January 3, 2026

I Get Mail: An Egalitarian Ontology of Women and Men

Filed under: Theodicy,Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:15 am

Christ in the House of Martha and MaryI received an email recently that asked for clarification in light of a concern that regularly appears in complementarian criticisms of egalitarian theology — that egalitarianism presumes that there simply are no differences whatsoever between men and women. Behind this also lurks another unspoken (but sometimes spoken) criticism — that egalitarian theology inevitably leads to various kinds of sexual anarchy and licentiousness. (I don’t suggest that the writer harbors this assumption.)

The email’s title was: 

“Looking for ontological exploration of men and woman from an egalitarian worldview”

“Most of the books I have read state that Egalitarians do not believe that men and women are exactly the same, but I haven’t found a book yet that offers any theories or descriptions of the categories of men and women from a mutualist/egalitarian perspective. I haven’t yet found an egalitarian that explores the difference (traits, purposes within those traits distinct between the two) in light of equality.”

“I was wondering if you had any writing on the subject or any guidance on where I might find such an exploration.”

Mxxxxx,

I have not been able to spend much time on these issues for the last year or so as I have been working on other things. I need to get back to addressing some of these questions.

Since your subject title concerns ontology, I would refer you to chapter 14 and the conclusion of Icons of Christ (Baylor University Press, 2020) where I lean on Roman Catholic philosopher Norris Clarke’s trinitarian ontology, Karl Barth’s relational understanding of sexuality, and on Dorothy L. Sayers’s essay “Are Women Human?”

Crucial to Clarke’s position is (as he titles an essay) “To Be Is To Be Substance-in-Relation,” in Explorations in Metaphysics (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). Also see his Person and Being (Marquette University Press, 1998), which I cite in ch. 14.

According to Clarke, every being has both an itself dimension (substance) and a toward other dimension (relation). For human beings, substance is tied both to rationality and embodiment – Aristotle: “the human being is a rational animal” – and it is this element of rationality on which Boethius focused in his definition of personhood – “an individual substance of a rational nature.” However, one of the great contributions of patristic christology and trinitarian theology is that it is crucial to distinguish person and nature – something lacking in Boethius’s definition.

Drawing on Trinitarian theology, all persons have a rational nature (Boethius) but to be a person simply is to be in relational orientation to other persons. In the Trinity, the Father simply is the one who generates the Son and who with the Son brings forth the Spirit through procession. The Son simply is the person who is generated by the Father and who with the Father gives being to the Spirit, and the Spirit simply is the person who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Applied to humanity, in the realm of substance or essence, there can be no ontological difference whatsoever between men and women as it is the common essence of rational embodiment that makes human beings human. If there were any ontological difference of essence/nature/substance as far as humanity, men and women would each be a distinct species, and the Word would have to have become incarnate twice (once as a male and once as a female) in order to redeem humanity. The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation is not that the Word assumed a male human nature but that the Word assumed a human nature common to men and women; however the manner in which the incarnate Word exists as human is as the male Jesus of Nazareth.

As with the Trinity, I would suggest that the fundamental ontological distinction between men and women exists at the level of relation, not substance (or essence). To be a human being means to share in the common rational equality that is essential to human nature, but to be a male human being is to exist as relationally oriented to the female, and to be a female human being is to exist as relationally oriented toward the male. To be a human being means to exist either as a male or as  a female and to exist in equal partnership in relation to the other.

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December 24, 2025

Can We Trust the Bible?

Filed under: Scripture,Theology — William Witt @ 9:43 pm

Systematic Theology: Chapter Three (Appendix)

The Road to Emmaus

Perhaps the most heated point of controversy concerning the Bible in contemporary culture concerns whether we can trust the Bible. In previous generations, even those who never read the Bible commonly referred to it as the “Good Book.” In contemporary culture, more and more people view the Bible as an “evil book” because they view the God of the Bible as an oppressive threat – a bully who is fundamentally opposed to human flourishing. The crucial disagreement concerns the divide between a hermeneutic of continuity and a hermeneutic of discontinuity, and a divide between a hermeneutic of trust and a hermeneutic of suspicion.

