An Important New Book on Women's Ordination

One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life. 

                                     

In the debate over the ordination of women, the battle in ostensibly conservative ranks has been argued on two levels, exegetical and theological.   Evangelicals have tended to focus on the former,  with "complementarians" defending the traditional view and "egalitarians" arguing for the novel practice of ordaining women to pastoral leadership, while Catholics (Roman, Orthodox and Anglo) have tended to focus more on theological, and specifically ecclesiological/liturgiological considerations.  My friend William Witt, an Anglican theologian and professor at Trinity School for Ministry, has been working on a defense of the innovation based on both theological and exegetical considerations. 

Both sides would agree that the created order, and specifically the role of men and women in society, the household, and the church, reflects certain truths about the Triune Godhead and the relationship between Christ and the Church.  The argument is essentially that if you have wrong ideas about the Trinity and Christ, you're going to have the wrong ideas about the relationship of men and women in society, the household and the church.  And, vice versa, if you hold wrong ideas about the relationship of men and women in society, the household and the church, this will adversely impact your orthodoxy in the areas of triadology and christology.

Concerning the former, the question is whether the divine ontology is "egalitarian" or in some sense "complementarian."  Both sides say they embrace orthodox trinitarianism, and therefore the consubstantiality and full divinity of the three Persons.  The argument is whether or not there is an eternal, functional subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father.  This issue is not to be confused with ontological subordinationism, which both sides would agree is a heresy. 

I mentioned above how our view of the role of men and women in society, household and church can impact our view of the Godhead.   Egalitarians, being egalitarians,  accordingly tend to NOT want to find ANY kind of complementarianism or subordinationism in the Holy Trinity and will stress that each person of the Godhead is autotheos, an orthodox term that stresses the consubstantiality and full divinity of the three Persons -  or, their "equality" if you will.  On the consubstantiality and full divinity of the three Persons we can agree.  The issue is how we are to avoid the heresy of polytheism, and, if we're Evangelical egalitarians who accept the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, what we do with the doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father and the eternal procession or "spiration" of the Spirit from the Father (and the Son, if we're Westerners).  And this is where it gets tricky.

As near as I can tell, it was the Evangelical egalitarian theologian Gilbert Bilezikian, author of Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says about a Woman's Place in Church and Family, who first set forth the argument that any claim to base a complementarian view of the role of women in household and church on the nature of the Holy Trinity is to have embraced the old heresy of subordinationism.  That argument, however, was powerfully countered by an article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society entitled, A Defense of the Doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son, by Stephen D. Kovach and Peter R. Schemm, Jr.  The authors argue that, in fact, the orthodox triadology defended by St. Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and other Church Fathers, which theology is reflected in the wording of the Creed, entails an eternal and functional subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father, but not an ontological one, and that this understanding shows up in a number of places in Holy Scripture, both with respect to the relationship between the Father and Son, and the relationship between man and woman.  In order words, orthodox triadology is "complementarian", not "egalitarian".  I urge everyone to read the Kovach/Schemm JETS article linked above.

And then, having read that, I urge everyone to purchase One God in Three Persons, which fleshes out in a number of articles the thesis of the Kovach Schemm article.  I was alerted to this book by an egalitarian friend who posted a reference to it on his Facebook page and made a comment there to the effect of, "See, here's proof positive that the complementarians are heretics as to their view of the Trinity."  But it isn't so.  The view of functional subordinationism defended by Kovach, Schemm and the contributors to this volume are merely setting forth the orthodox view of the Trinity.  And if it is true that Kovach et al. are defending the orthodox view of the Trinity , a certain conclusion about the egalitarian view follows from that, one that applies to Anglican defenders of women's ordination to the priesthood, if in fact they utilize the arguments of Bilezekian et al. 

A detailed (though not unbiased) review can be read here.