Comments on: My Latest Attempt To Become a Complementarian

By: o.h.

o.h. — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:33:28 +0000

Curtis,
Sorry for the very late response (I lost track of this thread) but, yes, agreed; you’re right, ‘epistemic’ seems the clearer term here.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:14:40 +0000

o.h., regarding RC priestesses:
I think you’re referring to the theory that women are invalid matter for the sacrament, in the same way that barley flour would be invalid matter for the host. I did not mean to endorse this theory, which is just one theory among many. I also find none of them entirely convincing.

The ontological (or perhaps more accuarately, epistemic) dilemma I was referring to is the existence of the priestly character conferred at the sacrament of ordination. This is what any honest Catholic cannot know with certainty. Certainty comes from the unanimous testimony of Scripture and Tradition, confirmed by the Magisterium, all of which is lacking in this case. Agreed?

By: Jeremiah Lawson

Jeremiah Lawson — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:57:07 +0000

I don’t think any complementarian would see anything in Ecclesiastes 7:27-29 except a poetic statement of “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That is really all you can say about it, given Koholeth’s propensity to pit proverb against proverb and test the limits of the wisdom tradition. Fixating on Hebrew words misses the point of the poetic and rhetorical structure of Ecclesiastes, John. Obviously neither complementarians nor egalitarians are going to get much mileage out of a book that so resolutely defies the glib answers both sides seem to like so much.

By: john

john — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:28:55 +0000

It is definitely unclear to me where the Bible ever calls a woman with the term used in Ecclesiastes 7:29. I probably tossed out my only Hebrew lexicon and even so I am not sure it would have had an exhaustive entry for yshr “upright”–which doesn’t actually occur in verse 28 (but does in verse 29 according to my good ole BHS) but is apparently inferred somehow by NIV.

This brings me to a point: if complementarians rely on a secret rulebook of interpretations, egalitarians seem to counter-rely on unchallengable dictates of common sense.

What is the point of useless exegesis?

By: Jeremiah Lawson

Jeremiah Lawson — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:13:10 +0000

I have met a few too many bitter single dudes who put all the emphasis on v 28 and not on v 29. Of course bitter single complementarian Reformed males are, I hope, a highly skewed sample of what a complementaarian take on Ecclesiastes 7:27 is!

Ditto Wordgazer. Solomon’s first wife mentioned in Kings was an Egyptian, which suggests that on marriage he started out bad with respect to foreign women and went downhill over time, some of the more fanciful theories about Shunamites withstanding.

By: KR Wordgazer

KR Wordgazer — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:56:13 +0000

Ecclesiastes is a book about the observations of one man about what he has seen in life. Since the author is presumed to be Solomon, who had 1000 wives and concubines who led him to worship idols– I would conjecture that his experiences with them led to his observation.

But an observation is not the same as a statement of truth. There are many upright women in the Bible.

By: john

john — Sun, 03 May 2009 08:34:08 +0000

Can anyone point out what the complementarian theory is (*not what they think it would be) for Ecclesiastes 7:27 etc. (NIV here)

“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered:
“Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things-

28 while I was still searching
but not finding—
I found one upright man among a thousand,
but not one upright woman among them all.

29 This only have I found:
God made mankind upright,
but men have gone in search of many schemes.”

I am more interested in knowing because I am curious about Ecclesiastes, but perhaps it also carries some weight on the matter.

By: bonnie

bonnie — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:18:09 +0000

EricW, I understand what you’re saying. I probably tried to say too much in too few words. If I am understanding Romans 5 correctly, it is an argument of how the act of one person, Christ, could atone for many. I think I probably agree with you that he uses Adam the individual to compare. I just think it’s Adam in his capacity as the first human and not in his capacity as the first male. I think some people are bound to have a narrow view of Adam if they can only see him as the first male. Realizing that God made a human in two sexes and called them Adam helps expand the thinking of those who see the first female only as Eve (the name by which she was referred to only after the Fall) and not as an integral part of God’s creation of man (Genesis 1:27).
Anyway, where Romans 5:18 says “even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life,” I’m banking on it that “men” refers to me too even though I’m a woman.

By: EricW

EricW — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:54:49 +0000

A possible objection to that, bonnie, is that Paul in Romans 5 specifically refers to the “one” man, not man in general or mankind/Adam as the couple Adam & Eve, and uses that to contrast the one sin of the one man Adam with the one act of righteousness of the one man Jesus Christ. I.e., he’s talking about a single act by a single individual that affected “all” or “the many.” He says Adam was a “type” of the one man Jesus Christ who was to come.

By: bonnie

bonnie — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:43:21 +0000

Just another point about sin coming through the first man Adam: Genesis 5:2 says that God called the male and female humans that He had created “Adam” (“called their name Adam”). Jack Hayford described it as a sort of Mr. and Mrs. Adam. After the Fall, Adam (the male part) calls his wife “Eve,” the mother of all living.

So, I read Romans 5 as depicting how sin came through the first human (not specifically the first male) and how salvation came through Christ.