Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Titel: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Stichwort: Sexualität, Ehe, Polygamie: Antrieb der Sexualität -> Augustinus; unendliches Verlangen -> Objekt d. Sexualität

Kurzinhalt: The sexual extravagance of man ... has its ultimate ground in St Augustine's Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te; ... tend to center an infinite craving on a finite object or release

Textausschnitt: 4.3 Conformity with Traditional Doctrine

48a Now if this analysis satisfies the exigencies of modern data and insights, it is no less true that it leads immediately to the traditional position on the ends of marriage. For the criteria of more essential and more excellent ends may be applied in three ways, to the organistic union (Z'), to the marriage contract (Y'), and to the sacrament (X'). The first application gives the traditional position on polygamy: the horizontal finality of organistic union to offspring is more essential than the vertical finality to monogamous marriage; hence, under special circumstances, divine providence might permit polygamy for the sake of the more essential end and find other means to secure the more excellent personalist end. The second and third applications to monogamous marriage itself, whether contract or sacrament, are parallel: in both cases the horizontal finality to procreation and education of children is more essential than the vertical finality to personal advance in perfection; and if we take the terms 'primary' and 'secondary' in the sense of more and less essential, we have at once the traditional position that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children. Further, our less essential vertical finality corresponds at least roughly with the traditional secondary ends of mutuum auxilium and honestum remedium concupiscentiae. For mutual aid is the spontaneous division of labor in the organistic union; it is the companionship and the good deeds of friendship; it is mutual support in spiritual advance to Christian perfection; it is all three, not isolated on the levels of nature, reason, and grace, but integrated and inseparable in the expansion of love into a common consciousness and conscience in the pursuit of life, the good life, and eternal life. The virtuous remedy for concupiscence would seem but the reverse aspect of the same thing. For if the virtuous remedy is sometimes understood narrowly as a legitimate outlet for sexual impulse, still such a view hardly squares with the fact that there is much more than sex in sexual impulse. The sexual extravagance of man, unparalleled in the animals, has its ultimate ground in St Augustine's Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. t The ignorance and frailty of fallen man tend to center an infinite craving on a finite object or release: that may be wealth, or fame, or power, but most commonly it is sex. Thus marriage, not merely by the outlet of intercourse but in all its aspects, is a virtuous remedy: the manifold activities of the home drain off energies that otherwise would ferment; the educative process of the life in common and the responsibility of children develop character and mature wisdom; the pursuit of Christian perfection establishes a peace of soul that attacks concupiscence at its deepest root. In this fashion it would seem that the traditional secondary ends may be identified with the vertical upthrust to friendship and charity, to human and Christian perfection. (Fs) (notabene)