Another Can of Worms

Well, the debate has been raging on Anglo-Catholic Central's message board.
The "ordination" of women to Holy Orders.

Purely and simply, it's impossible. I must confess not to completely understanding why God has set it this way, but God is God, and He must be obeyed. Ours is to do and die (and to rise again per Jesum Christum!)

I thought I'd try and speculate as to why God choses the male gender for priests and not women. This is pure speculation, it cannot be the whole story, and there's no reason why the whole thing cannot be totally and utterly wrong. indeed there are flaws and pot-holes all over the place.

I am absolutely indebted to my very dear friend, Ed Pacht, who has been very kind enough to point out errors and suggest corrections. This post will be edited and re-edited as things occur to me and as corrections occur to him.

Let's start with some observations:

1) There are two sexes among human beings. Yes, I know that there are some who claim to be a third sex, and there are hermaphrodites, but the human genome is very specific. Two X chromosomes for a female, and X and a Y chromosome for a male even in the case of hermaphrodites. "Male and female He made them."


2) ) These two sexes are both fully human, neither inferior to the other, made of the same biological material, but are different in biological and mental make up.

3) A human being has a spirit.

Definition 1: We shall call that part of reality that cannot in itself be observed with physical equipment "spiritual" and that which is observable "physical".

For example, God is a spirit, since He is unobserved.

Lemma 1: If men and women are biologically different and mentally different, then it stands to reason that they are also spiritually different.

Justification: It requires male and female to engender and nurture a child. Nurture requires spiritual development as well as physical and mental, and God has ordained that a child have two parents, one of each sex. If the spiritual nature of human beings were identical, then it would be possible for a child to be brought into existence by two males or two females, thus God would make it apparent in His designation of the family unit. Hence male and female are different in spirit. QED

Why are human beings different?

4) The human female is the carrier of and principal provider of nourishment for a baby.

Conclusion 1: Therefore her body, mind and soul must be created to be the best mechanism by which children can thus be raised.

So much for the nature of Humanity. What about the nature of priesthood?

5) Apart from Baptism which may be administered by any Christian (usually in an emergency) and Marriage in which the couple administer the Sacrament to themselves, the other five Sacraments are administered by ordained Bishops and Priests.

6) A sacrament is an effective spiritual grace clothed in a physical substance or action- the unobservable made observable.

Lemma 2: That which is administered by one whose ordination is doubted cannot be said to be a Sacrament with certainty.

Justification: By the definition of Sacrament, we cannot observe a physical change in the substance or action involved. The validity of the Sacrament therefore relies solely on a supernatural event which can be perceived only by faith in God and the belief that the minister is correctly Ordained by God for the business of administering Sacraments. If faith in either one is doubted, then the efficacy of that which is administered is null, and therefore cannot be known to be a Sacrament.
The validity of a sacrament does not depend on whether we know it is valid. But, for a sacrament to be effectual in the Church it must be known to be valid. Therefore, though the argument has not proven that the sacrament is ipso facto invalid, its lack of applicability to a real church has been demonstrated in the uncertainty.
QED

7) Sacraments are ordained by Christ.

8) Christ is God and, as God, is referred to as the 'Son of God'.

9) Christ is human, and, as human, called the 'son of man', is male.

Conclusion 2: God wishes for spiritual benefits to be conferred on humanity.

Lemma 3: The sex of human beings is important in administering Sacraments.
Justification: From 9 and 7 the Lord's spiritual configuration was sufficient to administer the Sacraments. The Lord only ordained male apostles who then administered the Sacraments.
In choosing Apostles, he was choosing those who would, in themselves, sacramentally represent His presence in His Church. Thus they were to be seen as both 'sons of God' and 'sons of man', or, in the traditional phrase, the priest is an alter christus. In the Eucharist, he stands in Christ's place, iconically as Christ. In Absolution he speaks for Christ, iconically standing in His place.
Therefore males are spiritually capable of administering the Sacraments by virtue of their masculinity. The Lord did not abhor women, indeed they were the first to whom He revealed His Teaching and Resurrection. Further, He spoke to the Samaritan woman, allowed two ladies to wash His feet and invited them to listen to Him. Ergo, it cannot have been through a contemporary or cultural bias that He did not choose women but through a reason as yet unobservable.
This fact that we only have record in Sacred Scripture of ordination of males despite the unqualified acceptance of women to the Community of Christ is thus indicative of the importance of sex in the administration of the Sacraments. QED

Corollary: There is no evidence that women can administer those Sacraments which require the minister to be Ordained
Corollary: There is doubt that women can administer such Sacraments.
Corollary: By Lemma 2, those administered by women cannot be considered Sacraments.

Speculation 1: Is it possible then for a "Natural Sacrament" (I really want a better term here) to exist, i.e. an effective physical grace clothed in a spiritual substance - the observable made unobservable? After all, a Sacrament is that which transmits grace from the spirit into the physical. A wafer becomes under consecration the Real Body of Christ, thus the hitherto unobservable becomes observable. Likewise, is there a Natural Sacrament working the other way, transmitting grace from the observable into the unobservable? Does it have to be grace that it transmits?

Man is incomplete without woman. So I wish to offer the following hypothesis

Hypothesis: Women are the only ministers of "Natural Sacraments".