Thursday 12 August 2021

God, Man and Woman

Bruce Charlton had a very good piece recently about how Christian women used to be more religious than men but now are less so. You could probably extend this to include other religions even if Christian apostasy is much further down the line then that of other religions. The premise is that women are more conformist so will adapt themselves to the prevailing culture, but they are also more concerned with being, and being perceived as, good. If what society deems good really is good that is an excellent thing but when, as now, society has been completely corrupted by materialism, atheism and their cultural consequence which is leftism, it is disastrous. Women will follow the path of least resistance and most acceptance within the group. Couple this with feminism which, cutting through the fog of all the intellectual word-spinning and ideological propaganda, really amounts to no more than the female attempt to usurp the role of the male and which lures countless people into pursuing a path they should not be pursuing and which will not make them truly happy or fulfilled,  and you see that women are potentially in an even more spiritually dangerous place today than men. 

One can see why so many women adopt feminism even though that means undermining their true being. It appears to promise them so much and claims to redress error and set right injustices of the past. It comes in a shiny package and appeals both to egotism and resentment, carefully rebranding these as noble sentiments - an old trick of you know who. But everything it offers is on the material plane and even there its gifts are poisoned. Spiritually, it is entirely regressive which is why when it moves into spiritual matters it is always on the old pagan, Gaia worship level which is something humanity should have long outgrown even if Nature and the Feminine have been undervalued in the West since at least the time of the Reformation. But that is a different matter. You don't correct error by making more error. The fact is feminists are spiritually ignorant, woefully so. The story in Genesis concerning Adam and Eve represents a profound truth about the created order and points to the path of fulfilment and truth for both sexes. God created Woman as a companion and helper for Man and, like it or not, this does give him headship. It means he should look to God and she should look to him. But it does not make him superior or justify resentment. It is just a simple fact that corresponds to the nature of each sex's being and to which both sexes should strive to make themselves worthy. It's a partnership with each partner having different roles and fulfilling the other. To rail against it is an act of rebellion, one that comes from pride and the ego, and to upset this order puts Woman at odds with the truth of her own nature and thereby creates disorder. At the same time, to abuse it on the masculine level which no one can deny has happened historically is also wrong and quite obviously so. The partnership is based on love and mutual help.

If one can see why women might turn to feminism why should men pay it any attention? It seems to me that any man who supports feminism actually has no love for the feminine. How can he if he goes along with it being trashed? But perhaps men follow the party line on this matter because they are weak, easily influenced by the zeitgeist or ideologically committed to the post-Enlightenment materialism which is the philosophical framework on which feminism is built. At any rate, no Christian man (or woman for that matter) can support feminism. I believe there are people who call themselves Christian feminists and even invent theologies to justify this aberration. You might as well talk about peaceful wars. If you are a Christian feminist you are not a Christian.

The metaphysical dynamic between the sexes on which the order of creation is built becomes easier to understand if you equate them to the vertical and horizontal polarities of existence. Men are more likely to aspire upwards and to seek truth. They are more hierarchical and also more interested in abstract thought. For women life is all about their relationships and maintaining the safety of the group. This is a very important part of life but it should not be the dominant force or society will descend into conformity, mediocrity and, as now, a prioritising of security over freedom. Women should rule children and men should rule the adult world. This is in line with their particular skills and orientations. When you have women ruling the adult world, the adult world becomes infantilised, risk is removed and in the end civilisation and culture will collapse.


8 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

@William - I don't think we can make general, social statements about what men and women's role 'ought to be' - from the atheist-materialist context of our current society; but only from the other side of a commitment to God and Jesus Christ which is extremely rare among individuals, and absent altogether from human societies.

This is why I find all such advice rings false. Even if advocates of traditional men's and women's roles got their way today, it would not make any qualitative difference for the better to the world as it is. The root of the problem is far deeper and other.

This is also why men are mostly (and en masse) helpless and indifferent to the harms of feminism - because men (on the whole, and overwhelmingly) are damaged by exactly the same spiritual defects as women.

I think that actual relations between men and women in the world as-is are something that we can only and should be sorted-out on an individual basis - by deploying individual discernments. General rules and external guidance seem to be harmful overall, even when they seem 'sound'; even when they seem objectively far better than the current deliberate cultivation of evil.

Rules and guidelines in the absence of proper deep assumptions always seem to be a 'bad thing' - probably because this tends to support the idea that behaviors should be driven by rules, rather than love.

In the absence of love, real love - directed first at God's creation and the salvation offered by Jesus; then at the other - we are unable to do much more in our personal relationships (including between men and women) than subsist on a moment by moment basis.

William Wildblood said...

Well, yes and no Bruce. How men and women are in the light of God's purpose is how they should be, full stop. And if they aren't relating to each other like that then dishrmony and disorder will result. Prevously in practically all cultures although the relationship between the two hasn't been perfect, due to us being fallen human beings, it has at least been on the right lines. Now, it has gone off in a completely different direction based on the denial of both God and Nature. Certainly, each and every relationship should be sorted out on an individual basis but within the overall general pattern.

But I completely agree that merely having men and women behave in the traditional fashion without a real spiritual background to that, which will properly place everything within the context of love, will not get us anywhere.

Adam said...

God created Woman as a companion and helper for Man and, like it or not, this does give him headship. It means he should look to God and she should look to him.

This is the spiritual background. This is the divine order of Jesus Christ - Man - Wife - Children.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr.Wildblood,
very good!

I would just say we should not make the situation sound too tragic.

God gave both men and women free will; that means they can freely reject feminism if they wish, anytime they wish.
That means that if they do not reject feminism, it is because they want to be evil; and God gave them that choice.

It is not that the system is somehow rigged against women, men or both. It is not some Greek tragedy with people pitted against unconquerable forces.

People just get what they want. And that is fabulous.

Lao'C

William Wildblood said...

It's true that people can reject feminism but it's important to do it for the right reason which is spiritual and not as part of a war between the sexes which will only make matters worse. Ultimately, it must be rejected because of love.

MagnusStout said...

Very good post. Just wanted to add a small, hopeful observation: the propaganda has corrupted so much in so many areas, but the essence of our God-created natures remains. The hopeful part (from a man's perspective) is that there are (still) many women who desire traditional marriage (husband as head). And, while the outward form changes with time, the essence of that dynamic remains. I still joke with my wife that I bear the heavier burden--I must love her and she must only obey. I see such headship not as license to be a petty tyrant, but that you lead by example (as all good kings have done). It probably was easier in the past to exercise this headship, but every challenge presents opportunities to learn and grow.

Go Yave said...

The challenge is to develop the relevant qualities of a man in the Biblical sense, which is to know, and stay focused on knowing, the Truth of the Word.

Distractions from knowing can come from women directly, or metaphorically in the form of some kind of lure of material things. Either way it is collapse of Eden, a better world, if that debased road is followed as it is today.

The Holy conception of being a man is in the nature of the relation to the One True God: to be a keeper of the Word is the only way.

William Wildblood said...

It's significant that Woman only began to stray from her natural role after Man betrayed his trust and was no longer focused on maintaining the Truth of the Word, as you put it. His rebellion against God resulted in her rebellion against him