God-appoints difficult providences for all who are in union with Christ, but we must expect God’s grace to be sufficient for all his people to keep the marriage vow of “for better or for worse” unless one of the two exception clauses can be met (adultery or willful desertion). Elders are to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. They are to love their flock according to understanding, which means they are to encourage the sheep under their care in the life of the cross to which we all are appointed. Elders must come along suffering spouses – labor with them indeed, yet censure those who willfully desert their spouses or pursue unbiblical divorce with a high-hand.

We synthesize particular biblical principles in order to compose theology that is biblical, practical and compassionate.
Under the gospel of Christ there exist two permissible reasons for divorce: adultery and willful desertion. (Matt.19:8,9; 1 Cor. 7:15)
Elders often have to judge whether certain acts of the flesh constitute adultery. Elders also have to decide whether certain patterns of life constitute willful desertion. This entry is concerned with the latter provision for dissolving the marriage contract, along with proper ecclesiastical oversight regarding the willful desertion provision.
Whenever a believer is loosed from the marriage bonds due to an unbeliever’s willful desertion, the believer is free to remarry even though the guilty party is beyond the pale of ecclesiastical censure by already being an unbeliever. (1 Corinthians 7:15)
In cases where both parties are regarded as believers, the only provision for divorce and remarriage is adultery. Mathew 5:32 enforces the point by teaching that if one divorces his wife for any reason other than fornication, the husband in such cases causes his wife to commit adultery. Furthermore, even the innocent woman’s future husband commits adultery by marrying her. In other words, under such circumstances not only is the husband culpable for his wife’s sin of adultery; the innocent spouse is not permitted to remarry, lest she commits adultery along with her future husband. Notwithstanding, there is good and affable news for the innocent spouse, if only sessions would do their job.
One may not divorce or remarry under the willful desertion clause as long as both parties are to be regarded as Christians by the church. Yet, if a professing Christian willfully deserts his spouse without cause in the face of Matthew 18 confrontation – then the deserting spouse should be declared an unbeliever. In such cases, the grounds for divorce would not be unbelief but rather willful desertion accompanied by ecclesiastical censure and unbelief. (1 Cor. 7:15). In other words, a believer may not divorce his spouse solely for the sin of unbelief since Scripture requires a believer to dwell with his unbelieving spouse as long as she desires to remain married. (1 Cor. 7:12-13). Nor may a believer divorce and remarry if deserted by a believer (i.e., one in good standing in the church). Rather, (aside from cases of adultery), a believer may only divorce and remarry if deserted by an unbeliever. The theological takeaway is that both conditions of (a) willful desertion and (b) status of unbeliever must be met for there to be biblical divorce and remarriage under the desertion clause.
Pervasive problem in the church:
It has become increasingly prevalent in the Reformed church today to condone divorce between professing Christians for emotional abandonment, in particularly verbal abuse. (This article does not address biblical fenceposts for such thinking. It recognizes there is biblical latitude and seeks to synthesize biblical principles in order to provide a coherent theological paradigm from which sessions might operate.)
When it is deemed by the courts of the church that a pattern of spousal abuse is tantamount to willful desertion, the guilty party should be censured to the utmost degree yielding a status of unbeliever. Only at which point may a professing believer be loosed from the marriage because now an unbeliever has departed. (Please internalize that point before reading further.)
Unfortunately, that is not what we always see, even within churches that practice discipline. Instead, we too often find an unbiblical accommodation for the offended party (assume the wife hereafter) who has suffered under emotional turmoil, which ironically can turn into a situation in which she deserts her husband without cause. (More on that later.)
We also observe instances in which the wife is not granted the ecclesiastical backing of the church that would rightly vindicate her and pave the way for a biblical release from the bonds of marriage.
In other words, one of two unbiblical accounts too often occurs. Either the suffering wife is granted at least tacit approval for divorce, yet without it having been deemed that her husband sinned enough to be excommunicated. Or else, approval for divorce is granted without her guilty husband having been excommunicated. In the first instance the abused wife is denied both the testing and privilege of sanctifying suffering; whereas under the second scenario the innocent wife is denied the peace the church was to have aided her in obtaining by ministering and declaring in Christ’s name that her unbelieving husband had willfully deserted her, and she is now loosed from the marriage.
No husband is to be considered having willfully deserted his wife to the degree in which his spouse may be loosed until there is such “willful desertion as can in no way be remedied by the Church, or civil magistrate” (WCF 24.6) In other words, whether willful desertion comes in the form of emotional or physical abandonment, a valid certificate of divorce presupposes the dissuasion of ecclesiastical and civil authorities has come to naught. Consequently, willful desertion that is sufficient for biblical divorce presupposes that one has already been officially declared outside the church, for how is it possible that one within the church – a Christian(!), can be beyond remedy?
In summary, it stands to reason that if the husband may not be constituted an unbeliever, then he has not yet willfully deserted his wife – in which case the wife has no biblical grounds for divorce. Yet if the wife has biblical grounds for divorce, then her unbelieving spouse has deserted her.
Excursus:
It is conceivable that if a spouse commits adultery and later repents, it can be biblically consistent for the innocent party to “sue out” divorce without an accompanying pronouncement of unbelief upon the spouse. The reason being, adultery is sufficient to file for biblical divorce, and repentance is sufficient to regain one’s standing in the church. Accordingly, one can truly repent prior to being excommunicated; yet notwithstanding the transgression allows the innocent party to sue out divorce “as if the offending party was dead.” (WCF 24.5)
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The fallout of the French Revolution would prove that Pascal’s arguments about God…and his observations about the human condition, were right….Even today, Pascal’s writing has lost none of its fire, nor has the fruits of his intellect, passion, and eloquence dedicated to God diminished.

