06/09: Referring to God, continued.
My previous post, musing about referring to God, prompted this response from Loy Mershimer that I think deserves posting. (Any friend of Barth is a friend of mine.)
Great questions.
I believe the discussion distills to this issue: to what degree does one trust divine Revelation over one's personal revelations [and declared self-need in defining the Other]?
Barth framed this issue in the nature of God [unknowable except by self-revelation] and the nature of that divine Revelation as salvific. I've yet to hear a good answer to his objection to renaming God...
Here is Barth’s argument in a nutshell: To arrogate to oneself the ability to subjectively rename the Trinity is to assume that one apprehends the objective essence of the revelation itself, the ‘infinite and spiritual essence’ of the One being named -- a categorical impossibility.
Barth thus reveals the human renaming of divinity [re-imagining, etc.] a failure of human arrogance: mere postmodern idolatry.
All we know of God is what God graciously self-reveals. And that revelation is the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: relational, integral ontology.
Regarding the pronouns of God and the images of God, James Torrance notes that there are zero feminine metaphors for God in Scripture; there are three similes which are feminine.
Of course, the linguistic value of such distinction is simple: metaphor is used to show something of essence, simile something of function.
Perhaps the whole discussion would be more simple if people understood that God is Spirit -- not male or female -- and that reasoning back onto Him from flawed earthly fathers is faulty 'theology from below,' with self as the arbiter of right [subjective epistemology].
It is deeply regretful that hurtful masculine models have apparently wounded a generation of sensitive sons and daughters from receiving God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit...
George MacDonald, in his sermon "Abba! Father" describes the whole of human misery in the inability of human children to call God Father:
The refusal to look up to God as our Father is the one central wrong in the whole human affair. The inability to do so is our one central misery. Whatever serves to clear any difficulty from the way of the recognition of the Father will more or less undermine every difficulty in life.
He goes on to say that the very key of healing for those wounded by earthly fathers is in the recovery of God as their real Father: Provocative, practical considerations of this whole discussion!
Great thoughts! Thank you...
Loy
p.s. Torrance has a little book entitled Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace -- it might be worth a read!
Loy's website is here.
Great questions.
I believe the discussion distills to this issue: to what degree does one trust divine Revelation over one's personal revelations [and declared self-need in defining the Other]?
Barth framed this issue in the nature of God [unknowable except by self-revelation] and the nature of that divine Revelation as salvific. I've yet to hear a good answer to his objection to renaming God...
Here is Barth’s argument in a nutshell: To arrogate to oneself the ability to subjectively rename the Trinity is to assume that one apprehends the objective essence of the revelation itself, the ‘infinite and spiritual essence’ of the One being named -- a categorical impossibility.
Barth thus reveals the human renaming of divinity [re-imagining, etc.] a failure of human arrogance: mere postmodern idolatry.
All we know of God is what God graciously self-reveals. And that revelation is the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: relational, integral ontology.
Regarding the pronouns of God and the images of God, James Torrance notes that there are zero feminine metaphors for God in Scripture; there are three similes which are feminine.
Of course, the linguistic value of such distinction is simple: metaphor is used to show something of essence, simile something of function.
Perhaps the whole discussion would be more simple if people understood that God is Spirit -- not male or female -- and that reasoning back onto Him from flawed earthly fathers is faulty 'theology from below,' with self as the arbiter of right [subjective epistemology].
It is deeply regretful that hurtful masculine models have apparently wounded a generation of sensitive sons and daughters from receiving God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit...
George MacDonald, in his sermon "Abba! Father" describes the whole of human misery in the inability of human children to call God Father:
The refusal to look up to God as our Father is the one central wrong in the whole human affair. The inability to do so is our one central misery. Whatever serves to clear any difficulty from the way of the recognition of the Father will more or less undermine every difficulty in life.
He goes on to say that the very key of healing for those wounded by earthly fathers is in the recovery of God as their real Father: Provocative, practical considerations of this whole discussion!
Great thoughts! Thank you...
Loy
p.s. Torrance has a little book entitled Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace -- it might be worth a read!
Loy's website is here.
