AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Christian theology often determines the roles of women and men based on a particular interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis 1-3. The interest is to discover what roles God has assigned for men and women in the state before the fall, hence before the entrance of sin. This dissertation argues that Christian theology of roles of women and men should be founded on Christology that upholds Christ as a model and his teachings as a guide. The roles of women and men in the creation story cannot serve as an ideal for current relationships. This argument is based on two major themes: the knowledge of life before the fall, and the conceptual framework of the creation story. Positing that a problem is induced by a particular understanding of the creation story that was proposed primarily by St. Augustine, this dissertation is also a critique of his ideas of the state before the fall and sin. The knowledge of life addresses four issues. First, God-assigned purposes for men and women are sometimes thought knowable. However, nature as a God-assigned purpose and nature as a current structure and tendency are often confused. Second, although there are various views regarding the genre of the creation account and also about who Adam and Eve are, the consideration and evaluation of these proposed views are often neglected in current discussions of roles of women and men. Third, the creation story is God's revelation that humans understand through special revelation (scripture) and general revelation (nature, history, reason, and conscience). Nonetheless, the interpretation of the sinless, perfect state before the fall accompanies a methodological difficulty: the world after the fall cannot adequately provide materials necessary for the interpretation of the pre-fall state. Fourth, not only through special revelation of scripture, but also through general revelation, humans encounter a challenge in accessing the pre-fall state. To know the moral perfection of Adam and Eve through reason or conscience is as difficult as to know divine perfection through general revelation. As to the conceptual framework of the creation story, mainly two views have been proposed: the Augustinian and Irenaean. Unlike the former that depicts the human state before the fall as perfect, the Irenaean view delineates the state as good but not perfect. The examination of human callings in the creation account shows that the latter view is more appropriate than the former. The Irenaean idea of the imperfect state before the fall not only allows contemporary readers to both interpret the story and understand it noetically-so a pedagogical purpose of the creation story is achievedbut also reveals that whatever the pre-fall state ofhuman roles may have been, it was more a starting-point than an ideal for all time. Humans are not to look to the pre-fall state as the standard for the hierarchical or egalitarian role of women today. What God has revealed ofthe kingdom of God to come in the second Adam, the perfect bearer of God's image, Jesus Christ, is…