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Language for God and Feminist Language: Problems and Principles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Roland M. Frye
Roland M. Frye
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Extract

Language for God is not equivalent to the kinds of naming we use in ordinary speech. We say that what ‘we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet,’ and we recognize that ordinary names for creatures are subject to human custom, choice, and change. According to biblical religion, on the other hand, only God can name God. Distinctive Christian experiences and beliefs are expressed through distinctive language about God, and the changes in that language proposed by feminist theologians do not merely add a few unfamiliar words for God, as some would like to think, but in fact introduce beliefs about God that differ radically from those inherent in Christian faith, understanding, and Scripture. Briefly stated, that is the argument this essay will systematically expand.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 441 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1988

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References

page 442 note 1 Achtemeier, Elizabeth, ‘Female Language for God: Should the Church Adopt It?’ in The Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor of James Luther Mays on his Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. Miller, Donald G., Allison Park, PA, 1986, pp. 97 and 109.Google Scholar

page 442 note 2 Ruether, Rosemary, Womanguides: Readings Toward a Feminist Theology, Boston: Beacon Press, 1985, p. ix.Google Scholar

page 442 note 3 Schnur, Susan, reviewing Rosemary Ruether's Women-Church: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical Communities, in New York Times Book Review, December 21, 1986, p. 25.Google Scholar

page 442 note 4 Pomeroy, Sara, New York Times Book Review, April 20, 1986, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 443 note 5 Trilling was pleased to note that a recent book by Gloria Steinem ‘for the most part admirably avoids’ that excess. See her review in New York Times Book Review, December 21, 1986, p. 23.

page 443 note 6 Minogue, Kenneth, Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology, New York: St Martin's Press, 1985, p. 249.Google Scholar

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page 444 note 8 Küng, Hans, On Being a Christian, Garden City, NY, 1976, p. 311.Google Scholar

page 444 note 9 Athanasius, De Synodis 42, in Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters p. 472, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, vol. IV.

page 444 note 10 Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 1.4 and 18, pp. 41 and 45 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, vol. IX.

page 445 note 11 Sayers, Dorothy, ‘The Image of God,’ in her Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1969, pp. 100 and 102.Google Scholar

page 445 note 12 Theophilus, To Autolycus, 11.28, p. 105 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. II. It would be good to trace the centrality of this understanding through the Christian centuries, but space does not allow me to do so here.

page 446 note 13 See Wainwright's, Geoffrey critique of such non-equivalent substitutions in his ‘A Language in which we Speak to God’, Worship vol. 57 (1983), p. 319Google Scholar, and also his ‘Trinitarian Worship’ in The Mercenburg Review (Autumn, 1986), pp. 3–11, and his critique of An Inclusive Language Leaionary in Biblical Theology Bulletin vol. 14 (1984), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

page 447 note 14 Schmidt, Gail Ramshaw, ‘Lutheran Liturgical Prayer and God as Mother’, Worship, vol. 52 (Nov., 1978), pp. 517f.Google Scholar

page 447 note 15 I do not see how this proposal can fit either with Jewish or Christian theology, but see Gross, Rita M., ‘Female God Language in a Jewish Context,’ in Womanspiril Rising (ed. Christ, Carol P. and Plaskow, Judith), New York, 1979, p. 173.Google Scholar

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page 447 note 17 Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, New York, 1985, pp. 133–135, cited also in section five, below.Google Scholar

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page 448 note 19 Ibid., p. 269.

page 448 note 20 Ibid., pp. 92 and 43.

page 449 note 21 Terricn, Samuel, Till the Heart Sings, Philadelphia, 1985, p. 210.Google Scholar

page 449 note 22 For a comprehensive general analysis, see Blocsch, Donald G., The Battle for the Trinity: The Debate over Inclusive God-Language, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1985Google Scholar. See also the citations of Geoffrey Wainwright, above, n. 13.

page 449 note 23 Gross, p. 168.

page 450 note 24 Gregory, of Nazianzus, , ‘Fifth Theological Oration: on the Spirit’, cap. 7, in Chriswlogy of the Later Fathers (ed. Hardy, E. R. and Richardson, C. C.), Philadelphia, 1954, p. 198.Google Scholar

page 450 note 25 Schmidt, Gail Ramshaw, ‘De Divinis Nominibus: The Gender of God’, Worship vol. 56 (1982), p. 129Google Scholar; and Oliver, Harold, ‘Beyond the Feminist Critique’, Christian Century May 1, 1985, pp. 46–48.Google Scholar

page 451 note 26 Minear, Paul, ‘Changes in Metaphor Produce Changes in Thought’, Presbyterian Outlook, Dec. 19–26, 1983.Google Scholar

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page 452 note 28 Elizabeth Achtemeier, p. 109. The italics are hers.

page 452 note 29 Buber, Martin, The Prophetic Faith, New York, 1949, p. 121.Google Scholar

page 452 note 30 Hooft, W. A. Visser 't, The Fatherhood of God in an Age of Emancipation, Philadelphia, 1982, p. 132.Google Scholar

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page 453 note 32 See above n. 4.

