Thoughts on Marriage, Part 2: Capacity, not Compatibility

Sumner wrote earlier this week about marriage--how our culture views it incorrectly, how it is a reflection of the gospel, and how it is momentary.

I have some thoughts on the subject as well. They will probably not be organized, and if nothing else they will show my struggle to grasp their truths. Most of these thoughts come from pastors and books; few of them are my own.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, heaven, or "paradise", is a structured and specifically arranged place. As Dante, the character in the epic poem, walks through heaven, he sees that there are different levels of the saints, so to speak. Upon initial reading, this seems heretical. How could this Italian poet go against the Scriptures and imply an inequality in heaven? How could he say that many will experience eternal rest, but to different and varying degrees?

Here's how:

Dante says that with everything we do in this earthly life, we are creating a capacity to love and to enjoy God. In heaven, this earth-created capacity will be filled, and filled to the uttermost. As the pastor Ranking Wilbourne summarizes, "In the end (according to Dante) you will get as much of God as you've always wanted...Some of us will be thimbles, some glass jars, some pales, some barrells, some great lakes."

This is why there is no envy in heaven. This is why no one will turn to his neighbor and ask why he has a bigger house, or an easier time paying his bills, or children at a better college. Everyone will be filled to the uttermost, and everyone will live in eternal rest and contentment. But not everyone will be filled equally.

At this point, as Wilbourne foresees, the human question becomes: "Who cares?" Many will think to themselves, "I just want to get in." They don't want to take responsibility for their actions, in this world and the next. After all, who wouldn't want to get in to heaven? But Wilbourne also says that "Only someone who did not see how enjoyable and good God is would ever ask such a question". If you truly grasped these things, "you would want as much of him as you could bear".

I think love, and marriage, is pretty much the same concept. Just as there are those who just want to "get in" to heaven, there are those who just want to "get married". They think that life will become magically better as they "fall in love"--that they'll finally grow up, stop feeling alone, and settle down to comfort and peace.

And maybe they will.

But Dante, and Wilbourne, and Keller seem to think differently. In his sermon series on marriage, Keller calls "self-centeredness" the root sin in all marital problems. And isn't just "getting in" or "falling in love" seem a bit selfish? Doesn't it imply feeling, and not action or responsibility, in both our single and married state?

Keller says that marriage, at the end of the day, is about creating a capacity to love another human being. Capacity--the same word that Dante used 400 years ago. Not "compatibility", capacity.

Apply the selfishness of the "who cares" question to questions about marriage. Most of the time, we focus on compatibility. We want to find someone who is going to make us happy. Who knows us. Who is a Christian but is also pretty but is also smart but is also funny but is also from the South but also listens to cool music.

We question. And question. And question. Is this person "right"?

And we are asking the wrong questions.

As the greats often do, Keller simplifies it. He shifts our focus to capacity. He says that if there is a person with whom you desire to stand upon an altar and publicly marry, then you do it. If there is a person with whom you can look at and say, "I have a desire to create a capacity to love them", than you do it.

And besides, go back to what Wilbourne says: "Only someone who did not see how enjoyable and good God is would ask such questions." Before God, the questioning stops, and we "want as much of him as we can bear".

I think that marriage, in its ideal state, isn't all that different. You find someone enjoyable and good, the questions stop, and you bear them.

So I feel like the next time we start obsessing over who we're supposed to marry, and worry till the sun comes up about what our lives will look like in 5 years, maybe the better questions to be asking are: am i going to create a capacity for loving God today? and will I allow him to come in and create a capacity for loving another person? The one will always lead to the other, I think.

And I think all of us would agree that we don't want to be thimbles, or glass jars, but that we would like to be great lakes.

Finally, I think we need to remember that marriage is one of three God-ordained human institutions, along with the state and the family. It was before us, and it will outlast us. It is momentary, but it points to the eternal.

Merry Christmas and Grizzmas.