The trustworthiness of Scripture has been challenged at all three levels of knowing and being. The Christian story and symbols have been challenged as either incoherent or as hostile to human flourishing. The historical witness of Scripture has been challenged as fundamentally unreliable, as not giving an accurate account of either the history of Israel or of the “historical Jesus.” At the level of ontology, it has been claimed either that the God of the Bible does not exist, or that if some kind of spiritual reality exists, it bears little or no resemblance to the God described in the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

The crucial issue of continuity over against discontinuity concerns whether God is in himself who he has revealed himself to be in the history of revelation. As noted in the previous paragraph, this is often posed in terms of either the historical reliability of the Scripture or their incompatibility with the findings of modern science, or the God whose story is told in the Bible is rejected as a morally repugnant character. I would suggest that two more pressing concerns lie behind the current challenges; first, the loss of transcendence and, second, distinct from, but connected with this, a moral challenge. Third, and related to both of the above is the more recent issue of the loss of faith among a younger generation of primarily “Exvangelicals” labeled “deconstruction.”

Loss of Transcendence

Key to the loss of transcendence in contemporary culture is what Charles Taylor in his book The Secular Age has designated as the “immanent frame,” a constructed social space that frames the lives of contemporary Western people within a natural (rather than supernatural) order. Taylor refers to this social space as a secular “social imaginary” that excludes transcendence. A “social imaginary” is different from an intellectual system in that it is the way that people unreflectively “imagine” or “feel” about their social surroundings. Social imaginaries are expressed more in terms of “stories,” images, and legends rather than in articulated intellectual beliefs. The secular “social imaginary” is thus similar to Thomas Kuhn’s notion of “paradigms,” but in contrast to the theoretical and reflective nature of paradigms, the secular “social imaginary” is rather a “take,” a way of construing the world as without transcendence that the contemporary person brings to experience rather than derives from it.54

Given the assumptions of an a priori secular social imaginary, interpretation of the Bible becomes problematic insofar as the subject matter of the biblical story is from beginning to end an account of the transcendent God who has created and redeemed the world, a God who speaks and acts. (more…)

Revelation and Scripture

Filed under: Scripture,Theology — William Witt @ 9:38 pm

Systematic Theology: Chapter Three

FourApostles

The two previous chapters dealt with the subject matter of theology (what theology is) and the task of theology (what theologians do). This chapter and the next deal with the sources of theology. Traditionally, these are Scripture (sola scriptura; Reformation Protestant), Scripture and tradition (Council of Trent; Roman Catholic), Scripture, tradition, and reason (Anglican; Richard Hooker), Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (Methodism; the Wesleyan Quadrilateral; liberal Protestantism).

In terms of the three levels of knowing and being (ordo cognoscendi and ordo essendi), these sources of theology belong to the first level, the order of knowledge. Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience provide the sources and context within which Christians come to know what Christian faith is, and what it means to live as Christians. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between the first source – Scripture – and the other three sources in that historically Scripture has provided the primary source of the knowledge of Christian faith while reason, tradition, and experience are not in themselves independent sources of knowledge of Christian faith, but rather provide the ecclesial context in which Christians come to know and interpret Scripture.

Historically, tradition is not a separate and distinct source of knowledge of God, but the context in which Christian faith takes place. Patristic theologians like Irenaeus were expositors of Scripture, and the second century Rule of Faith is both a summary of the content of Scripture and a hermeneutical guide for interpreting Scripture. For theologians like Anglican Richard Hooker, reason was not a separate source for knowledge of God, but a hermeneutical tool to use in interpreting Scripture. For founder of Methodism John Wesley, experience did not provide additional knowledge about God, but was rather an ecclesial context in which the church appropriates the truth of Scripture.

At the same time, Reformation Protestants did not understood sola scriptura to mean that the church reads Scripture in an interpretive vacuum (nuda scriptura, “biblicism”). Protestants continued to recite the Creeds and to endorse the theological teaching of the ecumenical councils because they understood them to be summaries of and interpretive guides to the clear meaning of Scripture. Affirming sola scriptura did not prevent historic Protestants from endorsing confessional statements such as the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, the Reformed Westminster Confession, the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles or reading Scripture through interpretive guides such as the Lutheran Book of Concord or confessional catechisms.