I was trying to reclaim my garden this afternoon from the grass that benefitted from our rains and the trip to Georgia. Our stony southwest Oklahoma soil is remarkably fecund if enough rain falls. Of course, I've added from my compost pile, and purchased manure, to build up the soil. As I was grubbing with my mattock (too rocky for a regular hoe still, maybe someday I'll get all the rocks out) I got to thinking about goddesses and the problem of referring to God.
Interesting, and perhaps not surprising, that so many cultures have an earth goddess, not an earth god. The rain from the sky, compared to semen in many belief-systems, falls upon the waiting earth, like a fertile womb, and new life comes forth. Fertile rolling hills, with some imagination, can remind one of the female form. The earth goddess and the sky god, uniting to bring life.
I am, as regular readers know, a Christian. And a preacher. So I refer to God a lot. Sometimes I use sexless terms: God saves because of God's love; God's actions glorify Godself. Theologically, this terminology is not wrong, because traditionally Christian theology has taught that God is without gender. But, sexless terminology works by not using pronouns; that makes for awkward speech, and sounds too impersonal.
When I use pronouns for God, I use the masculine. God himself, The Lord called and he said. I do so because Scripture usually does so. Perhaps you may say that I am using the inclusive "him" to mean both male and female. OK. But then, why is "she" not as acceptable as "he?" Why not an inclusive "she?" While there is a little bit of feminine imagery for God, overwhelmingly the imagery in the Bible is masculine: Lord (not Lady), King (not Queen), Shepherd (not Shepherdess). And, Jesus, now alive and living in heaven thence to return, is a man. Was the choice of a male incarnation accidental? Could God have taken human form as a woman, so that we worship Ruth the Christ? Speculation on this gets us nowhere. God chose to be incarnate as a man, with a Y chromosome, penis, and testicles. For now, at least, I'll use masculine imagery predominately, and masculine pronouns for God.
This afternoon in the garden I was contemplating another reason. Sky gods tend to be associated with power and action, and perhaps are more easily understood as transcending time and place. Earth goddesses are receivers, active in giving life indeed, but tied into the natural cycles of months and years, returning again and again, more easily understood as immanent, that is, within time and place. If we adopt feminine language for the Christian God, will our conception of God be altered, more tied up in Creation? I don't know.
Interesting, and perhaps not surprising, that so many cultures have an earth goddess, not an earth god. The rain from the sky, compared to semen in many belief-systems, falls upon the waiting earth, like a fertile womb, and new life comes forth. Fertile rolling hills, with some imagination, can remind one of the female form. The earth goddess and the sky god, uniting to bring life.
I am, as regular readers know, a Christian. And a preacher. So I refer to God a lot. Sometimes I use sexless terms: God saves because of God's love; God's actions glorify Godself. Theologically, this terminology is not wrong, because traditionally Christian theology has taught that God is without gender. But, sexless terminology works by not using pronouns; that makes for awkward speech, and sounds too impersonal.
When I use pronouns for God, I use the masculine. God himself, The Lord called and he said. I do so because Scripture usually does so. Perhaps you may say that I am using the inclusive "him" to mean both male and female. OK. But then, why is "she" not as acceptable as "he?" Why not an inclusive "she?" While there is a little bit of feminine imagery for God, overwhelmingly the imagery in the Bible is masculine: Lord (not Lady), King (not Queen), Shepherd (not Shepherdess). And, Jesus, now alive and living in heaven thence to return, is a man. Was the choice of a male incarnation accidental? Could God have taken human form as a woman, so that we worship Ruth the Christ? Speculation on this gets us nowhere. God chose to be incarnate as a man, with a Y chromosome, penis, and testicles. For now, at least, I'll use masculine imagery predominately, and masculine pronouns for God.
This afternoon in the garden I was contemplating another reason. Sky gods tend to be associated with power and action, and perhaps are more easily understood as transcending time and place. Earth goddesses are receivers, active in giving life indeed, but tied into the natural cycles of months and years, returning again and again, more easily understood as immanent, that is, within time and place. If we adopt feminine language for the Christian God, will our conception of God be altered, more tied up in Creation? I don't know.
Sidebar
