In its
intrinsic supernatural reality, marriage includes three goods: the good of exclusive, personal, reciprocal fidelity (the bonum fidei), the good of welcoming children and educating them to know God (the bonum prolis), and the good of the indissolubility or indestructibility of the bond, the permanent foundation of which is the indissoluble union of Christ and the Church, which is sacramentally represented by the marriage (the bonum sacramenti).
In the past there has been no real need to show that God - talk is meaningful, for belief in some kind
of supernatural reality was then a common premise that could be taken for granted.
And O'Connor believed, like all Christians, that
this supernatural reality is ultimately a mystery that we can not explain but nevertheless resides at the center of our existence.
Onlookers from the West can seem strangely insulated from
the supernatural reality that informs the lives of many people globally.
Many of today's most popular films, fiction, and television shows deal with superhuman powers,
supernatural realities, and spiritual themes.
I would be willing to be patient and pray that theists will have
the supernatural reality of God and truth revealed in love, grace and mercy... before it is too late for their eternal calling.
While acknowledging that much of the depiction of the devil and his activity in the New Testament is in the form of myth or picture language, we can not deny
the supernatural reality which is the focus of the myth.
9 This «new world» of grace permits man to peer into the «infinite realms of the divinity» so as to envision and participate in the renewal of culture, which is no longer aligned to secular standards, and he is able to transcend into
the supernatural Reality, a gift of sacramental grace.
The sacramental life offers an entry into
the supernatural reality which assists in forming the imagination.
It is, in fact,
this supernatural reality that fully explains human nature, fully develops itsfaculties of intellect and will.
The supernatural reality could be one of God, or of ideas, or of religion, or of metaphysics — and it is this ideal reality which was rejected by Marx.
However, in other places Balthasar used «hope» in a very different, much stronger sense, akin to theological hope; in these instances the word was used to denote
a supernatural reality which assures us that, even if human beings appear to reject God, he will nevertheless find a way to save them in the end (even in Hell).
Augustine also identifies a third good, permanence: Marriage is a natural sign pointing toward
a supernatural reality.
Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or
supernatural reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or nirvana.