Masculinity of God

[p0lar_bear]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jul 13 2005, 03:33 PM']I hate to be the one to point this out,
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I seriously doubt that

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Jul 13 2005, 11:29 AM']According to that thinking we should deny the filioque and the Immaculate Conception, papal supremacy, etc....
Todd, I know you are very intelligent, but that doesn't mean that anyone who is not you is an idiot.
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Eastern Orthodoxy has a different understanding of original sin, and so it really doesn't need the dogma of the Immaculate Conception the way that the Latin Church does. Most Eastern Orthodox hold that Mary possessed the divine energies from the beginning of her existence, which would be the equivalent of the Western doctrine, but no Eastern Orthodox person would ever hold that Mary was free from the "stain" of original sin, because they don't believe there is such a thing as a "stain" of original sin. That's an Augustinian idea, and Augustine has had no influence on the theology of the East.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Jul 13 2005, 11:35 AM']I seriously doubt that
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Okay, you got me on that one.

[Apotheoun]

p0lar_bear,

Let's sit down and have a pepsi and a burger and talk about the [i]filioque[/i].

:pepsi:

[p0lar_bear]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jul 13 2005, 03:33 PM']Still disagree with you.  Poetically personalizing an attribute of God (wisdom) as feminine is not the same as referring to God Himself as feminine.  The Scott Hahn thing was delt with before and is actually a misquote (He does not actually say that the Holy Spirit is feminine).  And referring to Christ as feminine is just wrong!

We work too hard to appease the feminists, while at the same time driving men from the Church.  How many men want to follow a feminine Christ or an androgynous God?
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I don't have time to really deal with this right now, but just to let you know, my interest in this comes from reading Hildegard of Bingen, not from modern feminist thought. In fact, I think that modern feminists misuse what she says. However, you can reject their interpretation of her feminine divine without dismissing Hildegard's use of it (which is not just poetic). I don't know what the proper use of the feminine divine is, but I know there is one.

Regarding your last question: first, it could be turned around "how many women want to follow a masculine God?" That's just not a good enough reason to disregard a large portion of tradition that discusses the motherhood of Christ and the feminine divine.

second, Bernard of Clairvaux for one...

[Guest JeffCR07]

hahaha, I'd love to sit at that lunch table, but I havn't read enough. I want to read St. Anselm's [i]De Processione Spiritus Sancti[/i], then read Palamas on the subject, before I start talking. So until then, I'm keeping my trap shut

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Jul 13 2005, 01:50 PM']I don't have time to really deal with this right now, but just to let you know, my interest in this comes from reading Hildegard of Bingen, not from modern feminist thought. In fact, I think that modern feminists misuse what she says. However, you can reject their interpretation of her feminine divine without dismissing Hildegard's use of it (which is not just poetic). I don't know what the proper use of the feminine divine is, but I know there is one.

Regarding your last question: first, it could be turned around "how many women want to follow a masculine God?" That's just not a good enough reason to disregard a large portion of tradition that discusses the motherhood of Christ and the feminine divine.

second, Bernard of Clairvaux for one...
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As I have pointed out earlier, Julian and Hildegard are both mystics, not theologians. Regarding Bernard, you have yet to post anything that would lead me to believe that he atrributed feminimity to God in any non-mystical way.

I am just as western as you, but I do not acknowledge any tradition, "little 't' or big," that attributes motherhood or feminimity to Christ. I am only familiar with a sparse number of mystics who do so.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 13 2005, 11:53 AM']hahaha, I'd love to sit at that lunch table, but I havn't read enough. I want to read St. Anselm's [i]De Processione Spiritus Sancti[/i], then read Palamas on the subject, before I start talking. So until then, I'm keeping my trap shut 
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If you want to understand the Byzantine doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit I recommend reading:

"The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by Patriarch Photios"
Translated by Joseph P. Farrell

"Crisis in Byzantium"
By Aristeides Papadakis

and

"The Greek East and the Latin West"
by Philip Sherrard

[Jake Huether]

I thought I'd interject this, as I believe it pertains to the topic... not necessarily dealing with God being male of female, but rather with the fact that certain women tend to have a hard time dealing with the role of males (i.e. God in particular).


Gen. 3:

[quote] 16To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;  with pain you will give birth to children.  [b]Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.[/b][/quote]

God curses the women with a "desire" for her husband. But this isn't to be read as a sexual desire. Haha. That wouldn't be a curse for her, much less the man. It referes to a desire for her husbands position. But God immediatly adds "and he will rule over you." So it is a curse in that while the women will desire to be in her husbands role, he will rule over her.


So I urge our Phatmass sisters not to allow this curse to overcome you. Our roles are given to us by God and are precious! God is our Father, and this is GOOD! We don't need to make Him our mother. This is a disordered desire brought about by our own attempt to attain the knowledge of good and evil.

God has been revealed to us as our Father. We need nothing more.

We can explore why... But we should never ever allow the feeling of uncomfort in calling God our Father, or Jesus our King, overcome us.

When this feeling presses you, say an Our Father.

God bless.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jul 13 2005, 01:11 PM']I'm not saying that the East does, but if we follow your path, I can tell you this, the Eastern Orthodox will never be in communion with the Pope.

One other note, as I'm sure you are already aware, the Magisterium does not "create" the tradition.  Instead, it is the guardian of tradition, therefore it must pass on what has been revealed, and not play with it until it fits the modern sensibilities of Western secular culture.
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First I agree with Jeff, I am enough of a scholastic to agree with hi s reasons and I completly agree with both him and todd about inappropriatness of adding the Feminine to the Godhead.

