330 - Trinitarian Feminism: Elizabeth Johnson's Wisdom Christology

Trinitarian Feminism: Elizabeth Johnson's Wisdom Christology
By Harold G. Wells

Elizabeth Johnson's work can be seen as part of an identifiable and growing genre within the wide snectrum of feminist theologies that could be called "trinitarian feminism"-a development that holds promise, I think, for the successful integration of feminist insights into the regular preaching and teaching of the churches. I refer to that group of Christian feminist women who are explicitly, though critically, affirmative of central christological and trinitarian doctrines of historic Christian faith. I believe it is fair to say that some of the most widely known feminist theologians, for example, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Carter Heyward, and Sallie McFague, could not be characterized in this way. Among Christ-centered, trinitarian feminist theologians are such Roman Catholics as Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Anne Carr, and of most interest to us here, a Catholic sister, Elizabeth A. Johnson. Among Protestants who seek to reclaim christocentric and trinitarian theology in a feminist way are Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Letty Russell, and Patricia Wilson-Kastner.   ¹

Johnson and those who may be seen beside her as trinitarian feminists have not drawn back from the important criticism offered to the theological tradition by feminist theology in general. They have not compromised the sharp critique of patriarchy in society and church, the rejection of exclusively male metaphors for God language, the opposition to the legitimization of male dominance through the maleness of Jesus, or the

Harold G. Wells is Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of Advanced Degree Studies at Emmanuel College of the Toronto School of Theology, the University of Toronto. He is coauthor (with Patricia Wells) of Jesus Means Life (1983).
¹ Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us.- The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991); Mercy Amba Oduyoye, "Trinity and Community," in Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1986); Letty M. Russell, The Future of Partnership (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979); Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Faith, Feminism, and the Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).

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concern for the emancipation of women and all the marginalized that characterizes all feminist theologies. This is not a de-radicalizing form of feminism. We find here many of the familiar methodological precepts common to both feminist and liberation theologies, such as an explicit contextuality, a large place for the category of experience, hermeneutical suspicion of long-standing interpretations of Bible and doctrine, and an intention to bring social analysis into contact with Scripture and tradition. LaCugna speaks of an attempt to "recover, challenge, and indeed create tradition through re-interpretation. "   ² Anne Carr calls Christian feminists to "reclaim the centre," so that feminist perspectives will be incorporated into the whole of theology and be "taught in every school and every seminary, and preachers in every local congregation will use the broad context of feminist thought." ³ While these theologians do not constitute a monolithic school, they all seek "to be in continuity with the Christian tradition as much as possible, indeed, to search to the fullest possible extent for liberating elements within the Christian tradition." ⁴ Elizabeth Johnson wishes to

braid a footbridge between the ledges of classical and feminist Christian wisdom. Throwing a hermeneutical span from side to side may enable some to cross over to the paradigm of women's coequal humanity without leaving behind all the riches of the tradition that has been their intellectual and spiritual home.   ⁵

A major plank of that hermeneutical footbridge for Johnson is the biblical theme of wisdom and wisdom christology.

WISDOM AS CONTEXTUALIZATION

Feminist theology can be seen as part of the widespread theological project of contextual theology, which insists that theology must address, and be addressed by, the realities of the "context"-in this case, women's renewed awareness of their historic and continuing marginalization in church and society, and their determination to overcome it. Significantly, Johnson's search for a feminist christology utilizes a biblical concept that was itself originally an instrument of contextualization. She notes the common opinion of biblical scholars that the figure of Hokmah/Sophia entered Jewish thought precisely as a tool for the contextualization of Jewish faith in the face of prevailing religious thought patterns of the surrounding world. The Jews were confronted by competing and attractive female deities, most notably the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose cult, beginning about the third century B.C.E., spread throughout the ancient world. Isis was named as creator of the universe, who also strove for peace

² Introduction to Freeing Theology.- The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, edited by Catherine Mowry LaCugna (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), p. 1.
³ Anne E. Carr, "A New Vision of Feminist Theology: Method," in Freeing Theology, p. 25.
⁴ LaCugna, introduction to Freeing Theology, p. 3.
⁵ Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1993), pp. 11-12.

