https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=lNpeAVYFiOU
Paul says the wife should be submitted to her husband. Why should a sinful human submit to another? Is this not sexist? And if this idea is fundamental to the West, our feminists not correct, we live in a patriarchy. Um. Why should a sinful human submit to another? That’s an interesting, that’s an interesting question. It’s funny because I never thought about it because when I think of the idea that a woman should submit to her husband, when I see that in Paul, I never see it as an isolated thing. It’s not like women have to submit to their husbands and that’s it, no. You have to submit to the people above you. Like you have to submit to your boss, to your father, you have to submit to your, to the judge, the police officer, to those who have authority over you. So it’s not, it’s not, it’s not just, the image of the family and the woman submitting to her husband is only one aspect of that. And it’s not only about, it’s not only about like the feminine submitting to the masculine because if you encounter a female police officer, you should submit to her. If you were in the middle ages and you had a queen or a lady, then you would have to submit to her because she would be above you in the hierarchy. And then that would just be, that would, it would just be part of reality. By submitting to something above us, we learn to, we learn to discipline our passions. We learn to not give in to all our wins and all our little thoughts and all our little desires. We have to learn to discipline them. And so it’s important to learn to submit to someone who’s above you. Like as a child, you learn to submit to your parents. You learn to submit to your parents. Like as a child, you learn to submit to your parents because you learn to, let’s say, hone yourself in a manner and not be out of control. And so the idea is, I’ve talked about this before. It’s like, let’s say a police officer that’s corrupt and is taking drug money. You, if you are speeding, if you’re speeding and that police officer stops you and you were speeding and he gives you a ticket, you still have to take the ticket because the authority figure represents a higher order than himself as well. So if you look at the image of, in scripture, of it says that the wife has to submit to her husband, it’s like he’s relating that also to Christ. It’s like as the church has to submit to Christ and the husband has to submit to Christ, right? It’s not just, it doesn’t just stop there. And it’s like, it’s not just that the wife has to submit to her husband, the husband has to love his wife. So it’s one, those two things go together. It’s not just one. It’s like the husband has to love and the woman has and the wife has to submit. That’s how it’s presented in St. Paul. And so, and that’s the same structure as you facing the person above you, your priest, your bishop, your boss, you have to learn to submit to that, which is above you. And if you’re above someone else, then you have to learn to love that person and to care for them and to take care of their needs. And it’s like, everybody is always below someone and above somebody. So, yeah. I don’t know. So I think that that’s the best I can do, my friend. My question is about King Arthur, specifically the round table. Is this not a problematic structure, more associated with oligarchy and democracy? Surely not fitting of a king who rules with authority. Is this an incoherence within the mythological structure? The cause, in the story it’s seen that the sins of the knights, including the unfaithfulness of Sir Lancelot and the other sins that happen, they’re the cause of this banding of the round table. That the fact that the round table is broken or that it’s fallen apart, it’s seen as caused by the sins. And so the round table in the story is definitely seen as something positive. So a way to understand that is to understand it in some of the words that Christ says. There’s a place in the scripture where Christ says, I no longer call you my servants, but I call you my friends. And this is a really crucial moment in scripture. And it’s a crucial moment to understand the purpose of hierarchy and the purpose of this relationship. Ultimately, the purpose of God is to call us into participation with God. The purpose of Christ is that we be united with him fully to an extent that he can call us his friends, that we are co-rulers with him. And so now this is a tricky thing because you could say it like King Arthur can have a round table and King Arthur can have this sense of inequality to the extent that all the people in the table don’t take that for granted. So I always say something like, when Christ says to the disciples, I no longer call you my servants, I call you my friends, the disciples, it was true. And it created a weird kind of round table situation, but it would not have been proper for the disciples to say, my buddy Jesus, like some people do today, that would not have been appropriate. It’s like the higher party is the one that calls you up to participate in their authority. It is not those that are below that are there to, let’s say, jump up and take their place in the round table. And so I think that that’s the way to understand the round table, to understand that the union between the king and his knights was so perfect that the king was able to bring them into his authority, that he was able to make them participate in his authority in a way that created this kind of equality. And so you can see it even, this is gonna be tricky for a lot of people, maybe I might be pushing it a little bit, but you can sort of see that in the idea of the Trinity itself, which is that there is this notion that there is a hierarchy of roles in the Trinity, and Christ declares often that he is there to do the will of the Father, that he was completely submitted to the Father, but in that submission to the Father, there’s an equality also that is manifesting itself, because he’s fully, fully, fully manifesting everything of the Father. And so maybe that’s the best way to understand it. Maybe not, that’s what I’ve got for you guys. All right, okay, here we go. Hi, Jonathan, how do you see your Platonic Christian ontology work itself out in gender hierarchies, particularly those of husband and wife? I’m asking as a husband and father, and as one who’s tired of the ongoing complimentary and egalitarian debate in Western Christianity, as I don’t think either side has it right. I think that it’s, I’ve mentioned this before, I think that the Christian vision of hierarchy is not one which, is not one where, like for example, in the Hindu hierarchy, where as you go down, there is an absolute devaluing, right, as you go down, there’s like a dilution as you go down, but rather the purpose of the hierarchy is so that that which is above loves that which is below and makes it participate. So if you can see, so you can see in the Bible, you’ll see two images about the relationship between man and wife. You’ll see a hierarchical relationship, you see that in St. Paul, and you see it, in different patterns in the Old Testament, but you’ll also see in Genesis, the idea of the woman coming from man’s side, and you’ll find in the Church Fathers, the talk of how the reason why God took the woman from the man’s side is so that she would be equal to him. And so it’s the same question, it’s the same reality as the round table that we talked about before. It’s the same reality that in the relationship between the husband and wife, the ultimate purpose is that it be like the round table, right, that the man takes his wife into his life in a manner in which they become equal. He makes her his equal, but it’s not a revolutionary move. It’s not a, you owe me, give me what I’m owed, like you’re not treating me the right way, like that kind of, so there’s, the purpose of the whole thing is so that, is that there be perfect unity, and that unity does end up looking something like equality, but it also, but it can’t be an equality of, like I said, of equality of revolution, like a revolutionary equality. So I hope this makes sense. Hopefully you can get it to make sense also in, because I talked about the round table before, because that’s what it’s, it’s the same pattern. [“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”]