WHY NO WOMEN PREISTS Rev. Ivan Cosby's Paper

Rev. Cosby's PaperCONCEPT

WHY NO WOMEN PRIESTS¹⁾

Reverend I.P.S.G. COSBY

II. HOW WE HAVE GOT TO WHERE WE ARE

1. Hegel’s Formula
The cultural world view of the Bible is founded on the Principle of Absolutes That means ‘Right’ is objectively and inherently different from ‘Wrong.’ We have the biblical statement: So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. [Gen. 1: 27.] Given the Principle of Absolutes it is possible to understand: GOD is not Man. GOD is Creator. Man is a Created-Being, Women are not Men. Such concepts are absolutely distinct and are not interchangeable or to be confused. Expressed algebraically ‘a’ = ‘a,’ ‘b’=’b,’ ‘a’ ≠ ‘b.’

Then, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) conceived The Hegelian Principle of Relativism whereby: Thesis and Antithesis combine to become a Synthesis, which in turn becomes a new Thesis with its corresponding new Antithesis, both of which in turn combine to create a yet more comprehensive Synthesis. It was this formula that enabled the Western Philosophical mind to dispense with the Principle of Absolutes, and to replace it with a ’Principle of ‘Relativism.’ Consequently, it was possible to dismiss perceived differences as being incidental. Differences are now merely differences of degree and of no fundamental significance. It does not prevent one entity functioning in ways that are relative to or interchangeable with another, because there is now no essential difference between one or the other. What One is, the Other is or can be. The differences of role, purpose or function are not fundamental or foundational. Where there are differences, they are relative not absolute.

It is, for example, no longer possible to say that it is appropriate/right for Men to do this, and for Women to do that. In other words, womanhood is no longer sociologically different from manhood. Both entities have become interchangeable. Both are an integral part of the ‘synthesis.’

　During the 18th century, the European world of philosophers and intellectual thinkers conceived a world order to describe which they adopted the propaganda word: ‘Enlightenment.’ Over the next two centuries this ‘enlightened’ civilisation bought into the above Hegelian formula wholesale to the extent it has become arguably the foundational principle of the contemporary Western Secular World and of those cultures that have allowed themselves to come under its influence. Given a civilisation or World Order, based on the Principle of Absolutes it is possible to say that it is wrong for women to be ordained. In a world based on the Principle of Relativism, it is not possible to say that anymore. If one were to, one would be out of kilter with the foundational principles of this ‘enlightened’ world order.

This is the position in which Western Liberal Christendom finds itself in Western Europe and its offshoot on the North American continent. What can be identified as Liberal Christianity has come about because an attempt has been made to adjust Christian values, teaching and principles to conform to the relativist values of the contemporary secular society in which it finds itself in order, it is believed, to remain relevant. It is important to re-iterate that the driving force for women’s ordination is not biblical. If it were, women’s ordination would have been a fait accompli from the Apostolic era, and picked up at the Reformation when Holy Scripture was re-established as the foundational source as to what is the right way to proceed. It is not a question as to whether women are capable of doing what men do and vice versa, or should do merely because they are able to do so. Rather, it is a question of whether they ought, or that it is appropriate that they do certain things. The same applies to men, but in different respects. If this were not so, it would, and does, establish a very dangerous precedent.

Put bluntly, for example, it becomes right for a man to murder someone, simply because he is able to do so. That is a Machiavellian principle propounded during the so called ‘Renaissance.’ It justifies sadism, which not surprisingly is becoming increasingly common place in post-Christian Western Europe and America. The point is not so much that the practice occurs, but that it is justified. The Marquis de Sade argued that it was right to seduce women so long as one was able to do so.

2. Enlightenment: Distortion of Two Biblical Concepts.
The underlying norms of the European Enlightenment can in some respects be understood as being Christian heresy. Two deep rooted Christian biblical concepts have been adopted by WEH but redefined in a humanistic/secular way. The two concepts that are applicable to understanding and justify what is conceived to be the rectitude of the ordination of women to the priesthood are how one understands the two concepts of Freedom and Equality.

As the French Revolution mantra, ‘Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity’ indicates, these concepts are foundational to the humanist religion of the Europeans and their cultural offshoots. Freedom and Equality are for WEH the counterpart of the two foundational Christian Commandments cited by Christ as summing up the whole Law & the Prophets. (Fraternity, it is suggested, is merely wishful thinking inspired by Christ’s Second Commandment to ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’)

The Enlightenment’s re-interpretation of what is meant by Freedom can be traced to the Epicureans, and Equality back to the Stoics. Significantly, St Paul confronted adherents of both these philosophical schools at the Areopagus,⁸) and as subsequent history relates St Paul ultimately won the argument, and the Greek-Roman civilisation became Christian. Understanding the rightness or wrongness of the ordination of women to the priesthood ultimately depends on how one defines what ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ mean.