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and the suppression of tyranny.   ⁶ The characteristics of Isis were ascribed to Yahweh's hokmah (wisdom) imaged as female. Hokmah, then, (like Ruah) was a way of affirming God's nearness-but in very explicit feminine terms-while not denying God's transcendence. The requirements of the context, that is, the apologetic needs of Hellenistic Judaism at a time and place where goddess worship was au courant, moved the authors of such books as Proverbs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch to borrow mythological elements from the surrounding culture

"Johnson, as a feminist theologian, is doing what the ancient wisdom authors did. She is placing contemporary feminist scholarship and women's experience into a dialectical relation with the authoritative biblical tradition.”

for their own theological reflection.   ⁷ By ascribing the functions of the goddess to Yahweh and of Yahweh to the female Hokmah / Sophia, they were able to speak of the one God of Israel in female as well as male imagery. Johnson prefers this approach to locating "the female face of God" in Mary of Nazareth.   ⁸

Scholars of wisdom literature point out that the wisdom materials in canonical Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job, and also in apocryphal wisdom books, all have a contextualizing character. Walter Brueggemann tells us that wisdom is found in the experience of engagement with the world. The world is observed as ordered, regular, and reliable, since it is governed by divine wisdom ; specific, concrete knowledge of how the world works is therefore highly prized. All wisdom is one, and all wisdom, even from beyond Israel, comes from God. The wisdom books do not stress revelation in the specific sense but see knowledge and discovery as an active human enterprise.⁹ Gerald T. Sheppard points out that the Solomonic books are remarkably silent about the specificities of Israel's faith, such as exodus, the law, covenant, and sacrifice, being interested not in narrative but in short sayings borrowed from or by other religions and cultures. The wisdom authors, he thinks, assume these central aspects of faith but bracket them out, being interested in what is generally

⁶ Elizabeth A. Johnson, "Jesus the Wisdom of God: A Biblical Basis for Non-Androcentric Christology," Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 61 (1985), pp. 261-294. Cf. also R. E. Witt, Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971); J. Kloppenborg, "Isis and Sophia in the Book of Wisdom," Harvard Theological Review, 75 (1982), pp. 57-84.
⁷ Elisabeth Schuüssler Fiorenza, "Wisdom Mythology and the Christological Hymns of the New Testament," in Aspects Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by Robert L. Wilken (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), pp, 29-31.
⁸ Elizabeth A, Johnson, "Mary and the Female Face of God," Theological Studies, 50 (1989), pp. 500-526.
⁹ Walter Brueggemann, The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), pp. 67-90.

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knowable and placing this generally attainable knowledge in interaction with the Torah.   ¹⁰ Sheppard discerns an editing process in which Torah and prophetic materials are sapientialized, that is, nonwisdom traditions are interpreted in terms of wisdom through a process of redaction. In this way wisdom interpretations legitimate the Torah and its authority for a new generation by demonstrating how Torah informs the here-and-now concerns of practical ethical life. On the other hand, Torah remains central and basic; wisdom is grounded in the fundamental authority of the superior canonical Torah traditions, which allows wisdom its own relative authority as a guide to righteousness. ¹¹

I suggest that the intra-canonical process observed here is highly comparable to what is today commonly called "the hermeneutical circle" in liberation theologies, that is, contextual social-scientific knowledge and analysis are placed in conversation with the authoritative source-the Bible-that remains essentially dominant but is in turn interpreted and criticized by practical worldly wisdom and experience. We may observe that Johnson, as a feminist theologian, is doing what the ancient wisdom authors did. She is placing contemporary feminist scholarship and women's experience into a dialectical relation with the authoritative biblical tradition. Further, by using the scriptural category of wisdom, she is causing Scripture to interpret and critique Scripture. Here Johnson mobilizes scriptural wisdom to balance and limit other scriptural metaphors of God's nature and presence. Her feminist consciousness, of course, is the experiential and contextual factor that enables her to do this. Note that Johnson has not asserted women's experience as ultimate norm. Rather, she has brought forward an element of the biblical tradition itself as a source of critical insight. It is in view of women's experience, and for the sake of addressing women's concerns, that Scripture interprets and criticizes Scripture.

