Marriage and the sequela Christi. A study of marriage as a «state of perfection» in the light of Henry de Lubac. Theology of nature and grace

The claim that marriage is a path to holiness at first seems striking only for its banality- What Christian after Vatican II would question that this is so? And yet David Crawford in this study uncovers the ambiguity hardbored in such a claim. To be sure, each of the spouses is called to the way of perfection found in the sequela Christi; but is each so called only as an individual, or is the marrigae state as such a way of perfection?Crawford argues that the dominant trends in neither preconciliar nor postconciliar thought enable us consistently to defend an interior relationship between marriage as such and the following of Christ. He finds the key to realizing this interior relationship in Henri de Lubac's theology of "nature and grace."