The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture Fall conference 2008 is on
The Family: Searching for Fairest Love
Only the truth will prepare you for a love which can be called â??fairest love.â?? Pope John Paul II Letter to Families
We are mindful of the fundamental role played by the family in civil society, in the political order, and in the life of the Church. The conference will celebrate the anniversaries of two papal documents, Mulieris Dignitatem and Humanae Vitae.
Curious that theology, that is, the Christian doctrine of God, does not appear in the list of possible topics for papers. I presume there is room for some actual theology of the body, and not all by Angelo Scola ?
On the same subject, have you seen Robert George’s remarkable Law and Moral Purpose?
Bodily union is thus personal union, and comprehensive personal unionâ??marital unionâ??is founded on bodily union. What is unique about marriage is that it truly is a comprehensive sharing of life, a sharing founded on the bodily union made uniquely possible by the sexual complementarity of man and womanâ??a complementarity that makes it possible for two human beings to become, in the language of the Bible, â??one flesh,â?? and for this one-flesh union to be the foundation of a relationship in which it is intelligible for two persons to bind themselves to each other in pledges of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity.
So, then, how should we understand what marriage is? Marriage, considered not as a mere legal convention or cultural artifact, is a one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts that are procreative in type, whether or not they are procreative in effect. It is an intrinsic human good, and, precisely as such, it provides a more than merely instrumental reason for choice and action.
The bodily union of spouses in marital acts is the biological matrix of their marriage as a comprehensive, multilevel sharing of life: a relationship that unites the spouses at all levels of their being. Marriage is naturally ordered to the good of procreation (and is, indeed, uniquely apt for the nurturing and education of children) as well as to the good of spousal unity. At the same time, it is not a mere instrumental good whose purpose is the generating and rearing of children. ÂMarriage, considered as a one-flesh union, is intrinsically valuable.
