Foundation for Reformed Theology

Greetings!

Karl Barth wrote this on man and woman:

Marriage is without doubt the telos, goal and centre of the relationship. We may provisionally define it as the form of the encounter of male and female in which the free, mutual, harmonious choice of love on the part of a particular man and woman leads to a responsibly undertaken life-union which is lasting, complete and exclusive. Whatever happens or does not happen in this sphere, as the encounter between man and woman, has some kind of reference to this form and possibility. . . .

They are also man and woman, and as such stand under the command of God, when they are unmarried and have not yet attained this special concrete form of the sexual encounter, when they are widowed or divorced and no longer realise it, and especially when for some reason they can never realise it at all. Entry into the married state, and life within it, is a particular occurrence. It belongs to every human being to be male or female. It also belongs to every human being to be male and female: male in this or that near or distant relationship to the female, and female in a similar relationship to the male. Man is human, and therefore fellow-human, as he is male or female, male and female. But it certainly does not belong to every man to enter into the married state and live in it. The decision to do so is not open to each individual, and there are reasons why it is open to many not to do so. Even then they are still men and therefore male or female, male and female. The command valid in this sphere, and its promise, apply unconditionally to them. . . .

In obedience to the divine command there is no such thing as a self-contained and self-sufficient male life or female life. In obedience to the divine command, the life of man is ordered, related and directed to that of the woman, and that of the woman to that of the man. What we have to say in this connexion is summed up in a verse which we have already quoted from 1 Corinthians 11:11: "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." This is true of man and woman in marriage, but not only of them. . . .

The position to which we were directed as the true and distinctive position for each sex is for each man and woman, whether within marriage or without, a position which is open to its opposite. One cannot occupy it, nor fulfil the requirement of fidelity to one's sex, without being aware of woman if one is a man, or of man if a woman. And openness to the opposite is not an incidental and dispensable attribute of this position; it constitutes its very essence. All the other conditions of masculine and feminine being may be disputable, but it is inviolable, and can be turned at once into an imperative and taken with the utmost seriousness, that man is directed to woman and woman to man, each being for the other a horizon and focus, and that man proceeds from woman and woman from man, each being for the other a centre and source. This mutual orientation constitutes the being of each. It is always in relationship to their opposite that man and woman are what they are in themselves. We must be clear that relationship does not mean transition and dissolution. It does not mean a denial of one's own sex or an open or secret exchange with its opposite. On the contrary, it means a firm adherence to this polarity and therefore to one's own sex, but only in so far as such adherence is not self-centred but expansive, not closed but open, not concentric but eccentric. Relationship to woman in this sense makes the man a man, and her relationship to man in this sense makes the woman a woman. . . .

Marriage may be defined as something which fixes and makes concrete the encounter and interrelation of man and woman in the form of the unique, unrepeatable and incomparable encounter and relationship between a particular man and a particular woman. Their encounter and relationship signifies in this context a life-partnership. This partnership is not partial but complete. It extends over the whole area of the human existence of both participants. It is on both sides a total receiving and giving. Again, it is not inclusive but exclusive. No third person can share in it. Again, it is not temporary but permanent. It lasts as long as the life of both concerned. . . .

The proposition which, with all that it implies, must be fundamental is that marriage is the special life-partnership established and maintained between a particular man and a particular woman. Vocation to marriage is vocation to this life-partnership. . . .

Marriage is differentiated even from the love which underlies it by the fact that what love willed and wills is made possible, and conies into its own, and becomes a task and a duty, namely, the complete togetherness of a certain man and a certain woman. In marriage this togetherness may and should and must be, in so far as it is true marriage.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/4, pp. 140-141, 163, 182, 186, 189.

Dr. James C. Goodloe IVThank you for your interest in the historical theology of the church.

Grace and Peace,

Dr. James C. Goodloe IV, Executive
    Director

Foundation for Reformed Theology

4103 Monument Avenue

Richmond, Virginia 23230

 

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