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Equality
The Christian understanding of ‘equality,’ which conforms to the Principle of Absolutes is that Men and Women are in every respect of equal worth (significance, importance, status) both before GOD and in the roles assigned to each sex. To accomplish what He required of them, GOD created them with different qualities specifically suited for what those requirements were. As children of GOD both sexes are created as being of equal worth, not sameness. There is no such thing as relative status, but there is, as GOD intended, equality of importance, significance and value. Furthermore, as descendants of Fallen Man, the sexes are equally fallen irrespective of sex. On account of the nature or prevalence of specific sins, one sex generally is more susceptible to one kind of sin than another, but there is no hierarchy of sin.

　As can be clearly seen, foundational to Christianity is the equality of Men and Women, however their roles, qualities, and relationship to GOD and to each other are concerned. Expressed algebraically, the Christian concept of the equality of Men and Women can be written as ‘a’ + ‘b’ = ‘a’ + ‘b.’ In no respect is one lesser or greater than the other. The problem is that Humanists have bought into the concept of equality between the sexes, but have redefined what is meant by ‘equality.

’ The secular Humanist understanding of equality between the sexes is not equal worth but what might be called ‘Essential Sameness.’ What differences there are, whether physical or mental, by which means we recognize or distinguish between what is male as opposed to female are incidental. Masculinity vis-a-vis Femininity instead of being inherently a characteristic of the respective sex, is deemed to have been deliberately nurtured for cultural reasons in the respective sexes, but now in our so-called liberated society are interchangeable between the sexes.

If, as is believed, there is no essential difference between the sexes, there is no reason why roles cannot be reversed. To that end contemporary society has invested hugely in educating girls to function as and to do what boys and men do. To date there has been less investment or propaganda pressure (compulsion) in nurturing boys and men to function as girls and women. To justify the principle, there is pressure on husbands to function as mothers in the family. The underlying principle is that whether one is male or female ultimately it has no bearing on what men and women respectively choose, or tend to want to do and be. Put algebraically: a + b = 2a, because ‘b’ is actually the same as ‘a.’
8) 　Acts 17: 16–3

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Freedom:
As with the concept of Equality, Freedom originally is a Biblical concept that can be traced back to the account of the Garden of Eden, and as such is far more ancient than anything the Stoics had to say on the subject. However one understands the antiquity of the first eleven chapter of Genesis, it is a concept in terms of Biblical understanding that goes back to the very creation of Man, or as the Humanist would say to the emergence of Man as an independent thinking being. Again, the problem arises because in the so called ‘Enlightenment,’ the Humanists having dispensed with GOD, and the Principle of Absolutes, have had to re-define what they mean by ‘Freedom.’ The Christian understanding of Freedom is ‘that within the parameters of the Law of GOD Man experiences freedom:

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another...But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. [Gal. 5: 13 ff]

　The humanistic world, on the other hand, has chosen to define freedom to mean ‘The freedom to do what one likes’ This actually is not freedom but ‘whim.’ The reader may recall the avant-garde musical ‘Hair’ in the mid 1960s, which makes this very point. The dramatic high point of the musical was when the heroine gave the hero, her partner (they were not married as that would have been bourgeois and a curtailment of their freedom) a yellow shirt. Her partner, to the great distress of the girl, immediately tore up the shirt and put it in the wastepaper basket. When the distraught girl asked why her lover had done that to her carefully chosen present he replied, “I do not like yellow!”

　As with the humanist concept of Equality, if the rectitude of the humanist concept of freedom is to be believed, namely the right to be and do what one wants, there is no case to be made against women being priests, particularly if they are capable of aping the role. The point is that it is a reality, not a fiction. In one case, it is a man exercising a manly role. On the other, it is a woman exercising and functioning as a man. That this is so, has given rise to a verbal distinction being made between Woman Priest and Priestess. To make the point, the dress of so-called women priests is kept precisely the same as that of the men’s vestments. To do otherwise would give rise to the notion that a woman priest is somehow different from a man priest. It is logical that the dress for women should reflect their womanhood, as it does elsewhere in life. Just as water always finds its own level, so will womanhood in due course manifest itself in the functioning of the priestly role, rendering the term ‘woman priest’ anachronistic, and rendering the term ‘priestess’ a more accurate description of the office