A Theocentric ethic of Marriage

TITLE: A Theocentric Ethic of Marriage:

The Attributes of God as the foundation of (for) an ethic of marriage

SUMMARY:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Gen 1:1 (NASB)

The beginning of understanding is found in understanding the beginning. This is why, Genesis begins as it does. Sailhamer writes of this opening statement, “the account opens with a clear, concise statement about the Creator and the creation. Its simplicity belies the depth of its content. These seven words (in Hebrew) are the foundation of all that is to follow in the bible.[1] James Sire illustrates this point:

One day a little boy came to his father. “Today the teacher showed us a big round globe. She said was a model of the world. She said the world was just surrounded by space. How can that be? Dad, what holds up the world? Why doesn’t it just fall down?”

His father, knowing that this was just a child’s question, gave him a child’s answer: “it’s a camel holds up the world, son.”

The Boy went away satisfied, for he trusted his father… the next day [the son] decided something was missing in his father’s answer. He asked, “Dad I was just wondering if a camel holds up the world, what holds up the camel?”… “It’s a kangaroo that holds up the camel.” Again the boy when away, but this time only for a couple of hours. Back again with His Father, he asked, “dad if a camel holds up the world and a kangaroo holds up the camel, what holds up the kangaroo?” “It’s an elephant holds up the kangaroo”

Come on Dad!” His son retorted. What holds up the elephant?” His father, in a fit of genius deriving from necessity, replied. “It’s…. It’s …. it’s Elephant all the way down.[2]

Sire informs us of two points from the story. One, “If it takes something to hold up the world, then there has to be a first holder, something that doesn’t require being held up – a prime foundation.” [3] It is God all the way down. He is the prime foundation that holds up reality. The Scripture teaches that God is the foundation of everything. All that is rests on God. Two, the father has to realize that there is no logical way to stop the regress. Out of necessity there had to be a point of commitment. Simple faith in the most likely answer: the biggest animal he could thing of an elephant. He is the starting point of all logical thought about reality. God is the foundation of everything and human thought and action necessarily must begin at a genesis of faith in just such a foundation.

The story point to a bigger reality and Sire’s points remind us of the truth of Genesis 1:1. It is no wonder the Apostles’ Creed begins with: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!” Calvin taking his queue from the Apostles creed begins The Institutes with “The Knowledge of God the Creator”. Schaeffer writes, “Christianity as a system does not begin with Christ as Savior, but with the infinite-personal God who created the world in the beginning and who made man significant in the flow of history.”[4] Beginnings are important. Schaeffer points out that Christ is not the beginning he is the panicle, but God is the beginning.

The point of departure in many ways determines where and how you end up. First things guide last things. One’s aim determines where the bullet will fly. In Genesis 1:1, it is written, “In the beginning God,” the first four words of the Genesis are rich with meaning. Three points will to flush out the richness of this meaning and how it applies to marriage. First, God is before all, in himself, complete in perfection, radiant in holy other love. God is truly the foundation of everything. In him is the beginning of all things. Follow any chain of material causality and you end in a mystery. Hemmed into a corner the leap to logical casualty must be made and there you end in the first cause, the God of the beginning.[5] Because God is we are. His existence is necessary for our existence to have meaning. Therefore His is, necessarily, the foundation of all things. Say another way, God is the center of all things. God is the foundation of all, value, meaning, ethics, beauty, truth, goodness, and knowledge. God does not just give meaning to the world but he is the meaning for the world. If our existence derives from his existence then it follows that our value derives from his value. A work of art is only as valuable as the fame of its artist and the skill by which the art was made. God is the creator, and as such he gives value to all things.

