That is what one of the posters for the pro-divorce movement explicitly declares. An allusion meaning that State and Church should be separated. I was speaking to a friend last week who kept insisting that divorce should be brought into the country for the simple reason, if nothing else, that State and Church should be separate. I mused that having a separate Church and State (which we already have and which I agree with) does not remove the obligation from the State of taking moral decisions. This is where the crux of the matter lies. The State has to decide whether to retain the permanence of a marriage promise which strengthens society as a whole, or whether to allow one of a party of two to break that promise on any flimsy excuse, rendering the whole institution of marriage and the promises given therein a vitiated farce. Any problems in a marriage can be dealt with legally without abrogating the permanence of marriage itself. I have already referred to how one could deal with such situations so I will not repeat what I have written earlier.

Returning to the title of this piece, I just want to add that what Christ might have been trying to say is that detracting from one’s obligations to properly constituted authority, such as paying fair taxes, could also be detracting from the obligations due to God as the ultimate authority from which all other proper authority emanates! But even if one were to interpret this piece of the gospel as meaning keeping the things of the State separate from the things of God, one still has to explain that what constitutes moral decision-making and judgement in a State does not become a thing in conjunction with God. God is good but like us, She (to break the mould) does things because they are good in themselves not because She wants them, although what She wants is always absolutely good because of Her very nature. Therefore when the secular State, or any lay individual has to decide between what is good and what is bad, it finds itself very much in line with what God Herself wants if the good is objective. This is particularly so, because of the nature of natural law which is antecedent to our circumstances and therefore has to be taken into consideration in any decision-making. God has created us in Her own image. The good that She wills is also the good we all hope for.

This argument reminds me very much of the argument dealing with the empiricist versus rationalist question. Some things in life such as science subjects constitute a measurable sensory a posteriori input as the source of our ideas. Other things such as mathematics and morality do not need empirical evidence to formulate ideas but depend solely on an a priori rational input. It very much depends on the nature and content of the ‘is’.

It does not need a person with an IQ of 130 to realise that there are problems that could occur in every marriage. The question remains, do we need to dismantle the whole structural set up to cater for the exceptions or particulars that might occur? Can the particulars ever replace the universal model? Can we not legally deal with these particulars on their own merits or does everyone have to swallow the bitter pill of the lower common standard. Do we need an entirely empirical approach to problems that really have to be solved through rational arguments based on natural law a priori? This natural law tells us that fidelity in marriage is one aspect of natural law that renders such a right as absolute before our chosen partners and society. Pursuing positive civil law that is not based on the natural law always leads to a loss of personal fundamental freedoms and never a gain. This question of divorce is not a personal problem but essentially a social one. Among other reasons, the State spends millions of euro on social structures and funding to remove the different states of poverty and spread a safety net in the country. What sense does it make that with one stroke that changes the law, we bring upon ourselves new forms of poverty by bringing in divorce?

Of course, at the end of the day the real problem is that everyone does whatever one wants to do, as one is wont to quote whoever one wants to in whatever manner, as long as the means are justified by the end. The story of man and woman has always been the same!

Michael Asciak MD