Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Thomas Aquinas ON Women’s Ordination: An INdelible mark?
It is important to understand the perspectives of blockbuster theologian, saint and Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as it pertains to women and the case for women's ordination. Thomas was the most influential Catholic theologian of the Middle Ages. His influence on Vatican thinking is second to none. His consolidated views on women — drawn from prevailing thinking of his time — has left an almost indelible mark on women and their place in both Church and society.
Extrapolating St. Cyprian’s wisdom, ‘A custom without truth is merely ancient error’ to Aristotle and Aquinas, one might say in this context, ‘philosophy and theology without truth are also errors.’
Historically, there are three 'reasons' for exclusion of women from priesthood:
women were considered to be the source of sin (Eve);
women were considered to be unclean at certain times (menstruation, child birth);
women were considered inferior to men in every way. Sidebar: Until fairly recently, even scientists held the view that women were inferior to men.
Extrapolating St. Cyprian’s wisdom, ‘A custom without truth is merely ancient error’, to Aristotle and Aquinas, one might say in this context, ‘philosophy and theology without truth are ancient errors.’
This is where Thomas Comes In
This is where Thomas comes in.
An Italian Dominican philosopher and theologian, Thomas was a prolific writer who combined theological principles of faith with the philosophical principles of reason. He is considered an authority in the Roman Catholic Church.
During his time, women were excluded from priestly ministry. Thomas’s nature compelled him to find justification for this discrimination. Basing his conclusions on the work of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (well known and popular in western Europe at the time), Thomas concluded that the main reason for exclusion was women’s inferior nature.
Thomas and Women
Like Aristotle and scientists of his (Thomas’s) time, Thomas believed that only the male seed carried life. This led him to conclude that:
women are less intelligent than men;
women are weaker in character than men.
This led Thomas to rationalise that there was a natural superiorty in men and that in contrast to women, they are the exemplar human being. He went on to compile perspectives like this:
in the 17th century, many researchers believed in Preformation. This was a theory that held that each spermatozoa contained a tiny, completely pre-formed human within it, as illustrated in this 1695 sketch by Nicolaas Hartsoeker. (Wikimedia Commons)
The active force in the male seed derives its power from the stars.
A man’s seed contains the future child or in other words, sperm contained a tiny pre-formed adult human curled up inside. Aquinas’s view was based on science of his time. This old science is not supported by modern knowledge.
The old view misunderstood the female role in human reproduction. From the points of view of Aristotle, Aquinas and scientists of their times, woman contributes nothing active in the creation of a new human being. She is a passive receptacle and merely provides the space for development of the child to happen. The generative seed comes entirely from the man.
Modern science says that conception involves a sperm fusing with an ovum. Without the ovum, the sperm is useless.
The Dutch scientist van Leeuwenhoek discovered sperm in 1677.
200 years passed before scientists could agreed on how humans formed. Two primary fields of thought emerged along the way:One view was held by the preformationists who believed that each spermatozoa (or each egg, depending on who you asked) contained a tiny, completely preformed human. In this theory, the egg—or sperm—simply provided a place for development to occur.
The other view was that held by epigenesists. Though epigenesists weren’t sure who contributed exactly what, they believed that both men and women contributed material to form a new organism.
Few early researchers who did study sperm fully appreciated the role of the female reproductive system in the fertility equation. This oversight could explain why this area is still such a mystery today. ‘Part of that is a male bias in biology to think the female is not an important part of the story, and that goes way back in sperm biology to this whole idea of preformation.’ [1]
In procreation, a woman’s only contribution is her womb .
The womb is like the ploughed field in which the fully potent grain seed grows. The woman’s contribution is nutrition and a little bunk for the seed to grow into a baby.
When a male child is born, the birth is perfect.
The birth of a female child is because of accident. — a damp wind was blowing on the day of conception, the semen is weak, the material in the womb is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as a wind blowing from the south.
perfect child = boy. But women are needed for procreation and to help men so even though imperfect, women still have a role.
Women are not ordered to intellectual operation. Though a woman is carnally united to a man in generation, she is not united to him in his higher faculties.
Man is in a state of perfection. Men signify eminence in human nature.
Therefore it is men who CAN represent Christ in the Eucharist. As the perfect human, man is the sacramental sign of Christ.
Therefore women CANNOT represent Christ at the Eucharist.
Thomas’s thinking about women was not original to the Middle Ages but was rooted in the philosophy of Aristotle and later Augustine which most Catholic thinkers were schooled in at the time. There is much to respect about Aquinas and his scholarship. There are good reasons for his eminence in his time and since then. But the errors in his perspectives about women have left an almost indelible mark on Church and societal attitudes to women to this day. Had Thomas the benefit of modern science, he might very well not have arrived at the conclusions he did.
See here for our overall Timeline on the Work for Women’s Ordination.
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WOW is indebted to the work of Dr. John Wijngaards, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research and their website, womenpriests.org. For their page on Thomas, see here: Thomas Aquinas
Notes:
[1] Poppick, Laura, The Long, Winding Tale of Sperm Science …and why it’s finally headed in the right direction, Smithsonian Magazine, June 7, 2017.
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This page contributed by Therese Koturbash: Therese Koturbash, BA, LLB, GDCL served as Canadian Delegate to Women’s Ordination Worldwide from 2008 to 2013. For all five of those years, she was elected member of WOW's four person International Leadership Circle. She has also been the National Coordinator of Canada's Catholic Network for Women's Equality. Today, Therese serves on WOW’s Communications Team and is a volunteer with WOW member group, womenpriests.org and Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. Her paid work is as a family attorney.