JESUS AS SOPHIA INCARNATE

Johnson's strategy, then, for a nonreductive feminist christology is to speak of the feminine Sophia as incarnate in Jesus. An essential premise to all of this, of course, is the identity of Sophia. Her discussion of this matter has been very attentive to biblical scholarship.

It is clear that in the Hebrew wisdom scriptures and in Greek apocryphal wisdom writings, Hokmah/Sophia is indeed God, that is, God's own presence in the world. To Hokmah/Sophia is ascribed all the divine functions. She is a giver of life (Prov. 4:13); "whoever finds me finds life" (Prov. 8:35). "The Lord by wisdom founded the earth" (Prov. 3:19). In the book of Sirach she declares, "I alone have made the vault of heaven and have walked in the depths of the abyss" (24:5). In the Wisdom of

¹⁰ Gerald T. Sheppard, "The Role of the Canonical Context in the Interpretation of the Solomonic Books," in Solomon's Divine Arts, edited by Gerald T. Sheppard (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991), pp. 68, 74; idem, "Biblical Revelation and Human Sexuality," in AIDS Issues, edited by David Hallman (New York: Pilgrim, 1989), p. 242.
¹¹ Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as Hermeneutical Construct.: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980) pp. 118-119, 159-160.

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Solomon she "pervades and permeates all things" (7:24). She also has redemptive power, for "herself unchanging, she makes all things new. In each generation she passes into holy souls; she makes them friends of God and prophets" (Wis. 7:27). Human beings are "saved by wisdom" (Wis. 9:18). "She brought them across the Red Sea and led them through that immensity of water; while she swallowed their enemies in the waves" (Wis. 10:18). Johnson points out that the sapiential literature is not systematically consistent: Wisdom is at times depicted as created, and yet she clearly exercises divine power as creator and savior. Johnson comments, "There can obviously be distinction but no separation between this figure and Israel's God." ¹² Most significantly, for Johnson, these ancient Jewish authors had found in wisdom a way of speaking about the God of Israel in female imagery without falling into ditheism. "Sophia is in reality God herself in her activity in the world, God imaged as female acting subject." ¹³

Of course, Johnson is not the first to propose a wisdom christology, which is thought to be the earliest form of the theology of the incarnation and is often found as a minor theme in the church fathers. For a long time now a number of New Testament scholars have discussed Jesus as the Wisdom of God in the New Testament, pointing out that what is ascribed

"Most significantly, for Johnson, these ancient Jewish authors had found in wisdom a way of speaking about the God of Israel in female imagery without falling into ditheism.”

to Hokmah/Sophia in Old Testament and apocryphal wisdom books is now ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament.   ¹⁴ While the term sophia itself is not often used, and so is not immediately visible to the naked eye, parallels with the older wisdom literature are unmistakable. This is particularly notable in the Q material of Matthew and Luke, which itself, as a sayings source, resembles the wisdom books.  ¹⁵ In what is thought to be some of the very earliest Christian testimony available to us, Q sees Jesus (together with John the Baptist) as child and emissary of wisdom: "Wisdom is justified by all her children" (Lk. 7:35), or "by her deeds" (Mt. 11:19). Especially in Matthew, we find Jesus identified as the preexistent Sophia. His words and deeds are those of Sophia herself.

¹² "Jesus the Wisdom of God," p. 267.
¹³ Ibid., pp. 274-275.
¹⁴ Cf. M. Jack Suggs, Wisdom, Christology and Law in Matthew's Gospel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), chapter 2; also James M. Robinson, "Jesus as Sophos and Sophia," in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by Wilken, pp. 1-16; Schüssler Fiorenza, "Wisdom Mythology and the Christological Hymns of the New Testament."
¹⁵ Cf. John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q.- Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), chapter 5.

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Jesus, as Sophia incarnate, can say: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me" (Mt. 11:28-29), reminiscent of words found in the mouth of wisdom in Sirach 51. Other words of Jesus in which the female, maternal voice of wisdom speaks reflect the familiar theme of the people's rejection of wisdom and her prophets: "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing?" (Mt. 23:37).

