Abused Nature & Scholasticism's Blunder

As to the status of women in cultural history, there is indeed a long train of philosophical/ theological thinking back into the deep past of consciousness by which thought advances the ascendancy of insight into self-understanding as it obtains in the "Sacrament of Natural Order" - the cultural source of intrinsic order and remembrance in the divine/ human hypostasis.

The PARADIGMATIC HUMAN (female/ male in God's image) is the continuity medium of the gendered personae (not the presumed paradigmatic male model) in which divine/ human hypostasis (understanding, consciousness) obtains and by which intrinsic order in nature sustains and evolves.

It is quizzical but notable to observe in Sacred Scripture the male accounting of females in the genealogy of Jesus. All female persons accounted are notably less than reputable in the male estimation. One wonders about the "rationality" behind the selective accounting by writers who have Jesus arise from less than reputable female ancestry.

Perhaps the answer is found in the "rationality" brought forward by St. Thomas Aquinas in the philosophy/ theology of Scholasticism, which still obtains officially in Roman Catholic Theology. In patriarchal culture/ theology, the female is memorable (demeaned) for the "intrinsic disorder" and waste of nature that she introduced into human heritage, i.e., Original Sin.

"St. Thomas [reflected] the best science of his day when he said that a woman is a misbegotten or defective male ('mas occasionatus' I.99.2. ad 1, Summa Theologica)

" 'The active power which is in the male seed is intended to produce a perfect image of itself, a masculine sex', he said. 'When a female results it is either because of a weakness in this active power or because of some indisposition of the materials provided by the woman or even from a change produced by some outside factor... for example, from south winds, which are humid." (ID: I.92.1. ad 1)

"Clearly such erroneous biology easily leads to other equally bizarre conclusions. Thomas says, for example, that women need the virtue of sobriety more than men 'because there is in them a greater proneness to concupiscence... sobriety is more required in women' (ID: II.11, 149. 4)

"These supposedly scientific conclusions led to spiritual implications as well. Women cannot be validly ordained to the priesthood, said Thomas, regardless their other qualifications, since 'no status of prominence can be signified in the feminine sex, because women have the status of subjection, and so cannot receive the Sacrament of Orders.' (ID: Supp-39)

"Thomas and other great thinkers [accepted] what was almost universally believed to be scientific fact. It illustrates, however, the kinds of baggage we need to sort out to understand better the relationship of men and women in human society and in church. Ultimately the answer appears in the fundamental equality between men and women as taught by Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, a position these theologians found it almost impossible to integrate with what they 'knew' to be scientifically true." [John Dietzen, THE NEW QUESTION BOX, "Status of Women", Guildhall, Peoria, IL 61651]

As long as Churches leave this ancient and fraudulent characterization of women stand, they are seen as endorsing the destructive consequences of it on the man/ woman relationship and nature. Church's endorsement of discredited "science" discredits Church and its hierarchy, for they are perceived to objectify themselves and Church in an unwarranted arrogance that puts them above the rest of humankind and paradigmatic nature.

Before hierarchy advance other ill-conceived pronouncements regarding gender differences and discrimination against women and nature, they do well to distance themselves unequivocally from Scholasticism's long-standing blunder, and to deal with the "baggage" of wrongful theological extrapolations advanced on it, e.g., denying women their place in the priesthood of humankind, for such denial agitates and aggravates intrinsic disorder by demeaning sacramental femininity and corrupting interpersonal relationships and ecological economics (Eucharist).

As Walter Brueggeman says: "Adam, that is, mankind, has a partner and mate, adamah, land. Humankind and land are thus linked in a covenantal relationship, analogous to the covenantal relationship between man and woman ...unfortunately, in our society we have terribly distorted relationships between man and woman, between adam and adamah, distortions that combine promiscuity and domination.... Likely, we shall not correct one of these deadly distortions unless we correct them both". [Bernard Evans & Gregg Cusack, Editors, "The Theology of Land", 1987, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN]