Quote:
Originally Posted by a mere housewife  Davidius, so are you saying that I'm being more 'emotional' and 'practical' in my argumentation than you are?
And my reasons are less valid because of this?
(I'm smiling, by the way)
They don't see how most of these discussions bear on their own daily lives, the immediate problems they are engulfed in. It isn't real life to them, and doesn't help with real life. They simply aren't interested. They are taught theology at church and in daily devotions with their husbands; they love the truth they learn there butthe puritanboard is not a pursuit they find helpful or enjoyable as something to do in their free time. They would rather do something to help the lady who lives next door. I think we agree on most of what you are saying: women should learn the doctrines, have joy in them, be able to teach them to their children: all of theology should be applied, etc. But the application most of my friends make of the theology they learn is to use their spare time to do something for the lady next door, while their husbands use the same spare time for further study or getting on the puritanboard.
I think you aren't making a consistent distinction in your arguments between having a rational faculty and being more prominently motivated by intellectual than practical concerns. I am not trying to argue that women are somehow lower down on the scale of rational being than men. I am concerned to point out that women who quietly and diligently, with a richness of emotion and practical thought about details, provide a nurturing home for their children and help their husbands - but aren't all that interested in the puritanboard - are no less valuable as humans or Christians than men. They have good practical and emotional reasons (emotion and practicality are real aspects of life: indeed intellect without them is nowhere near justice or truth) for what they think, even if their reasons aren't primarily 'intellectual'. |
Haha! Well, I guess that's what I was trying to say.
You win.
I guess it does sound like we're saying pretty much the same thing.
Just for clarification, though, I never said that I think all women should become members of the PB. My entire angle the whole time was to respond to those who have taken a pagan view of women by saying that they don't have the same faculties men have, basically saying that they aren't created in the image of God. This has led some throughout history to believe that women shouldn't be educated at all, because it was assumed that they just would never get it, that education in general is only for men because women can't think, etc. This is what Aquinas said, i.e. that the only possible reason why God could have wanted to create women was to have babies because men are better for everything else.
By "intellectual" I never meant to imply that some certain volume of time spent talking about doctrine, or debating doctrine, is a sign of wisdom or knowledge. This is, of course, not even true for men. My main issue was that I thought you were saying women don't even need to know doctrine or be interested in
it (not the PB, or debate, etc.).