As The Creator God it is fitting that He would be the object of ultimate worth and value. As a triune being that exists as a community of self-giving love, it is fitting that He Loves himself as one worthy of ultimate love and glory. Thus, God created all things for the glory of God. Out of the overflow of love for himself, God created all things to love, honor and glorify him for he is the only object worthy of greatest love. Thus all things are made with a particular “telos” in mind, the glory of God.[6] God formed creation in a particular way to accomplish this end. All of life has a movement towards its God-given perfection and ultimate end in God. [7] In Romans 11 Paul writes descriptively of this God-centered way of creation. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen. (Rom 11:36) All Creation, including humanity, was made to live by a God-centered rhythm of exit and return.[8] Paul writes as a human for humanity. So in this passage He shows humanity’s moral movement to be a three beat rhythm consisting of acknowledgment, dependence and response. Acknowledgment (Faith) We live from him, the Creator of what is and how it is to be. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things begin with him and have identity from him. Dependence (Hope): We live though him as dependant creatures clinging to the foundation of our existence, drinking from Him as the fount of all life, beauty, truth, and goodness. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things find life and meaning in him. Response (Love): We live to him in a God-ward journey of responding to God and bring him glory. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things have a God-centered purpose in bringing him glory. So the purpose for all that exists is God. He is the center of life from the beginning. Yet only Humanity can fail to follow such a style of life. [9]

Two, God is the foundation of marriage. Two reasons for this build on the above vision of life as God-centered. First, as a particular mode of human existence, Marriage is found within the call of creation to Glory in God and live a God-ward life. Thus, God is the foundation of marriage in the same way he is the foundation for life. Two Jesus implied that God was the foundation of marriage. Jesus in Matthew 19:4-6 teaches a similar vision. He believed the scope of marriage is universal. God instituted a common grace for union, an inseparable union of two becoming spiritually one. It is a creation grace available to all humanity. To this end, Elton Trueblood describes marriage as one of the common ventures of life.[10] Jesus taught not only the scope of marriage but also its origin. Jesus echoes genesis when he implies that God came up with the idea of marriage. It is as if he states, “In the beginning God created marriage.” Marriage begins with God. God as creator and innovator of all things, created the idea of marriage and his work of marital union as a grace for humanity. God invented marriage and as the inventor he takes His idea and His work infinitely serious. Jesus’ teaching on marriage as having a theocentric center clearly supports the idea of God being the foundation of marriage. The ethical nature of marriage is rooted and grounded in God.

Three, If God is the foundation of marriage then God’s attributes are the foundation of the ethic of marriage. It follows that if he is the foundation of marriage then who he is become important to our ethic of marriage. The most important question in life is not why God? Or How God? But Who is this God? Who is this God that grounds our existence? Who is this God that plans and commands? Who is this God we are made to worship? The question of who is more important that How or why or what. For without answering to ‘who’ all other questions remains vague and unclear? Without ‘Who’, we do not know the one who plans and commands so the commands become arbitrary and the style of marriage loosely fitting and flexible. Without a ‘who’, we worship only mystery, a god on no name and no intimacy. Intimacy has its genesis in the exchanging of names. We call him Lord and he calls us friend and to his friends he discloses the mysteries of his heart. Without a ‘who’, we truly have no gravity for our existence. The meaning and virtue of a thing is defined is it relates to the knowledge of God. God is standard by which life is measured. We do not know justice till we know justice as God is justice. Nor do we know love till we know God as Love. Said another way, Life has meaning because God gladly bears up the full weight of meaninglessness and overpowers it with resurrection might, overflowing it with the glory of who he is. God, by the seer gravity of who he is, infuses all things with worth, value, and meaning as they are related to him. God is great, overseeing all that is with the weight of his presence.. God is good, leveling all that is with the measure of who he is. God is glorious filling to all that is with meaning and purpose. God is Gracious, condescending into all that is, to be and bring all that is back to Him. We can understand from these four predications of God that God is the moral gravity of life.