Schüssler Fiorenza has pointed out the wisdom character of a number of early christological hymns found in the New Testament, for example, in Philippians 2, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1, which utilize words and concepts taken from such passages as Wisdom 7 and Proverbs 8.¹⁶ In Paul, very explicitly, Christ crucified is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24, also 1:30).¹⁷ It 10.0pt'>is commonly held among biblical scholars that the Johannine prologue is essentially a wisdom text. ¹⁸ The parallels between the Logos of John and Sophia of Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24 are evident. Johnson argues persuasively that there is no necessity to discuss the incarnation solely in terms of Logos: "Jesus is Sophia incarnate; Jesus is Logos incarnate. Inclusive christological reflection which makes room for female imagery has the potential to contribute in theory and practice to the appreciation of the dignity of real women."   ¹⁹

Using the female figure of personified Wisdom so influential in biblical christology to speak about Jesus the Christ offers an augmented field of metaphors with which to interpret his saving significance and rootedness in God in ways that relieve the monopoly of male images of Logos and Son.   ²⁰

In her major volume, She Who Is, Johnson clearly affirms the doctrine of the incarnation of God in Jesus as important for feminists:

The inner dynamic of the doctrine of the incarnation sounds a ringing affirmation of the cherished feminist value of bodiliness, even for God. In the light of Jesus-Sophia we can see that the living God is capax hominis, capable of personal union with what is not God, the flesh and spirit of humanity. Here divine immanence or universal presence through the indwelling Spirit takes on an intensely clear gestalt in divine embodiment, enabling God to dwell in a small segment of historical time. Bodiliness opens up the mystery of God to the conditions of history, including suffering and delight. She becomes flesh, choosing the very stuff of the cosmos as her own personal reality forever.   ²¹

In the same vein, Johnson affirms the objective and bodily character of the resurrection of Jesus, which is important to the feminist concern to avoid dualisms:

¹⁶ "Wisdom Mythology and the Christological Hymns of the New Testament," p. 17.
¹⁷ Birger A. Pearson, "Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom Speculation and Paul," in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by Wilken, pp. 43-66.
¹⁸ Johnson cites, among others, Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (New York: Doubleday, 1966); and James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2d ed. (London: SCM, 1989).
¹⁹ "Jesus the Wisdom of God," p. 289.
²⁰ She no Is, p. 165.
²¹ Ibid., p. 168.

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There can be no dichotomy between matter and spirit or prizing of one over the other, but matter itself is a treasure related to God. Resurrection announces that this will always be so, for the body itself is glorified in the power of Wisdom's spirit, not discarded. Furthermore, it is the tortured and executed body of Jesus that is raised. This grounds Christian hope for a future for all the dead and explicitly for all those who are raped, tortured, and unjustly destroyed in the continuing torment of history.   ²²

Concerning the question of the theological significance of the maleness of Jesus, Johnson ingeniously appeals to patristic and conciliar christology. What is at stake for her as a Roman Catholic is the suitability of women to carry out eucharistic actions. She successfully enlists Nicaea on the feminist side of the argument. The famous patristic dictum was: "What is not assumed is not redeemed" (Gregory of Nazianzus). The question then is, Did God assume the humanity of women? The Nicene creed explicitly affirmed et homo factus est-"and became human." Nicaea did not say et vir factus est. The essential point about the incarnation is that God became human in Jesus, and fully human, not that God became a male human. Yet, "if maleness is constitutive for the Incarnation and redemption, female humanity is not assumed and there-fore not saved- "   ²³ The maleness of Jesus, she insists, while essential to his

"Johnson is uncompromising over against the pope and hierarchy of her church when she declares that the androcentric stress on the maleness of Jesus warrants the charge of heresy and blasphemy!"

personal, historic human identity, was not theologically determinative for his identity as the Christ. Her logic is flawless. To make maleness essential to or constitutive of the incarnation excludes women from salvation, a conclusion not quite acceptable even to the patriarchal church. Further, Johnson objects to the assumption that the maleness of Jesus implies the maleness of God, so that the male metaphor of Father cannot be varied with a female metaphor such as Mother. But this is contrary to Chalcedon, for, according to that council, there is no mixing, no confusion between the human nature and divine nature of Jesus Christ; each nature maintains its own properties. Yet, she protests, "the androcentric imagination occasions a certain leakage of Jesus' human maleness into the divine nature, so that maleness appears to be of the essence of God made known in Christ."   ²⁴ Against this, she insists, the intent of the christological doctrine was to be inclusive. Johnson is uncompromising over against the pope and hierarchy of her church when

²² Elizabeth A. Johnson, "Redeeming the Name of Christ," in Freeing Theology, edited by LaCugna, p. 132.
²³ Jobnson, She Who Is, 153.
²⁴ Ibid., p. 152.

