Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: Internal Contradictions and Other Fallacies

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism is a compilation work edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper. Since the essays are written by different authors, the book gives us an opportunity to see how coherent the complementarian position is. Because of its size, it can be difficult to compare notes between the different writers, but a careful reading reveals that there are indeed problems.


Contradiction # 1: Ezer

Ortlund, Grudem, and Frame disagree as to the meaning of the word "ezer" (help) found in Genesis 2.

Find it in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Ortlund: p 104
Grudem: p 87
Frame: p 227, Footnote 19, p 507

Ortlund recognizes that his theology has an error – the clear contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2 – and he tries to correct it by resorting to a paradox, but it is a perilous path, as philosopher Manuel Velasquez points out, “Once a single contradiction is allowed, it is easy to prove with rigorous logic that any statement whatsoever is true. That is anything can be proven once you accept a contradiction.”[1] Accordingly, Ortlund and Grudem give two entirely different and contradictory meanings to ‘ezer (“help”) which are both considered true.

Ortlund

It is the word “helper” that suggests the woman’s supportive role. Spencer argues, however, that this description of Eve “does not at all imply inherent subordination.” She adduces the fact that God Himself is portrayed in Scripture as our “Helper,” which He is. She then interprets this fact:  “If being ‘one who helps’ inherently implies subordination, then, in that case, God would be subordinate to human!” This reasoning is not really fallacious. The fallacy lies in the implication of what she says, namely, that God cannot be subordinate to human beings. He does so whenever He undertakes to help us. He does not “un-God” Himself in helping us; but stoops down to our needs, according to His gracious and sovereign will. Similarly, I subordinate myself to my children when I help them with their homework. … So it is with God. When He helps His people, He retains His glorious deity but (amazingly!) steps into the servant role, under us, to lift us up. He is the God who emptied Himself and came down to our level – below us, to the level of slavery – to help us supremely at the Cross. Therefore, the fact that the Old Testament portrays God as our Helper proves only that the helper role is a glorious one, worthy even the Almighty. This Biblical fact does not prove that the concept of helper excludes subordination. Subordination is entailed in the very nature of a helping role.”[2]

Grudem

It is true that God is often called our “helper,” but the word itself does not imply anything about rank or authority. The context must decide whether Eve is to “help” as a strong person who aids a weaker one, or as one who assists a loving leader. The context makes it very unlikely that helper should be read on the analogy of God’s help, because in Genesis 2:19-20 Adam is caused to seek his “helper” first among the animals. … Yet in passing through “helpful” animals to woman, God teaches us that the woman is a man’s “helper” in the sense of a loyal and suitable assistant in the life of the garden. The question seems to assume that because the word (like helper) has certain connotations (“Godlikeness”) in some places it must have them in every place.[3]

What becomes clear from the above quotes is that the analogy of God and woman can be used if it proves that the woman is subordinate, but not if it makes the woman superior to the man. Not surprisingly, Ortlund and Grudem never propose that the word ‘ezer means that the woman is an equal, for it would destroy their concept of male headship. Instead they focus on refuting a scenario in which the woman is the stronger and the man the weaker, which they perhaps expected to create an instant negative response as seen in Ortlund’s response to Spencer’s comment on Genesis 2. Ortlund expresses indignation that she would even suggest that the “helper” could be superior to Adam.[4] But however indignant Ortlund is, his own argument makes the woman superior, since he compares her to God who stoops down to help us and to a parent who comes down to the child’s level. If God subordinates Himself, He must be under human authority, for subordination signifies occupying a lower position in a hierarchy. Tertullian refuted such a belief in already the third century when he wrote, “[Y]our divinity is put in subjection to Christians; and you can surely never ascribe deity to that which is under the authority of man.”[5] Thus God does in fact “un-God” Himself if He subordinates Himself to human beings.[6]

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[1] Ibid., 405.

[2] Piper and Grudem, 104.

[3] Ibid., 87.

[4] Ibid., 103.

[5] The Apology, Ch. XXIII.

[6] John M. Frame, on the other hand cannot decide whether the word help implies subordination or not in his essay Men and Women in the Image of God. He writes, “Humans beings are to help God (1:28); woman is to help man (2:20),” (Recovering, 227) and he believes “the very submission of the woman also images God. God the Lord is not too proud to be our “helper.” (230) But suddenly and somewhat inexplicably he agrees with those “who say that ‘helper’ does not in itself connote any subordination,” for although God is the helper of Israel He was not created for Israel as the woman was for the man (Footnote 19, 507). Frame does not explain how the woman’s submission can image God’s if God does not submit.