Now just a few things, Todd while I agree with you that adding the Femmine is bad and frankly I think it is much worse than most here seem too( even you Todd) It think your concern about the Son being catagorized as Mother and therefore the Father and the Son/mother procreating the Spirt is unfounded for a very basic and simple reason the Spirit would be and will be, and in some cases [i]is[/i] the Target of Femminity of God. To put it bluntly the Son is Jesus and Jesus has a penis that is just too much abstraction to see as a femminine person for the VAST majority of People--- particularly in the West. More than that the Holy Spirit is the Person Assosiated with those traits which are concidered Feminine- Comforting being high on the list. So it will be the Spirit who is to be made Mother not the Son and that WILL COMPLETLY SCREW UP Understanding of the Triune God.


Now why is it so offensive to me to hear God refered to in the Femenine simple-- It is Contrary to Gods Command. God told us quite specificly how to refer to Him and it was in the Masculine, every time he EVER told us how to refer to him it was in the Masculine, further Chirst was and is a Man, He had and has a penis, Christ is one with the Godhead and to attribute the Feminine to the Godhead is to attribute them to him as well, this is simply perverse. Finally and this somewhat fits with the above paragraph The Creator is the Father-- His masculine nature is fixed both because of His Command at being refered to in that manner, as well as his behavior as Warrior and punisher, and of course the nature of Creation itself was masculine-- God creation is far more akin to the Male act of generation than the female one, for reasons I don't have time to go into right now. This Leaves only the Spirit who " came over" Mary That is a Male aspect if I ever heard one, the Feminization of The Spirit implys a Lesbian like relation there which even if you think is silly I assure you would be gripped like a vise by those who wish to relax the Churches teachings on the subject.

[b]but no Eastern Orthodox person would ever hold that Mary was free from the "stain" of original sin, because they don't believe there is such a thing as a "stain" of original sin[/b]


This is a serious problem Original sin is a requirment of the Faith. It is this kind of thing which makes me very nervous about such talk as the Greeks becoming one with the Church as a unified body. There is more than the filioque in dispute here. Frankly I have no desire to see the Greek Orthodox make any kind of union with Rome as a new Rite. We have a Byzantine Rite already, If Greek's want in they should have to be subsumed into that Rite and be subject to that Patriarch. Further I cannot see a spedy solution to problems such as the one above. Original Sin is NOT an Augustinian Idea it is a Truth of the Faith, one is REQUIRED to accept it, that Augustian vocalized it first is meaningless.

The appropriate Canons from Trent--
. [quote]If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of god, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him,[4] and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil,[5] and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse,[6] let him be anathema.

2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his posterity,[7] and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.[8]

3. If anyone asserts that this sin of Adam, which in its origin is one, and by propagation, not by imitation, transfused into all, which is in each one as something that is his own, is taken away either by the forces of human nature or by a remedy other than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ,[9] who has reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, sanctification and redemption;[10] or if he denies that that merit of Jesus Christ is applied both to adults and to infants by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the Church, let him be anathema; for there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.[11] Whence that declaration: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sins of the world;[12] and that other: As many of you as have been baptized, have put on Christ.[13][/quote]


No this is not something which can be taken lightly or even something that I think can ever really happen without a direct miraculaous event. And I am not sure why so many want it to happen, The greeks are Schismatics and deny Truths of the Faith, we have enough Truth denial in the Church already , we don't need to work on getting more, let the Orthodx come as people or even as bishoprics but beyond that we invite nothing but trouble.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Don, I think you misunderstand Todd.

Easterns do not reject the doctrine of Original Sin, rather, they reject the notion that sin is a "stain" on the soul. In their theology (as well as in ours, though the terminology is different) Original Sin is the loss of a state of supernatural grace, the effect of which is death.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jul 13 2005, 02:15 PM']If you want to understand the Byzantine doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit I recommend reading:

"The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by Patriarch Photios"
Translated by Joseph P. Farrell

"Crisis in Byzantium"
By Aristeides Papadakis

and

"The Greek East and the Latin West"
by Philip Sherrard
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Thanks a ton, Todd. Are those books or articles, and do you know where I can find them?

[Semperviva]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 13 2005, 01:27 PM']If you agree that feminimity cannot be attributed to any of the Persons of the Trinity, or to the Triune Godhead, then we agree. I concur that what we acknowledge as feminimity  does mirror a power of God (the power to create, sustain, etc). I simply urge that we do not let this get to our heads, and motivate us to start speaking of God in the feminine.

I agree that God transcends terminology, but I hold that this truth simply binds [i]us[/i] to terminology all the more. If nothing we say will ever be totally accurate, then we must guard ourselves with the gravest seriousness from speaking in a way that will lead to deep mistakes and innaccuracies concerning God.
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......................yup

[Apotheoun]

You misunderstood my comment, or perhaps I didn't explain the Eastern position as well as I should have.

The Eastern Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic, believe that the ancestral sin of Adam has effected humanity for the worse, because by his sin Adam lost the deifying grace that he had been given contingently at the time of his creation.

What Eastern Christians reject is the idea that human nature has been "stained" by the fall. It has been wounded in its natural faculties, but there is no existing "stain" or evil inherently present in man, because that would be akin to the Manicheaen heresy. Original sin is not a positive existing thing (i.e., a stain); instead, it is a lack of deifying (sanctifying) grace in the soul. In other words, original sin is a privation of a supernatural reality, and Christ became incarnate in order to restore that gift of grace to man.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 13 2005, 12:37 PM']Thanks a ton, Todd. Are those books or articles, and do you know where I can find them?
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They're books.

I believe the first one is in print and is available from Amazon.com. The other two may be out-of-print, and so you might look for them through abebooks.com.