Theology Today - Vol 50, No. 2 - July 1993 - BOOK REVIEW - Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism

304 - Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism

Speaking the Christian God:
The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism
Edited By Alvin F. Kimel, Jr.
Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans, 1992. 337 pp. $21.95.

The two stated purposes of this book are to "substantively and critically engage specific feminist thinkers, particularly ... in the areas of the doctrine of God and God-talk" and "to offer constructive discussion and analysis of the crucial and often very complex theological issues." The book contains eighteen essays (five by women) from authors of a variety of different denominational backgrounds.

The thesis of over one half of the essays (by Elizabeth Achtemeier, Roland M. Frye, Garrett Green, Colin Gunton, Robert W. Jenson, Thomas F. Torrance, Thomas Hopko, J. A. DiNoia, Alvin F. Kimel, Jr., and Geoffrey Wainwright) can be summarized by a quote from Kimel. "The triune God has named himself, and he likes his name." Most of the essays argue that male language for God cannot be changed to female language or augmented by female language without destroying the Christian faith.

The view of revelation held by most of these authors is that we only know God through God's revelation in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, we learn that God's real and proper name is "Father." The language of divine fatherhood and sonship expresses the ontological relationship between God and Jesus and, thus, is essential to trinitarian talk and admits of no substitutions. It is interesting to juxtapose this position with Karl Rahner's contention that in the New Testament, the proper name for the first person of the Trinity is not "Father" but "God."

Another position common to several of the essays is that the male language for God that is given to us by God does not in any way indicate maleness in God. To use female images for God is to import sexuality into a non-sexual God. "Father" in reference to God is not the same as the use of "father" in reference to human beings. We only learn what fatherhood is when we know God as "Father." Indeed, some of the authors (Gunton and Robert Jenson, for example) argue that the term "Father" applies to God in a literal rather than in a metaphorical way.

The authors, for the most part, take seriously women's claims to equality and maintain that Christian tradition promotes women's equality. The equality of women is not seen as tied to the way in which God is named. Because the biblical names for God are divinely given and not social constructions, they cannot be altered. The female images for God that are found in the Bible are ignored or dismissed. Achterneier and Frye both argue that the female images for God in the biblical texts are similes as opposed to metaphors. Similes supposedly operate in a more restricted way than metaphors. "The similes

306 - Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism

comparing God to a mother illustrate some specified phase or facet of divine attitude or intent as defined in the simile's context, but they are not, and do not claim to be, a transparent equivalent to personal identity as are predicating metaphors such as 'the good shepherd' and 'the Lamb of God' and, even more broadly, God 'the Father' and Christ 'the Son'." Even if the distinction between simile and metaphor holds up, as Achtemeier and Frye maintain, it will hardly bear the weight they want it to hold, which is to exclude female imagery for God from use in the church because it is mere simile and not metaphor.

The essays leave little room for dialogue with those who hold a different view of how language for God comes into being. Many Christians hold the view that biblical language is not in and of itself revelation but is a human product in response to revelation. Thus, all biblical language, including language for God, is socio-culturally influenced. The authors (with the exception of Janet Martin Soskice) fail to take seriously that, even if the biblical language for God does not mean to indicate that God is a sexual being (male) or even if human fatherhood and divine fatherhood are not alike, God has been seen as male, and males have been seen as more like God than women have. This has had a very real effect on the social conditions of women, as Susan Thistlethwaite's work on battered women, to give only one of many possible examples, has made clear. Elizabeth Morelli's thoughtful essay argues that, if women are said to experience God differently from men's experience, it compromises our ability to see both women and men as fully human.

Feminist theologians who are Christians do need to seek honest and creative ways of relating themselves to the Christian tradition. However, three of the essays in this book explicitly argue (those by Stephen M. Smith, Blanche Jenson, and Leslie Zeigler), and many of the rest imply, that to be a feminist is to remove oneself from Christianity. As a Christian feminist struggling with and within the tradition, I reject this conclusion and regret that space does not permit an argument to that effect.

Pamela Dickey Young
Queen's Theological College
Kingston, Ontario