS Thesis for Doctorate directed by PROF. BARBARA HALLENSLEBEN FREIBURG – SCHWEIZ 2012 Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works Works by Saint Thomas Aquinas In IV Sent. Scriptum super Sententiis, Liber IV SCG Summa Contra Gentiles ST Summa Theologiae In I Cor. Commentary on I Corinthians In Ephes Commentary on Ephesians i ii Table of Contents Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works .................................................................................................... i INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 The Current Climate .................................................................................................................................... 1 The Aims of the Present Work ..................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER I: THE ESSENCE OF MARRIAGE ................................................................. 9 1. The Causes of Marriage ............................................................................................. 11 A. The Centrality of Consent to Sacrament and Contract ....................................................................... 13 B. Marriage has its cause in us ................................................................................................................. 17 2. The Ends of Marriage ................................................................................................. 20 A. The Two Ends of Marriage and the Common Good ........................................................................... 24 B. Parents naturally lay up treasure for their children ........................................................................... 27 CHAPTER II: THE MARITAL ACT ................................................................................. 33 1. The Marital Act as Remedy for Concupiscence ........................................................ 34 A. Three definitions of concupiscence ...................................................................................................... 35 B. Concupiscence as sensual pleasure ...................................................................................................... 36 C. Concupiscence as disordering ............................................................................................................. 41 D. The Remedy for Concupiscence is Grace ............................................................................................. 47 2. The Marital Act as Debt ............................................................................................. 52 A. The Origins of the Debt ......................................................................................................................... 53 B. Justice and the Conjugal Act ................................................................................................................ 57 C. The Marital Debt as a Path of Sanctification ....................................................................................... 58 3. The Marital Act and Original Sin ............................................................................... 62 CHAPTER III: LOVE IN MARRIAGE ............................................................................. 64 1. Marriage as greatest friendship .................................................................................. 65 A. Friendship and Justice .......................................................................................................................... 66 B. The Shared Good at the Heart of the Greatest Friendship ................................................................. 68 2. Charity in Marriage .................................................................................................... 70 A. Marriage in the order of charity .......................................................................................................... 70 B. The union of the spouses ...................................................................................................................... 75 CHAPTER IV: MARRIAGE AND LAW ........................................................................... 80 1. Slavery in contrast with Law ...................................................................................... 81 2. Law is true freedom ................................................................................................... 85 A. Aquinas’s Account of Marriage Seen from a Juridical Perspective .................................................... 86 3. Marriage and law ........................................................................................................ 92 A. Marriage as the intersection of procreation and law .......................................................................... 92 B. Marriage and the common good ........................................................................................................... 93 C. The Common Good of the Universe ..................................................................................................... 94 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................... 97 Marriage, Law, and Human Nature .......................................................................................................... 97 Marriage, Law, and Divinity ................................................................................................................... 100 iii APPENDIX: TRANSLATION OF IN SENT. IV, 26-42.................................................... 103 Preface to the translation of Aquinas’s Treatise on Marriage ..................................... 103 A. On Saint Thomas’s Use of Language ................................................................................................. 104 B. Situating Saint Thomas’s Treatise on Marriage Historically ........................................................... 120 COMMENTARY ON THE SENTENCES IV ............................................................ 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 319 Primary Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 319 Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................................. 321 iv INTRODUCTION The Current Climate In 1950, Rev. James P. Lyons, described Thomas Aquinas’s importance in the study of marriage as follows: Saint Thomas and his school have perhaps done more than any other theologians to clarify the structure of marriage and to indicate its place in the divine order of things . But beyond this, Thomism has a special value in a study of marriage, and especially in a study of the philosophical note of the essential structure of marriage. For Thomism is, par excellence, [quoting Gilson] ‘the theology of the natural.’1 Lyons also quotes L. Misserey who commented on the French translation of the Supplement to the Summa Theologiae, “Without any exaggeration one can say that Saint Thomas has laid out for future generations the diagram of Christian marriage.”2 In fact, it would not be inaccurate to say that until the 1960s, Saint Thomas’s doctrine of marriage was considered synonymous with official Catholic teaching. The Dismissal of Thomistic Marriage Theology However, since mid-century the prevalent social tumult has largely conduced to the rejection of Saint Thomas’s treatment of marriage. The same forces that militated against the Church’s perennial teaching singled out Saint Thomas in particular. In his 1993 article, “Le remedium concupiscentiae comme fin du mariage,” Theo Belmans, O. Praem., catalogues numerous scholars and theologians spanning the 20th century who criticized Saint Thomas’s teaching on matrimony.3 Belmans’s more extensive work, Le sens objectif de l’agir humain: pour relire la morale conjugale de Saint Thomas, appearing as it did 1 J.P. Lyons, The Essential Structure of Marriage: A Study of the Thomistic Teaching on the Natural Institution, Catholic University of America Press, (Washington D.C.) 1950. 2 L. Misserey, Le Mariage, (French translation of the Summa Theologica, Supplement), t.1., 6. Desclee, Paris, 1931. 3 Belmans, “Le remedium concupiscentiae comme fin de mariage.” Revue Thomiste, XCIII (1993), pp.289- 303. Among the authors Belmans cites as directly rejecting or contradicting Aquinas’s teaching are H. Doms, J. Fuchs, Bernhard Haering, J.-M. Aubert, B. Krempel, L. Janssens, Richard McCormick, John Noonan, M. Mueller, D. M. Pruemmer, to name only a few; Belmans traces the roots of this movement to the 19th century work of F. X. Linsenmann. 1 toward the end of the period of greatest tumult and confusion, contains an even more exhaustive list of opponents of Saint Thomas on this subject.4 Undoubtedly part of the reason for this antagonism was the very fact that Saint Thomas was identified with Church teaching. The comprehensiveness that made him universally praised and consulted up until that time brought him under attack afterward. Certainly his very emphasis on order and law
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