In terms of the threefold level of knowing and being, Scripture has a unique role because of its place in the threefold structure. Although contemporary Christians read Scripture as the primary source of Christian knowledge and spiritual and moral formation (level 1), Scripture’s origins lie in the second level of the order of knowing and being – the level of history (level 2). The Bible is not a single “book,” but the collected writings of prophets and apostles who bear witness to the economy of salvation – the revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the history of Israel, the incarnate Jesus Christ, and the New Testament church. As noted in the two previous chapters, this history of the economic Trinity (level 2) points beyond itself to the ontological reality of God’s nature in itself (the immanent Trinity, level 3). Our knowledge of God as Trinity thus follows from our knowledge of God in the history of salvation, and our contemporary appropriation of this knowledge in prayer, worship, and Christian ethics is dependent on this historical source of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

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December 13, 2025

The Discipline of Theology: What Theologians Do

Filed under: Methodology,Theology — William Witt @ 12:38 am

Systematic Theology: Chapter Two

Durer Jerome in his Study

The previous chapter discussed the subject matter of theology: what theology is. This chapter deals with the discipline of theology: the work that theologians do. The study of theology has a number of names: “Christian doctrine” is the most general term. Doctrine can reflect the position of a particular theologian, church, or denominational group, or an account of one particular aspect of theology, for example, Thomas Aquinas’s or Karl Barth’s “doctrine of the Trinity” or the Reformed doctrine of Presbyterian polity or the Roman Catholic doctrine of the papacy.

“Dogmatics” refers to “authorized church teaching,” and is usually distinguished from doctrine by its universality and normativity. For example, while the universal church has never officially endorsed a specific interpretation of the atonement – there is no universally agreed doctrine of the atonement, but rather there are numerous theologians’ doctrines of the atonement – there is a universally acknowledged understanding of the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology, approved at the Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. We thus refer to the “dogmas” of the Trinity and Christology. Thus, all dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas.

Finally, systematic theology is concerned generally with Christian claims about reality, especially the scope, unity and coherence of Christian teaching: “Systematic theology attempts a conceptual articulation of Christian claims about God and everything else in relation to God, characterized by comprehensiveness and coherence.”1 On the one hand, systematic theology is more comprehensive than “doctrine” because of the universality of its scope. On the other hand, systematic theology does not claim the definitiveness of dogma because it deals with every aspect of theology, not simply those central theological doctrines over which there is substantial agreement among the majority of Christians. Systematic theology is also the work of individual theologians, or reflects the theological commitments of specific ecclesial traditions.

Historical Development of Theology

John Webster points out that “Conceptual reconstruction of Christian teaching is a post-apostolic enterprise. . .” Early Christian writers did not distinguish between exegetical, doctrinal, moral, and pastoral theology.2 For example, Irenaeus’s Against Heresies is an apologetic work written against Gnostic heretics that also includes as part of the discussion throughout the five books fairly comprehensive discussion of Christian doctrines of the triune God, of creation, fall, and redemption. Augustine’s Confessions is a spiritual autobiography that also addresses numerous theological topics, for example, the doctrine of creation and the nature of evil. Much patristic theology is found in the form of sermons, whose primary purpose is the exposition of Scripture within the context of Christian worship.

The following factors led to the development of Christian theology:

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December 11, 2025

Introduction: What is Systematic Theology?

Filed under: Theology — William Witt @ 3:00 am

Systematic Theology: Chapter One

Christ Enthroned

Theology as Faith Seeking Understanding

The word “theology” is derived from the combination of two Greek words: θεός (theos) + λόγος (logos), meaning the “study of God.” In its broadest sense, systematic theology is that branch of Christian theology that has to do with systematic and organized reflection on the subject matter of Christian faith. Augustine of Hippo is known for the saying “Crede ut intelligas” (“Believe that you may understand”).1 Anselm of Canterbury modified this as “Credo ut intelligam” (“I believe in order to understand”), and Anselm’s motto fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”) is a helpful definition of theology.2 Thomas Aquinas identified Sacra Doctrina (Holy Teaching or Sacred Doctrine) as the “science of God” and of all other things insofar as they have reference to God. Sacra Doctrina is the “highest wisdom” because it deals with the Highest Cause insofar as God (meaning the triune God) has made himself known in revelation.3 John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that theology had to do with the knowledge of God and of ourselves that leads to immortality.4

More recently, Thomas Oden writes that the subject matter of theology is the “Living God,” YHWH, “known in the faith of the worshiping Christian community” which lives out of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, and of all things as they relate to God. God is a personal Subject, a You or Thou, not an it. Theology is the “investigation and clarification of the internal consistency of [the church’s confessional] assertions . . . and the way they relate to the problems of daily life.”5

