Catholic & Single Can a computer do the matchmaking?

Sep 1, 2010

It’s a crazy age we live in, isn’t it? We probably don’t give much thought to just how strange our ways would seem to people from ages past. This holds particularly true when it comes to dating and getting married.

In ages past, many cultures had arranged marriage. The concept of choosing your own spouse would be a strange one. But then again, so was the concept of divorce. With the freedom to choose your spouse comes the risk of making an unwise choice. So how does one make a wise choice in this day and age of choosing your own spouse? How does one keep from staying off the divorce trend that has been with our modern culture for many decades?

Well, since it seems people aren’t doing that great of a job, how about a computer doing the matching? Maybe that’s the answer. Every online dating website has a matching feature that takes things you have answered on your profile and matches you with other members who have answered similarly.

How about a site like eHarmony? They go one further and only send you profiles of people the computer determines are a good match for you. When you join that site, you fill out the profile that determines your "37 points of compatibility" with another member. 37 points! Can you imagine? These 37 points give the computer all it needs to determine exactly who is right for you. So you never get to browse other members and make a decision to write to anyone. You can only write to those the computer selects for you.

A computer doing the work of filtering out people and presenting whom it determines (notice I did not say "thinks") are the people you can fall in love with seems strange, doesn’t it? I think it does. How a person falls in love with another person is a mystery.

As a founder of an online dating service, I myself have always admitted that this is a pretty unnatural way to meet a person who will become your future spouse. But I also recognize that God can use computers and the Internet as a vehicle to bring two people into contact who will make the commitment to marriage. I have always keep my online service in such a way that was as respectful as possible to the natural ways that God works to bring two people together.

eHarmony approached me early on when both our sites were just starting to discuss how they could work with us on a Catholic version of their service. As I learned more about how their service worked, I knew it was not going to work out. They asked why not. I said, "Because I believe in grace."

The grace of God can actually work on a person to change them. I could not subscribe to their concept of taking a person’s past and applying it to the parameters the computer uses to match people. I believe a person should be allowed to be different from their past, and to leave that past behind. I believe in the concept of conversion; that God’s grace can help a person become renewed, while remaining the same person.

The problem I had the most was the boldness of the concept. I believe online dating websites should not presume to know who someone should consider. No website knows any person’s capacity for marriage (meaning their ability to make the free will consent required at the time of the marriage) and their ability to live it.

A person must be capable of making the commitment for the marriage to take place. This is much more important than points of compatibility. Just because two people agree on things does not prove they are capable of living those beliefs.

A reason why there are so many divorces is not because the couple failed to become compatible. The divorce happens because one or both could not live up to the essence of what marriage is. The essence of marriage is NOT compatibility.

A break down of the Catechism’s reference of the code of Canon Law about the essentials to a sacramental marriage reveals an emphasis on "covenant," not compatibility. A covenant is defined as a contract, a pledge, a promise, an agreement.

Here is what the Code of Canon Law states and the Catechism of the Catholic Church includes:

"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring" (CCC, 1601)

There is nothing here about compatibility. The man and woman establish a partnership. The agreement of that partnership is about the "ends" of marriage and the "goods" of marriage. The "ends" of marriage: the mutual good of the spouses and procreation. The "goods" of marriage: fidelity, permanence, and being open to life.

So there is first and foremost a partnership that establishes the covenant. This makes sense Scripturally, which speaks of man finding a "suitable partner." Not a very romantic term, is it? No one says, "I am hoping to find my suitable partner." Find a soulmate sounds more romantic. I wonder how I would do if I started a website called "SuitablePartner.com." I could have the 37 points of covenant capacity. Exciting? Maybe not. But necessary? Yes, very much so. But I digress.

A suitable partner is one who is capable of executing the goods and the ends of marriage, as, God willing, you are. Having the qualities that make a woman a good wife and mother, and a man a good husband and father. These are the things that will honor the sacred institution of marriage. People are too caught up in themselves, and they do not think much of nor respect the covenantal nature of marriage, and prepare for at the personal level.

Next is what maybe we can call "The 5 Points of Covenantability":

The two ends of marriage are the mutual good of the spouses and the procreation of children. You have to willing to serve the other with self-sacrificial love, and from that love, along with God as co-creators, generate new life.

The three goods of marriage are fidelity, permanence and being open to life. Fidelity means a commitment to this one, forsaking all others. Permanence means you promise to be with this person for the rest of your natural life. And being open to life means you will not block the possibility of children as you use the sexual gifts God has bestowed.

Mutual good, procreation, fidelity, permanence, being open to life. These are the essence of marital love. Notice how each and every one of them have to do what a person commits to doing, not what makes up the person. You have "do" these things. To do them, you have to be willing. To be able to do and will them, you have be capable of them.

A computer cannot determine the mind and the motives of a person. It cannot predict the actions a person will take toward another. It cannot help with the essence of marital love.

Love is too much of a mystery to be categorized and calculated. And people are too unique and complex as individuals to be boxed into a formula or compiled into statistics. There will always be couples who don’t fit the criteria or fall outside the norm, and live a faithful marriage just fine.

I am all for using computers to help us come into contact with people. But it would be a mistake to pass over people who come into your life because a computer told you they are not compatible with you, or because they do not fit your pre-conceived criteria list. The mystery of love requires more respect than that. God is the author of love because He IS love. May we all be open to whomever God puts in our path, and be pleasantly surprised by the person we might have never thought would be someone we would have been happily in love with.

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