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she declares that the androcentric stress on the maleness of Jesus warrants the charge of heresy and blasphemy!   ²⁵ The maleness of Jesus is not finally a problem for her, however, for

a certain appropriateness accrues to the historical fact that he was a male human being. If in a patriarchal culture a woman had preached compassionate love and enacted a style of authority that serves, she would most certainly have been greeted with a colossal shrug. Is this not what women are supposed to do by nature? But from a social position of male privilege Jesus preached and acted this way, and herein lies the summons.... The cross thus stands as a poignant symbol of the "kenosis of patriarchy," the self-emptying of male dominating power in favor of the new humanity of compassionate service and mutual empowerment.   ²⁶

We should observe, however, that, while she is affirmative of the christological traditions of Nicaea and Chalcedon, Johnson does not feel it is necessary to utilize substance ontology. She explicitly affirms the homoousios of Nicaea and Chalcedon but, like other theologians of our time, finds it more helpful to speak of the "two natures" in terms of relationality. Unfortunately, her development of the relation of the two natures is very brief. She gives us only this tantalizing statement:

In wisdom categories we can say that Sophia's intimate solidarity with the unoriginate God and her equally compassionate, life-giving solidarity with human beings whom she makes into friends of God are embodied in Jesus-Sophia, whose person is constituted by these two fundamental relations. ²⁷

Relationality is basic also to her treatment of the Trinity.

SOPHIA-TRINITY

Johnson's theology of the Trinity borrows heavily from Rahner, but especially from the theology of "social Trinity" developed by Moltmann and Boff. What is notable is the way in which she uses the concept of wisdom. We have seen that she uses it in a manner equivalent to the traditional usage of Son or Word incarnate. Yet she also speaks of the one God as "Holy Wisdom" or simply as Sophia-God. Sophia is also used in relation to each of the three "persons" of the Trinity. Johnson offers us chapters on Spirit-Sophia, Jesus-Sophia, and Mother-Sophia. Just as all three persons can be called Spirit, as God is Spirit, so also all can be called Wisdom. Here she quotes Augustine with approval when he says in De Trinitate: "And so the Father is wisdom, the Son is wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is wisdom, and together not three wisdoms but one wisdom. "   ²⁸ In using Sophia in this way, she is not adding a fourth to the Trinity or replacing any one of the three with Wisdom. Her manner of speaking is entirely congruent with the concept of perichoresis, that is, the eternal

²⁵ Ibid., p. 167.
²⁶ Ibid., pp. 160-161. Cf. also "Redeeming the Name of Christ," pp. 126-127.
²⁷ She Who Is, p. 165.
²⁸ Augustine, De Din. 7.3.6.; quoted in She Who Is, p. 212.

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oneness, inseparability, and mutual indwelling of each of the divine I 'persons." Further, by extending the concept of Sophia beyond Jesus and the incarnation, she allows for the universality of the divine wisdom, which is not limited to Jesus or even to Israel. Sophia, then, is a way of speaking of the unique presence of God in Jesus-and this is not relativized-but also of the universal presence of God to all people and to other religions.

All of this is of a piece with Johnson's strong sense of the mystery of God. She frequently quotes with approval the apophatic statements of older classical theologians, such as Augustine: Si comprehendis non est Deus.   ²⁹ 10.0pt'>And the famous via negativa of Thomas Aquinas: Since God is outside of all classes and categories and beyond the possibility of being imagined or conceived, God is positively misrepresented if any one image is used exclusively or thought to be adequate. She speaks forcefully on this matter because this is of particular importance to feminist theology: "exclusive, literal patriarchal speech about God is both oppressive and idolatrous. It functions to justify social structures of dominance/ subordination and an androcentric world view inimical to the genuine and equal human _dignity of women, while it simultaneously restricts the mystery of God."   ³⁰

"The persons of the Trinity are constituted by their relationships to each other; each is unintelligible except as connected with the others.”