Today much is made of the idea that marriage teaches us about God. That marriage teaches. So in the experience of marriage we are informed about God. The profound mystery is marriage teaches us about Christ and the church. Yet is the opposite true? Does God teach us about marriage? If marriage teaches us about God, does God teach us anything about marriage? who God is, does it speak to those in wedlock? Does His nature and attributes have anything to say to our ethic of marriage? The answer is yes for God is the foundation of marriage and he is the foundation of everything. For example: Our God is trinity. Our triune God is a marriage of unity in diversity. A “perichoresis” [11] in covenant community: A community that created worlds and worshipers by the very overflow of its own personal expressions of intimacy and love for himself. Marriage as a self in “perichoresis” covenant union with another self forming a worshiping community that molds the next generation of believers by an incarnational self-giving in love and service to all.

It is necessary to find the proper center for false centers abound. Many now see marriage as an institution that is a slave to serve the self. The idea of God simply affects all of life. It strong pull can bring all loose ends of life into properly ordered orbit. Yet this affect is only as strong as the soul pathos for truth, beauty and goodness. God is before marriage, he created marriage and God ought to be at the central of marriage. Four descriptions of God outline this point: God is Great, Good, Glorious and Gracious. God is great, Marriage is not greater. God is good, Marriage is not better. God is glorious Marriage is of lesser glory. God is Gracious. Marriage has no grace that is not given. Marriage needs to get saved and if marriage is to be the vision of the good-life. To be a vision of the good life it must find its proper center. Today, marriage needs such a ground and gravity. Today, Marriage needs God.

THESIS: In this paper it will be shown that the ethical Christian marriage is a God-centered marriage. Where God is ultimate and from that foundation unfold a description of how a passionate “knowing” of God’s attributes informs and inspires the Christian ethic of marriage.

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[1] John H. Sailhamer, “the Pentateuch as Narrative,” (Grand rapids: Zondervan, 1992) p 82.

[2] James Sire, Naming the Elephant (IVP Press 2004) pg 16

[3] Ibid 16

[4] Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time: The Flow of Biblical History (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 97.

[5] In G. K. Chesterton’s work orthodoxy there is a great chapter (chapter 3) on this very subject which I do not have time to fully write on here.

[6] See Jonathans Edwards, The end for which God created the world in John Piper’s God’s passion for his glory.

[7] Kreefts explains us, “There are two relationships between Creator and creature. But modern Christians usually remember only one of them. First, God loves everything. Second, everything loves God. The second is as true as the first. Acorns grow into oak trees because they are in love with God. That is, they seek unconsciously their own perfection, which is a participation in some of God's perfection. An oak tree is more perfect, more godlike, than an acorn. An acorn is not satisfied to be an acorn, because it wants (unconsciously, of course) to be more like God. God is the magnet that draws all the iron filings that are creatures closer to himself. That is why everything moves. It is seeking its own perfection, which is a reflection of God's perfection. Everything moves out of love of God.” Peter Kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 102-103

[8] Kreefts writes, “Now God is not only the first efficient cause of the universe, its ultimate origin. He is also the last final cause of the universe, its ultimate end. "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (Rv 1:8), the beginning and the end, Jesus tells us. Thus everything in the universe is and lives and moves and has its being not only from God but also toward God. Augustine's great line is true of everything in nature as well as man: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and [therefore] our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Peter Kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 104

[9] Kreefts reminds us, “Everything loves God in its way. Not only did God love everything into existence by creation, he also loves everything into perfection by being the universal beloved. Not only does God love everything, but everything loves God. Only man can move contrary to this principle of nature through freely choosing evil. Every thing loves God, but not every one loves God” Peter kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 104

[10] Elton Trueblood, The Common Ventures of Life: Marriage, Birth, Work, Death. (New York, Harper & row 1949). This little book discuses the common experiences of birth work marriage and death in the contexts of a sacramental view of reality.

[11] “perichoresis” can be defined as co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration of life together from a joy found in the other. Alister McGrath writes with regards to the Trinity but the analogical understanding is evident. The concept of perichoresis "allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a 'community of being,' in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them." Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Blackwell, 2001.) pg 325