Karl Barth adds that the task of theology is in the service of the church. Theology exists in “the realm between the Scriptures and their exposition and proclamation.” Theology “is based upon the fact that God has spoken to humanity and that humanity may hear God’s word through grace.” Theology reminds the church that its life and work are “under the authority of the gospel and the law, that God should be heard.”6

The language of the previous paragraphs helps to unravel the meaning of theology. First, faith: In Greek, the single word πιστεύω (pisteuō)) can be translated either “I believe” or “I have faith,” and the corresponding noun πίστις (pistis) can be translated as either “belief” or “faith.” This ambiguity explains the contradiction that is not really a contradiction between the apostle Paul in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians and the epistle of James concerning justification by faith. Paul states in Romans 3:28 “that a human being is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου, dikaiousthai pistei anthrōpon chōris ergōn nomou),” while James writes that “a human being is justified by works and not by faith alone” (ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον, ex ergōn dikaioutai anthrōpos kai ouk ek pisteōs monon, James 2:24).

That the contradiction is only verbal becomes clear in James 2:19 when James writes: “You believe (πιστεύεις, pisteueis) that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe (πιστεύουσιν, pisteuousin)—and shudder.” As the English translation makes clear, James is understanding “faith” in the sense of an intellectual conviction: the demons believe that God exists. To the contrary, the apostle Paul uses the word “faith” in the sense of “trust,” not mere intellectual conviction. The demons may believe that there is a God, but they have not placed their complete trust and reliance on him in the manner in which Paul talks about justification by faith. In English, we mark the same distinction as one between “belief that” and “belief in.”

Latin distinguishes between fides qua and fides quae. Fides qua means “the faith which believes.” It refers to the subjective activity of “believing in” or “having faith.” This is the faith that justifies by trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Fides quae means “the faith which is believed.” This is the objective reality in which we place our faith. When the presiding minister says at the celebration of the Eucharist, “Let us confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed,” he or she is referring to faith in the sense of fides quae. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are summaries of this subject matter of the Christian faith: “God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,” “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,” “the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – these are the three triune persons who simply are the one God. This triune God is the objective reality in whom Christians place their faith, and the Creeds provide a short outline of who this God is, and what this God has done. Theology thus includes both fides qua and fides quae. “Faith seeking understanding” is the process by which those who have faith in the subjective sense (fides qua) come to understand and reflect about the object (or subject matter) of that faith (fides quae), that triune reality in which faith puts its trust.

What Faith Is Not

A description of theology as “faith seeking understanding,” helps to clear up some all too prevalent misunderstandings of the nature of both theology and faith. First, faith is not “fideism,” the common misconception that “faith” means implausible belief divorced from reason, that faith is mere credulity, or, in the words of the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass, believing in “impossible things.”7

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May 16, 2025

Biographical Statement

Filed under: Personal,Theology,Trinity School for Ministry — William Witt @ 1:24 am

With my retirement, I thought it might be helpful to provide a short summary of who I am, my life in the church, how I became theologian, and my teaching career. If you find it interesting, enjoy! If not, that’s fine too.

ship

I cannot remember a time when I did not have faith in Jesus Christ. Evangelical (or fundamentalist) Christianity goes back several generations on both sides of my family, although the name we preferred was “born-again” Christian, or, simply, “Christian.” When I was five years old, I “asked Jesus to come into my heart” and forgive my sins. I was baptized at the age of seven. Luther used to say, “Remember your baptism!” I am glad that I can remember mine.

My family went to church Sunday mornings and evenings and to Wednesday night prayer meetings. There were occasional week-long revival meetings, and Vacation Bible School in the summers. I used to set up my toy box as a pulpit, and preach sermons to my younger sister and her dolls. I read the Bible constantly. I used to worry that my school-mates were not “saved,” and felt guilty that I did not “witness” to them, i.e., tell them about Jesus.

Aside from a certain amount of guilt, my Baptist upbringing gave me a spirituality focused on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a sense that Christians had to be different from other folks, a knowledge and love of the Scriptures, a regular practice of daily prayer, and a way of responding to certain types of worship. Hymns like “Amazing Grace” can still give me goose bumps.