Johnson is emphatic also that all of our trinitarian language is analogical. She protests that clear and distinct trinitarian terms give the impression that theology has God sighted through a high-powered telescope, with descriptions of the interactions between three persons intended to be taken in some literal sense: "Our speech about God as three and persons is a human construction that means to say that God is like a Trinity, like a threefoldness of relation."   ³¹ Here she follows a via negativa: "To say that God is one is intended to negate division, thus affirming the unity of divine being. To say that the persons are three is intended to negate singleness, thus affirming a communion in God. Number, when said of God, cannot be taken in a quantitative sense." ³²

Her rejection of "classical theism" resembles that of Jürgen Moltmann, who opposes what he calls "monotheism" to a trinitarian doctrine of God. What appeals to feminist theology here is the rejection of "an isolated,

²⁹ Augustine, Sermo 562; quoted in She Who Is, p. 105.
³⁰ She Who Is, p. 40.
³¹ Ibid., pp. 204-205.
³² Ibid., p. 204.

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static ruling monarch" in favor of a "relational, dynamic, tripersonal mystery of love. " ³³ Classical theism emphasizes in a one-sided way the absolute transcendence of God over the world, God's untouchability by human suffering, God's almighty dominating power: "Is not the transcendent, omnipotent, impassible symbol of God the quintessential embodiment of the solitary ruling male ego ... ?" she asks .³⁴ 10.0pt'>Such a depiction of God as "unitary" legitimizes and nourishes the egotism of male domination and monarchical rule. Like Moltmann, LaCugna, and others, Johnson laments the loss of a living sense of God as triune and thus of an operative trinitarian theology through much of the history of the church. This is a result of Christians' having lost their moorings in the foundational trinitarian experience. It was the threefold experience of the mystery of the gracious God who came near in Jesus of Nazareth and in the power of the Holy Spirit that gave birth to trinitarian doctrine.

This does not mean, however, that she limits the Trinity to the economic Trinity in a modalistic fashion, for she agrees with the teaching of Karl Rahner that "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and vice-versa." ³⁵ The economic Trinity, God's redeeming relation to the world in Christ and Spirit, not only reveals but is identical with the immanent Trinity, God's threefoldness in Godself. As Johnson puts it, "Basic trust in the experience of God's threefold relatedness to us suggests that a certain corresponding threefoldness characterizes God's own true being.... the triadic character of our religious experience indicates a threefold character even of God's own way of being God. " ³⁶ Both Rahner and Barth articulated the immanent Trinity in terms of one absolute subject existing in three modes of being. Over against this view, Moltmann understands Trinity as social Trinity, emphasizing not the unity of the absolute divine subject but a koinonia or community of three divine "persons." Johnson much prefers the latter. Here she speaks, like Leonardo Boff and others, of the "ontological priority of relation." The persons of the Trinity are constituted by their relationships to each other; each is unintelligible except as connected with the others. "Relation is the very principle of their being.... At the heart of holy mystery is not monarchy but community; not an absolute ruler, but a threefold koinonia. " She continues that "the very essence of God is to be in relation, and thus relatedness rather than the solitary ego is the heart of all reality." ³⁷ The Trinity, understood in this way, she believes, resonates with the feminist values of mutuality, relation, and community in diversity.

³³ Ibid.
³⁴ Ibid., p. 21.
³⁵ Karl Rahner, The Trinity (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), pp. 21-24, 82-103; quoted in She Who Is, p. 199.
³⁶ She Who Is, p. 200.
³⁷ Ibid., p. 216.

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CRITICAL QUESTIONS

It will be evident by now that, in general, I am highly appreciative of the creative way in which Johnson places feminist insights in conversation with the theological tradition. However, I would raise two critical questions: One is about the relation of social analysis to her theology; the other has to do with the death of Jesus.