page 453 note 33 An Inclusive-Language Lectionary, p. 269, and The Motherhood of God: A Report by a Study Group appointed by the Woman's Guild and the Panel on Doctrine on the invitation of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, ed. Lewis, Alan E., Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1984, p. 64Google Scholar. The Scottish report had a very hostile reception from the National Woman's Guild and was overwhelmingly rejected by the General Assembly. For brief reports on these two meetings, see the Church of Scotland magazine Life and Work, the issues for June 1984 (p. 22), and July 1984 (p. 11), respectively.

page 454 note 34 Gruber, Mayer I., ‘The Motherhood of God in Second Isaiah’, Revue Biblique, Paris, 1983, p. 357Google Scholar. See also p. 353f., and pp. 351–59, passim. In citing Gruber, I follow his placing of Isa. 66 as Second Isaiah, although that point may be questioned by some scholars. Another valuable analysis, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, vol. 48, 1986, pp. 609–616Google Scholar, is John W. Miller's ‘Depatriarchalizing God in Biblical Interpretation: A Critique’.

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page 456 note 36 Bynum, Caroline Walker, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982, p. 3.Google Scholar

page 456 note 37 Ibid., p. 168.

page 456 note 38 See, for example, the fifth and final version of the formulation on biblical authority of the Second Vatican Council: ‘the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.’

page 457 note 39 Prestige, G. L., quoted from his God in Patristic Thought, London, 1936 and 1985, pp. 6, 8 and 57.Google Scholar

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page 457 note 42 Calvin, Institutes, 1.10.2: nobis describitur non quis sit apud se, sed qualis erga nos.

page 458 note 43 Minear, , ‘Changes in Metaphor Produce Changes in Thought’, Presbyterian Outlook, Dec. 19–26, 1983.Google Scholar

page 459 note 44 Broadly true as this principle is in reading texts, it is especially true in biblical texts, as contrasted for example with certain Greek philosophical readings of literary texts. Aristotle clearly regarded figurative language as ornamental, something used to add attraction to plain speech. One senses that Aristotle would have been happiest if language were totally plain and unadorned, and that he thought language most effective when it moved away from the figurative toward the literal, and as close as possible to the mathematical. That position is understandable in terms of Aristotelian (and in different ways Platonic) philosophy, although even there it is wrong. But the significant point for us is the distance separating it from biblical conceptions of language.

page 459 note 45 Augustine, , On the Trinity, 7.4.7, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 459 note 46 Calvin, Institutes, 3.24.17.

page 460 note 47 For my ‘two sides of the coin’ argument, see ‘Metaphors, Equations, and the Faith’, Theology Today, vol. 37 (1980), pp. 260–266Google Scholar. For my response to the pressing contemporary problem of rigid fundamentalist literalism, as the first of these twin errors, see my recent book Is God a Creationist? The Religious Case Against Creation-Science, New York, 1983.Google Scholar

page 461 note 48 Fiorenza, , In Memory of Her, pp. 132–135.Google Scholar

page 461 note 49 See Prestige, , God in Patristic Thought, p. 130.Google Scholar

page 462 note 50 Scott, R. B. Y., The Anchor Bible: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Garden City, NY, 1965, p. 73Google Scholar. This is not to suggest that the Aiians advocated inclusive language for divinity.

page 462 note 51 Caird, G. B., Language and Imagery in the Bible, Philadelphia, 1980, p. 80.Google Scholar

page 462 note 52 Scott, R. B. Y., ed. Proverbs, pp. 70–73.Google Scholar

page 463 note 53 Bullinger, E. W., Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1968, pp. 727 and 735Google Scholar. Bullinger was usually clear on basic meanings and distinctions, and he was an immensely diligent cataloguer of examples, but he sometimes showed a lack of subtlety in his interpretations. Furthermore, he tended to ignore the fact that in certain periods different ‘terms of art’ were applied to name such inherent distinctions as those between simile and metaphor, but for our purposes in this paper we have neither the need nor the time to trace these. The distinctions Bullinger cites between simile and metaphor have provided the basic starting point for analyses in the time of the early Greek rhetoricians and into the modern period.

page 464 note 54 Nowottny, Winifred, The Language Poets Use, London, 1962, p. 85 and passim.Google Scholar

page 464 note 55 John 1.29, Rev. 17.14, 22.1–3, and other variants.

page 465 note 56 Mollenkott, Virginia, The Divine Feminine: the Biblical Imagery of God as Female, New York, 1983, p. 89f.Google Scholar

page 466 note 57 Matt. 23.37 and Luke 13.34.

page 466 note 58 Kennedy, George, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, Chapel Hill, NC, 1984, p. 26.Google Scholar

page 467 note 59 See above, notes 9 and 10, and Barth, Karl, Dogmatics in Outline, London, 1949, p. 43Google Scholar. See also Matt. 11.27 and Eph. 3.14f.

page 468 note 60 Luke 22.44.

page 468 note 61 Edwards, William D. et al. , M.D. ‘On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ’, JAMA, vol. 25, March 21, 1986, p. 1456.Google Scholar