At the age of sixteen, I attended a church camp retreat where I “came under conviction” (to use the revivalist terminology) that God was calling me to be a pastor. From this point on, I assumed as a matter of course (as did my family, friends, and pastor) that I was going to be a “preacher-boy.” This decision marked a definite transition in my Christian experience. I think it was the time at which I first affirmed an adult Christian faith.

Throughout my high school years, I was constantly involved in church activities. I was president of my church youth group. I shared tracts with people in the city park. I earned a reputation in high school for being a “Jesus Freak.” (This was at the height of the “Jesus Movement.”) I attended a Campus Crusade for Christ evangelism conference with 100,000 other teenagers in Dallas, TX called “Explo’ 72,” where I heard Billy Graham preach.

But I also began a gradual intellectual and spiritual awakening. I discovered the writings of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, and their literary circle – George MacDonald, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, G. K. Chesterton. During my senior year in high school, I somehow found time to read through Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the central writings of Lewis’s literary corpus, both fiction and non-fiction.

During my college years, I attended a small evangelical liberal arts college. My sophomore year in college, I took a required introductory philosophy course, and discovered that I loved philosophy. I majored in philosophy, which led me to discover not only the classical pagan philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Plato), but also the western Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, especially Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. I read modern Thomists like Etienne Gilson, and Eric L. Mascall. I also discovered the twentieth century theological tradition, especially the critical orthodoxy of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the Niebuhr brothers, but also Wolfhart Pannenberg (whom I especially liked at that time), and the “biblical theology” of figures like Walther Eichrodt, John Bright, Oscar Cullmann, and Joachim Jeremias. A small group of like-minded friends and I used to spend hours discussing philosophy and theology (along with a couple of influential faculty members), both inside and outside regular classroom hours.

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August 15, 2024

Follow the Bouncing Ball or Why We Disagree About Women’s Ordination (Part Two)

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:03 am

Angelus

Some Historical Background

I

did not write my book Icons of Christ with the intention of changing the minds of those opposed to women’s ordination, although from time to time I have heard from people who have told me that the book changed their minds Rather, I wrote for three different groups:

First, for those within my own tradition (Anglican/Episcopal) who were disappointed at what seemed to be an upsurge of those opposed to women’s ordination within theologically conservative Anglicanism. Women’s ordination had not been an issue of contention at the beginnings of the founding of the Anglican Church of North America in distinction from the Episcopal Church in the mid 2000s. Those of us who had been members of TEC before the split did not leave TEC over either WO or the 1979 BCP. Many of us were members of dioceses and congregations that supported WO before the split. I myself was confirmed as an Episcopalian on May 15, 1982 by Bishop William Frey of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. Bishop Frey supported women’s ordination as well as the 1979 BCP, and afterwards moved from Colorado to Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where he became the Dean President (1990-1996) of what was then Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, where I have taught Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics since fall 2007.

Trinity School for Ministry/now Trinity Anglican Seminary has had a policy since its founding that there could be disagreement on the issue of women’s ordination. While there have always been members of the faculty who opposed WO (including my dear friend the late Rev. Dr. Rod Whitacre), since its beginnings the majority of the faculty have favored WO, and there have always been women serving on the faculty, including my dear friend the late Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan. And, yes, despite their disagreements about women’s ordination, Rod and Martha were good friends, and Rod entirely supported Martha as a member of the faculty, although he did not receive communion if she presided at the Eucharist. Rod taught women who were seeking ordination, and he treated them no differently than he did his male students. Bob Duncan, the first archbishop of the ACNA, was the bishop of Pittsburgh, a diocese that supports the ordination of women. I myself have served on the Commission On Ministry in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and we approved both men and women for ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood.

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July 31, 2024

Follow the Bouncing Ball or Why Christological Subversion is Central to the Gospel (Part One)

Filed under: Atonement,Theology,Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:20 am
Lamb of God

The negative review of my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical And Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination continues at The North American Anglican. It is tempting to reply with a point by point response. However, a reading of the most recent criticism makes clear that where the author really disagrees with me concerns issues of basic theological methodology. In particular, the author objects first to my advocacy of a narrative interpretation of Scripture, and, second, to my use of the principle of what I call “Christological Subversion.” Before addressing these specific criticisms, I think it would be more helpful to explain how I do theology. I have published two recent books – the first in favor of women’s ordination1 and the second (with my colleague Joel Scandrett) about the history and doctrine of the atonement.2 Both books have been favorably reviewed by competent peers in the fields of biblical and systematic theology, and both follow the same basic methodology. Although it was published later, I began the atonement book first, so the principles of narrative interpretation and “Christological Subversion” were first developed in that book. And the atonement book itself developed out of one of the first essays I published over two decades ago.3