(1) Social Analysis? Johnson believes that the equality of the persons of the Trinity implies and calls for a true equality and shared authority among human beings, and surely she is right about this. However, although she speaks in a broad and general way about human solidarity, she offers no substantial critique of the gross social and economic inequalities in the systems and structures of her society or the world. While an acute analysis of sexism and patriarchal theology is basic to her work, she offers no critical social analysis of the functioning of North American capitalism. She hates economic exploitation and environmental destruction and sees that they are closely tied to patriarchy, but she does not name socialism of any kind as an alternative to the hierarchical and individualistic society she deplores. The current collapse of Communism and the widely assumed "triumph of capitalism" surely call for alternative visions of political and economic community. Here she falls short of the insight of Radford Ruether, who insists that the structures of patriarchy can never be transformed without the fundamental transformation of the social and economic system itself, and therefore combines her Christian feminism with a democratic and communitarian socialism. ³⁸   Johnson regards "hierarchical dualism," including sexism, as the fundamental "taproot" of humanity's great problems, including ecological destruction.   ³⁹ However, the economic and social analysis, that is, class analysis, that might have informed her theological thought 5.0pt'>is insubstantial. Her trinitarian ethic of community, equality, and solidarity would be stronger if she were to "name the plague" beyond the plague of sexism.

(2) Death of Jesus. In She Who Is Johnson protests against an understanding of the death of Jesus as atonement or sacrifice. Specifically, like Dorothee Soelle, 5.0pt'>  ⁴⁰ she criticizes Moltmann for his depiction of the Son as delivered up to death by the Father. Johnson writes:

... feminist theology repudiates an interpretation of the death of Jesus as required by God in repayment for sin. Such a view today is virtually inseparable from an underlying image of God as an angry, bloodthirsty, violent and sadistic father, reflecting the very worst kind of male behavior. Rather, Jesus' death was an act of violence brought about by threatened human men, as sin, and therefore against the will of a gracious God. It occurred historically in consequence of Jesus' fidelity to the deepest truth he knew.... What comes clear in the event ... is not Jesus' necessary passive

³⁸ Rosemary Radford Ruether, Disputed Questions: On Being a Christian (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989), pp. 88-89.
³⁹ Elizabeth Johnson, Women, Earth and Creator Spirit (New York: Paulist, 1993), pp. 16-17.
⁴⁰ Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), pp. 26-28.

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victimization divinely decreed as a penalty for sin, but rather a dialectic of disaster and powerful human love through which the gracious God of Jesus enters into solidarity with all those who suffer and are lost.   ⁴¹

Johnson is right to emphasize the political reasons for the execution of Jesus, to insist that it was the result of human sin, and as such, against the will of God. She is right to protest against that widespread understanding of atonement that depicts God as angry Father and Judge demanding a blood sacrifice before he will forgive. Such a theory divides the Father from the Son and destroys the unity of God, encouraging us, while trusting Jesus, to fear and distrust his Father. But Johnson does not offer an alternative doctrine of atonement. It would seem impossible for feminist theology to "reclaim the center" while simply dismissing the theology of atonement through the death of Christ. Does she not run the danger here of replacing a theology of grace with one of moral admonition? Or is this a theology of easy grace, without wrath or judgment? Feminist thought generally knows well that injustice cannot be winked away with cheap forgiveness, that, when serious offenses have occurred, honest anger and confrontation are necessary to true reconciliation. Atonement theology at its best tells us that forgiveness and reconciliation

"The costliness of forgiveness and reconciliation is born by Jesus-Sophia in unity with Mother-Sophia, united in each other by the Spirit. Judgment as a consequence of sin falls not merely upon this innocent human being but upon Sophia-God.”

are costly and painful. Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, asking, "Is there a feminist theology of the cross?" raises the critical question "whether the nearness of God without the terror of God [has been] dreamed up ... which passes over our abysses and God's riddles. "   ⁴² The very early and persistent teaching of the New Testament finds salvation in the death of Jesus. We are told that for our sake Christ was "made to be sin" (2 Cor. 5:21), that "he became a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13). The Synoptic words of institution for the holy communion contain an implicit theology of atonement: "This is my body.... This is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many" (Mk. 14:22, 24). Jesus Christ has made peace "through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20); God "gave up" the

⁴¹ She Who Is, pp. 158-159. Cf. also Johnson's discussion of Moltmann and Schillebeeckx on this subject in her earlier book, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 119-125.
⁴² Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, "Is There a Feminist Theology of the Cross?" in God His and Hers, by Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel and Jürgen Moltmann (New York: Crossroad, 1991), p. 85. A similar argument is put forward by Ellen T. Charry, "is Christianity Good For Us?" in Reclaiming Faith: Essays on Orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church and the Baltimore Declaration, edited by Ephraim Radner and George R. Sumner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 225-246.

