Women Saved Through Childbearing? (1 Timothy 2:15)

[MysticMissMisty]

I think a poster said earlier that what really mattered was whether we were in a state of grace when we died, rather than whether or not we had children. Could the poster please elaborate on what he means by that? Because, one could argue that being in a state of grace was contingent on having children and even on them continuing in the virtues Paul cites (and possibly others).

 

[thistle]

A FASCINATING read! Thank you, oh, so much!

It would seem that this verse has been much thought-over, and, perhaps, much debated and much an “issue” over many years if not centuries.

I still wonder if there is any Church teaching (particularly that which is infallible and cannot be contradicted) that pertains to rejecting notions that women who are not virginal for religious reasons MUST have children to be saved or that, if their children do not continue in their ways, they are, by implication out of a state of grace? (Aside from the fact that it would seem there few, ifany, interpreters have held to these views.)

There is no such teaching because it was never necessary.

 

[Mintaka]

Through most of Christendom’s history, women could only enter religious life if they had some way to finance it (often called a dowry, but effectively it was an amount of money or property invested in the community “corporation”) or if they were working for the community as a servant (“lay sister” or “extern” were the old terms) in lieu of being able to invest. The same thing was true for guys, except that guys also had the option of being able to run off and be hermits. Women have a little more difficult time living alone and not being raped. (Though, to be fair, guys have to think about this too. They just can’t get overpowered as easily.)

Throughout most of history, there have also been plenty of women who were the unmarried aunts or servant women of the household. A lot of these ladies are pillars of the Church, so it would be pretty ungrateful for the Church to decry them! And indeed, they are usually praised, and many of them have become great saints. St. Genevieve, who was a shepherdess, is a good example, as is St. Catherine of Siena.

Catholicism has never denigrated women remaining unmarried and virginal, or otherwise single and staying chaste.

Now, there were some Protestant groups where this is a real issue, originally as a rebellion against the whole idea of religious sisters. If you think nuns desperately need either to get married off or thrown into prison as vagrants, you obviously are going to insist that all women marry. If your thesis is that all men must marry because no man could possibly resist the lure of unlawful sex otherwise, again, you’re going to have a thing against unmarried women.

This has led to some later Protestant/other groups insisting that women marry, most prominently the Mormons – since their faith says that single women don’t get their own planets after death like the men do, but only get to be goddesses of planets along with their husbands, who are the head gods.

There were also some heretical (Gnostic) groups that believed no women could be saved, because women are icky and fleshy and emit blood and have kids, but these usually believed that good little girls were eventually reincarnated as men. (Yeah, and they had a lot more problematic beliefs like that. Different Gnostic groups believed all different things, but they were mostly not nice things.)

Catholicism teaches that chastity is for everybody, virginity is very good for either sex, marriage and kids is also a good thing, and that widows and widowers can remarry but it’s also very good if they don’t. Since a lot of theology and Christology and Mariology rests on this lack of fear of sexuality and reproduction, Catholic women and men both have legitimate freedom to choose their way of life, and to follow God’s call.

 

[MysticMissMisty]

I was just thinking on this subject again recently…

So, if singleness, even singleness not necessarily tied to any kind of “vocation”, is a viable option for women, why does Paul here, instead of saying “she SHALL be saved through childbearing” rather say something like, “she MAY be saved through childbearing”, in the sense that, while childbearing is an option for women and a viable one through which she may be saved, it is not necessary for salvation? Is the argument that I suggested above (that most women did, in fact, marry and have kids at that time) a valid one here, so that we may suggest that Paul was not necessarily addressing every woman individually but that he was rather addressing the state of the majority of the women to whom he was writing? In other words, if we do take the “she will be saved through childbearing” as referring to women generally and the “if they continue in” the virtues as referrring to her physical children, could Paul simply be saying that, if a woman has children, that is as valid a way to be saved as her potentially teaching in the churches?

Still, though, it bothers me that Paul seems to address all women here as bearing children when surely there were some women who had enough means to choose to remain single even during his day, and, who, indeed, may have chosen to do so for reasons other than religious? Why did Paul not include these women in his statement “she SHALL be saved through childbearing, if they continue…”?

Perhaps the “shall” here has in mind the woman who has already had children and those children, “if they continue”, etc. will save her?

Also, is there any argument that could make this passage refer more to “child-rearing/raising” than to the actual act of the “bearing” of children? If so, this could make the “if” clause in this passage more logical/relevant.

Yet, again, though, I’m still having the issue with Paul seeming to make the generalization that all women “SHALL be saved” by child-bearing/rearing(?). I mean, even outside of child-bearing/rearing, could not women still take on other roles in the Church, even during Paul’s day? If Paul was simply saying that “child-bearing/rearing” was an option for women to “work out” their salvation, shouldn’t he have also addressed other options that women had in the Church to accomplish this as well, especially ifthere were some women who were/chose to be single for other than religious reasons? Why does Paul here seem to make the only other option for women to be saved in the Church the bearing/rearing(?) of children?