Narrative interpretation and Christological subversion are subordinate to a third principle, which is more basic, the principle of the priority of the object over the subject in theological methodology, what Karl Barth calls nachfolgen or “following after,” what in Thomas Aquinas is the principle of an a posteriori approach to theology, and a citation from Hillary of Poitier that provides the motto for my blog: Non sermoni res, sed rei sermo subjectus est: “The word is subject to the reality, not the reality is subject to the word.” It is what I call in the title of this post “follow the bouncing ball.”

A major theme in both books is the problem of incommensurable theological systems. This is even more evident concerning the doctrine of the atonement than it is concerning women’s ordination. For women’s ordination, there are basically four options: Protestant complementarian (hierarchical) opposition; Catholic sacramental (non-hiererarchical) opposition; liberal Protestant/Catholic modernist affirmation; critically orthodox or evangelical catholic egalitarian affirmation. Gustaf Aulén’s book Christus Victor discussed three atonement models: satisfaction/substitution, exemplarism, Christus Victor. In the book on atonement I wrote with Joel Scandrett, we discuss eight historic models and finish with a comparison of contemporary discussion. Even then, for space reasons, we had to omit several other approaches. So there is actually more disagreement about atonement theology than there is about women’s ordination.

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July 16, 2024

Yet Another Review of a Book I Did Not Write Or Why Disagreements Concerning Women’s Orders Are Intractable

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 10:40 pm

Gargoyle

 

 

 

In a recent post, I looked back on the reception of my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination three years after its publication. In that essay, I focused on why I had given the book its title:

The single argument that appears repeatedly in these several chapters is that Christians resemble (are “Icons” of) Jesus Christ not through physical likeness or through exercising hierarchical authority over one another, but in the same way that Paul makes clear in both Phillippians 2 and 2 Corinthians 2-4, first, by pointing away from ourselves and our own authority and accomplishments to the saving work of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, and, second, by imitating Jesus Christ’s own kenotic cruciformity in service to one another.

However, I also noted:

My book received quite a few positive reviews, and the positive reviews consistently have recognized this key argument about what it means for Christians to resemble Christ. My book has received a fair amount of criticism as well, but almost none of this has acknowledged or addressed the central argument. Rather, the negative reviews have focused on defending the traditional arguments against women’s ordination – whether complementarian Protestant or Catholic sacramentalist.”

A recent reviewer claims to have read this essay: “Witt declares what he believes is the most important part of his book.” In that light I had thought that the author would address what I have claimed is the key issue of the book – how it is that all Christians (not just men) resemble Christ — through cruciform discipleship. He did not do that, however, but instead followed the predictable pattern – not at all addressing the key point of the book but rather (once again) offering a defense of the hierarchical complementarian position – beginning with an interpretation of the account of the creation of man and woman in Genesis 2.

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March 8, 2024

Concerning Women’s Ordination: What About 1 Timothy 2:12?

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:38 am

AngelusI have addressed and responded to several criticisms of and challenges to my book Icons of Christ and its arguments in favor or women’s ordination and women’s equality through several essays on my blog. However, there is one crucial passage that I have not yet addressed at length – Paul’s assertion in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (ESV). I have made occasional references to this passage, particularly in addressing hermeneutical issues, but I have not discussed it in detail. So with apologies for a lengthy delay, I now turn to this passage.

Preliminary Reflections

Before examining the passage, some initial issues need to be addressed.

First, the disagreements about this passage are not primarily about exegesis, but about hermeneutics. I had addressed this in previous essays. For example, in a previous essay, I made a crucial distinction between “master passages” or “master stories” and “paradigms.” A “master passage” is a passage of Scripture that is crucial for one’s own understanding of an issue, and a “paradigm” is the interpretive key to the interpretation of the “master passage.” My previous essay to this makes clear the master passages that are central to my understanding of what Scripture teaches about what it means for not only men but also women to resemble Jesus Christ, and the corresponding “paradigm” is one of cruciformity, mutual service, and mutual submission.

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