must be wrong to be so emphatic.
A man who wants his marriage to last is compelled to believe in his own immorta1ity, as well as in the immorta1ity of the relationship he has formed. In other words a belief in one's own immortality is not the culmination of the Christian's life; it is the essential pre-requisite for an ordinary man (Christian and atheist alike) living anything like a normal married life in (inter alia) an industrial society. Not only is it necessary for him to have the consciousness of God; it is also necessary for him to believe in his own immortality. He needs to have the consciousness of God to lead a normal life, and to prevent his consciousness becoming corrupted. He needs to believe in his own immortality to lead a normal married life, and to believe (if he wants to) in the permanence of his marriage relationship. In considering the problem of marriage, namely how a man wants to feel that there is at least one person who regards him, not as a member of a team, but as unique and irreplaceable and upon whose affection he can depend, we stumbled on the idea that love and righteousness are inseparable. Now it appears that for marriage to last, a man must believe in his own immortality. It does not take much imagination to ask whether there could be a connection; and if so, what it is?
The answer is that love and righteousness going hand in hand is the same thing as a combination of the consciousness of God and the consciousness of immortality. Or being slightly more accurate, the expression in action of the belief that love and righteousness go hand in hand is the way that the consciousness of God and the consciousness of immortality together find expression, and so become self-perpetuating and avoid corruption or distortion (which would of course destroy both if it became permanent).