On August 19, 1662, French philosopher, mathematician, and apologist Blaise Pascal died at just 39 years old. Despite his shortened life, Pascal is renowned for pioneering work in geometry, physics, and probability theory, and even for inventing the first mechanical calculator. His most powerful legacy, however, is his Pensées, or thoughts, about life’s biggest questions, including God and the human condition.
Pascal’s intellect garnered attention at an early age. At 16, he produced an essay on the geometry of cones so impressive that René Descartes initially refused to believe that a “sixteen-year-old child” could have written it. Later, Pascal advanced the study of vacuums and, essentially, invented probability theory.
His life radically changed the evening of November 23, 1654, when Pascal experienced God’s presence in a powerful way. He immediately and radically reoriented his life and thinking toward God. He described the experience on a scrap of parchment that he sewed into his jacket and carried with him the rest of his life:
FIRE—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certitude, certitude. Heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and thy God. Thy God shall be my God. 
From that moment, Pascal dedicated his life to serving God through his writing. His ideas on apologetics were collected and published after his death in a volume entitled, Pensées, or “Thoughts.”
Best known of his ideas is “Pascal’s Wager.” Facing uncertainty in a game of life with such high stakes, he argued, it makes far more sense to believe in God’s existence than to not: “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
Pascal also offered keen diagnoses of the human condition, such as this:
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To battle the spirit of selfism, individuals must repent of their pride-filled selves. The apostle Peter exhorts that it is high time to “humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Pet. 5:6). Only those individuals truly “under God” (His governance) as saved by and submitted to Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit can embrace a complete identity built on the gospel of His grace (Matt. 7:24–25; John 3:3–6).

The Emergence of Autonomous Man
The worldview of human beings is ultimately built on one of two foundations: either man’s word or God’s Word. Christians understand there is no other true foundation than Jesus Christ and the importance of building spiritual fruit by His grace (1 Cor. 3:11–15). Yet, by cultivating the self-exalting ideas of mankind apart from God’s authority, the “autonomous man” emerges, naturally desiring to become an authority unto himself. As the definition goes, the autonomous man believes and attempts to demonstrate that he can govern himself without acknowledging the Creator God. Instead, his worldview becomes one of selfism, fueled by postmodern thinking, and affecting his personal and public spheres of influence. As individuals look to the subjective self for answers to issues of morality, identity (including race, gender, and sexual orientation), and politics, the biblical God and Holy Scriptures are suppressed as the true means of objective, ultimate authority. This essay will examine the tyranny of selfism and how the so-called autonomous man cannot save himself. Rather, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ and His selfless demonstration of love that saves sinners.
Selfism and the Real Me
To further understand selfism, twentieth-century apologist Cornelius Van Til rightly highlighted the heart behind the notion of “fallen man.” He wrote, “[T]hrough the fall of Adam man has set aside the law of his Creator and therewith has become a law to himself.”[1] Van Til’s reasoning for man’s pursuit of self-governance included his “carnal mind” leading to death, whereby the spiritually minded man experiences life and peace (Rom. 8:6). Theologian and professor Carl Trueman helpfully defines the self as “expressive individualism,” or the “deeper notion of where the ‘real me’ is to be found, how that shapes my view of life, and in what the fulfillment or happiness of that ‘real me’ consists.”[2]  To extend the connection to the level of autonomy, Trueman continues, “The modern self assumes the authority of inner feelings and sees authenticity as defined by the ability to give social expression to the same.”[3]  
Restated simply, selfism believes that as long as an individual’s behavior on theoutside is consistent with the individual’s feelings on the inside, then that individual is therefore an authentic person, demonstrating self-governance. However, allowing emotions to lead an individual’s behavior at the expense of truth’s anchor marks the beginnings of all types of sabotage, as Joe Rigney has brilliantly written in his discerning book on leadership.[4] Historically, selfism was arguably the fuel that sparked the sexual revolution, which has accelerated since the 1960’s counter-cultural revolution, or what Os Guinness has rightly termed “optimistic humanism.”[5]  The chain reaction from selfism’s lie of “making a lifestyle choice” has curved in upon itself, causing tyranny to rule man’s identity—an identity idolized and affirmed through sexual desire. Selfism tyrannizes identity and biblical sexuality.
The subjective nature of pursuing personal autonomy for definitive answers about identity sharply conflicts with the authority of God’s Word. In Jeremiah 17:9, the LORD God says, “The heart is deceitful about all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” This passage indicates that individuals cannot discern their own internal motives. External sources of objective authority are necessary, namely, God’s Word (Ps. 119:105) and His Spirit (Rom. 8:27). So then, if we cannot trust our motives, how can we govern them?
Selfism’s Tyranny on Culture
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor offered an insightful analysis of the modern secular age and the culture of emotion-based authenticity. He saw it as the normative modern conception of selfism in the West, where individuals realize their humanity on the “inside” rather than surrendering it to some “outside” source (society, tradition, religion, etc.). He wrote, “Each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and . . . it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from the outside.”[6]
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