A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

A theological argument for women’s ordination

I’ve never really taken much interest in debates about women’s ordination – it’s always seemed to me to be a bit of a non-issue. I realize there are ecumenical matters at stake, but in sheer theological terms it’s not something I’ve ever particularly wrestled with. I’ve been a member of churches with women pastors and it never once occurred to me that the sacraments were “invalid” when dispensed from their hands.

However, critics of women’s ordination sometimes argue that it is a “foreign” importation from feminism or liberal rights theory and not properly grounded in theology. Now, leaving aside whether it might sometimes be proper for secular knowledge to impact theology, I think there are specifically theological reasons that can also be adduced.

From a specifically Protestant (and Lutheran) point of view, I think one argument might proceed like this: the Gospel (which includes Word and Sacrament) is God’s unconditional gift and depends for its efficacy entirely upon God’s grace and promise. To say that God’s gifts can be “held hostage” to human conditions, such as the “matter” of the priest, would be to infringe upon God’s gracious sovereignty. But the Gospel can only depend on God’s promise and thus its proclamation can’t be limited to a particular class of people.

I think this goes to the heart of the Reformation protest against medieval Catholicism. The problem, which was vividly illustrated by the indulgences controversy, was that God’s grace was seen to be beholden to a set of conditions that must be met before it could be “dispensed.” Reform thus can be seen as the process of making sure that the church doesn’t act to obstruct the proclamation of God’s free grace in Word and Sacrament.

I’m not sure if the argument for women’s ordination has been set out in just these terms, but it strikes me as consonant with the key Reformation insights. Of course, our Catholic friends will take issue with some of the premises, but I don’t think it depends on any illegitimate “secular” imports.

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10 responses to “A theological argument for women’s ordination”

  1. Jack Perry

    But the Gospel can only depend on God’s promise and thus its proclamation can’t be limited to a particular class of people.

    Actually, the Catholic Church agrees with that. It’s the reductionism of the priesthood to mere proclamation of the word that’s a problem. Even if you don’t go that far, there’s quite a bit more to priesthood than proclamation of the word and dispensation of the sacrament, which is why women are, at present, allowed to do this even in the Catholic Church, and also in the Orthodox Churches, although in the Orthodoxc Churches they cannot do so in liturgical situations.

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  2. Lee

    Jack, thanks for the comment. When you say “do this” are you referring to proclamation? Or distributing (but not presiding over) the sacraments?

    I would also want to resist the idea that talking about proclamation is reductionistic. I guess what I mean is that the proclamation in Word and sacrament is the focal practice of a priest, but a priest’s role is not limited to that. And I would also want to resist any bifurcation between Word and Sacrament that you get sometimes. The sacraments just are proclamation of the gospel under a tangible and physical form. But this doesn’t mean a “lower” view of the sacraments, but a “higher” view of the Word – Christ is present in the proclamation of his gospel just as in the breaking of the bread.

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  3. Jack Perry

    “Do this”: distribute the sacraments. In Catholic churches, women distribute communion, for example. Under certain circumstances they may preach, although they may not preach “a homily”, as that is the proper role of an ordained minister. Certainly women may baptze children in emergencies, although the proper form (again) is for an ordained minister to do so. Finally, in marriage it is the husband and wife who dispense the sacrament to each other.

    I resist the notion that sacraments are a proclamation of the gospel. I do think it is a lower view of the sacraments, in that it reduces the sacraments from what they truly are. The proclamation of the gospel and the life of the sacraments are different aspects of Christianity, but neither is a subset of the other. They may have much in common (such as the presence of Christ, albeit in different ways) but they are not the same.

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  4. Joshie

    So, jack, when we take the eucharist we are not proclaiming christ’s death until he returns?

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  5. Jack Perry

    What part of “much in common” do you not understand?

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  6. Joshie

    Well it just seems to me that the phrase “When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory” goes beyond simply having “much in common” with the proclaimation of the word.

    That phrase clearly shows the eucharist is a form of procaimation, don’t you agree? Or do you still resist the notion that sacraments are a proclamation of the gospel?

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  7. Lee

    I think I should’ve been clearer about what I meant by “proclamation.” I do tend to think of it as something very much like “giving Jesus to people” in a strong sense, which is why I’m inclined to see Word and Sacrament as so closely entwined. In fact, I think one of the reasons that Protestantism reduced the sacraments from 7 to the two “dominical” ones is precisely their connection with proclaiming the gospel.

    So, I wonder if this reflects an underlying difference in Protestant and Catholic sacramental theology: that for Catholics “sacrament” has a kind of broader meaning not as closely identified with the work of Christ?

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  8. Christopher

    Ah, the classic difference between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism. It gets back to metaphysics. As Daphne Hamson once wrote, Lutherans can often understand Roman Catholics they simply disagree, but Roman Catholics–particularly this Word orientation and lack of metaphysics, cannot understand Lutherans.

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  9. Lee

    Well, as someone who came to Christianity after having absorbed a lot of metaphysics, I frequently have a hard time understanding Lutherans! 🙂

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  10. Christopher

    Jack, in Lutheran understanding, Jesus is the gospel and is present in the word proclaimed both in reading/preaching and in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (where he feeds us himself). Lutherans and Roman Catholics share strong understandings of Jesus’ Real Presence, but Roman Catholics focus on the location of Jesus in the bread and wine, Lutherans focus on Jesus making himself available to them in the eating and drinking. The do this for Lutherans is the eating and drinking ultimately and it is here that the remembrance for Lutherans occurs. In this sense, one can speak of the Lord’s Supper as Testament, because it gives what the words say its gives. Another difference is that for Lutherans it is God’s word (and in that we can take him at his word–promise) that make Jesus available in the sacraments; for Roman Catholics it is by a properly ordained priest and the work of the Holy Spirit using the propoer rite. The Lutheran emphasis on divine initiative to square all doctrine requires this difference and Lee is correct that this difference shifts to the priest/pastor being set aside to proclaim the gospel in the sense noted above, which isn’t about typology or identification with Christ as in the Roman Catholic in persona Christi doctrine.

    Lee, this is precisely why the reduction to 2 Dominical sacraments.

    But on sacramental theology, differences are indeed profound in what underlies them and much of it has to do with metaphysics or not.

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