342 - Trinitarian Feminism: Elizabeth Johnson's Wisdom Christology

Son for us all (Rom. 8:32); Jesus came to "give his life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45); "God ... gave his only begotten Son" (Jn. 3:16). The atonement texts constantly crop up in all the New Testament authors and in the common lectionary; preachers must and will continue to interpret and preach about them.

Did the Father truly deliver up the Son for crucifixion? Johnson explicitly objects to Moltmann's teaching on this matter, charging that the abandonment of Jesus Christ by God makes God cruel and unjust.   ⁴³ 10.0pt'>But the charge overlooks two things: First, according to these same sources, it was Christ who "emptied himself . . . and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:7-8), who "gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). What is taught here is the free and willing self-giving of Christ for us. Second, the charge overlooks the unity of Christ with the will of the Father, the deep inner communion of Jesus-Sophia with Mother-Sophia, seeming to forget the equality of the divine persons that Johnson has so emphatically asserted and to ignore the communicatio idiomatum that she affirms elsewhere.   ⁴⁴ This means that God, in Christ, knows not only our human pain and sorrow but also our Godforsakenness, alienation, and damnation. Even in the forsakenness of Christ on the cross, even in that utter abandonment and alienation in which Christ and his Abba are torn apart, they must be seen paradoxically as at one in a single movement of self-surrender.   ⁴⁵ According to Hebrews, Christ sacrificed himself "through the eternal Spirit" (9:14). The protest against the apparent cruelty of the Father overlooks this deep unity of Mother-Sophia with her child Jesus, in the unity of the Spirit, so that it is she who suffers in him and with him. The costliness of forgiveness and reconciliation is born by Jesus-Sophia in unity with Mother-Sophia, united in each other bv the Spirit. Judgment as a consequence of sin falls not merely upon this innocent human being but upon Sophia-God. What needs to be noted is that the doctrine of the death of Christ as God's own self-offering for us has consequences for Christian life and ethics. That God has so loved us is the motivating power behind the life of self-giving love to which Christians are called (cf. 1 Jn. 4:9-11).

Nevertheless, Johnson has brought an important critique to a common, distorted, and very harmful theology of atonement. Her challenge pushes us all to develop an understanding of atonement that speaks not of repayment or punishment but of consequence; of God who does not

⁴³ She Who Is, p. 208.
⁴⁴ Johnson does acknowledge the unity of the divine and human natures in suffering:the cross belongs not to the human being Jesus alone but also to the person of the divine Logos. . . . [J]ust as through the communicatio idiomatum Mary can be called Mother of God, and this signifies not only a semantic but also an ontological reality, so too in view of the incarnation to say that God suffers intends something ontological about God" (She no Is, p. 251). This insight, however, is not applied to the theology of the atonement.
⁴⁵ Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, "The Theology of the Cross," in God-His and Hers, by Moltmann-Wendel and Moltmann, p. 69.

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demand payment, but who bears the cost and invites us to share in that costly divine life of love .⁴⁶

CONCLUSION

I began by noting Johnson's goal of "braiding a footbridge between the ledges of classical and feminist Christian wisdom." She has not betrayed the deepest commitments of the feminist movement as a whole nor left behind "the riches of the tradition that has been [her] intellectual and spiritual home." One finds in Johnson and other trinitarian feminists women of courage who are willing to challenge the power structures of their own churches and to bring rigorous criticism to major components of historic theologies, women whose minds and spirits have been nourished by a tradition that fundamentally evokes their loyalty. To use Johnson's own words, classical theology and feminist wisdom are "strange bedfellows" indeed!   ⁴⁷ The possibilities of coalescing what is most profound in the classical tradition and most liberative in feminism have been greatly enhanced by her work.

⁴⁶ Note that other feminist theologians have dealt with atonement, e.g., Dorothee Soelle's early work, Christ the Representative: An Essay in Theology after the "Death of God" (London: SCM, 1967); cf. also Mary Grey, Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition (London: SPCK, 1989), chapters 6 and 7; and Elsa Tamez, The Amnesty of Grace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993).
⁴⁷ She Who Is, p. 219.