A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Dr. Donald Bloesch is professor of theology at University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Iowa. He is a prolific writer, having authored over 20 books, including The Reform of the Church (1970),Wellsprings of Renewal: Promise in Christian Communal Life (1974), Essentials of Evangelical Theological Theology (Vol. 1 – 1978), (Vol. 2 – 1979), and The Future of Evangelical Christianity (1983). He has also contributed to many more books, and written over a hundred articles and reviews in such periodicals as Interpretation, The Christian Century, The Presbyterian Outlook, Theology and Life, Christianity Today, The Reformed Journal, His, Eternity, and Decision. This article is from Battle for the Trinity ©1985 by Donald Bloesch. Published by Servant Publications. P.O. Box 8617. Ann Arbor. Michigan 48107. Used with permission. (Three footnotes have been included in the text in parentheses.) The Foreword is by Elizabeth Achtemeier, who teaches Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia.
FOREWORD
Donald Bloesch has paid feminist theologians the compliment, in this book, of taking them seriously. That is not at all a tribute to be scoffed at these days, for there are many theologians and biblical scholars in the church who pay little attention to such feminists, and that is a slight that may have serious consequences for the life of the church in the United States.
There have appeared, in the past ten years, numerous works by feminist theologians which are not only reflections of developments taking place in the church but which have also had considerable influence on some of these developments. Feminism has affected the liturgy and worship of the church, its governing bodies, its witness, its doctrine, and its sacred literature. The woman’s movement can continue to be dismissed as a fad only at the peril of the life of many members now in the church, and Donald Bloesch has realized that. He has read the feminist theological literature, and in this book, he critiques and challenges it. One can only hope that other equally dedicated theologians and biblical scholars will do the same.
There can be no doubt that several feminist theologians are in the process of laying the foundations for a new faith and a new church that are. at best, only loosely related to apostolic Christianity. Bloesch believes that feminist resymbolization of Christianity is leading to a new form of Gnosticism and of ancient Near Eastern goddess and fertility religion. I am sure that much of feminist theology is a return to Baalism. I am much less sure about its parallels with Gnosticism. But one thing is certain – many women, in their dedication to the feminist movement, are being slowly wooed into a new form of religion, widely at variance with the Christian faith. Most such women have no desire to desert their Christian roots, any more than many German Christians had when they accepted National Socialism’s resymbolization of the faith in Nazi Germany (and Bloesch draws some interesting parallels between feminist theology and that movement). Nevertheless, the unwary and the unknowing are led astray, and the Body of Christ suffers for it.
In order to realize more fully what is happening, perhaps some theologians and biblical scholars need to imagine more realistically the depth of the hurt suffered by women in this country at the present time. The feminist movement has now gone far beyond its origins in the early suffrage movement, the civil rights movement of the 60s, and the initial impetus given to it by Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique. Modern American women now smart under not only unequal pay and inferior social status. They have come to sense that their struggle now has to do with their very being and purpose for being. Their hurt is no longer functional but ontological, no longer sociological but theological. And the result is that they are now acting and thinking ontologically and theologically. Feminism has invaded the realm of God, and in some instances, the God of the Christian faith has been replaced with a god or goddess of the feminists’ making. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the daughters’ teeth are set on edge. As a result, the feminist challenge is most assuredly the church’s business.
Perhaps most distressing has been the church’s reaction to that challenge. Certainly in bygone eras, the church fostered the subordination of women, and one still grieves over those Roman Catholic women denied ordination, those Southern Baptist women given seminary educations but denied a pulpit, those expert women preachers offered only assistants’ roles. In guilty reaction to that, however, it does no good for ecclesiastical leaders heedlessly to encourage some women to alter the church’s basic authority in the Scriptures. The freedom of both females and males rests firmly upon the foundation laid in Jesus Christ and mediated through the Scriptures. If that scriptural foundation is undermined, in the lectionary and prayers and instruction of the church, the gospel of freedom will be lost with it. It is not the Bible that is at fault, but the teaching of it.
In light of that, it is nothing short of astonishing that the whole educational wing of the church has neither admitted any responsibility for current feminist misinterpretations of the Bible nor mobilized any effort to correct those misinterpretations. On the contrary, many educators seem simply to accept feminists’ positions without questioning the fundamental theological issues involved.
Dr. Bloesch does us the service in this book of raising those fundamental issues. Whether one agrees with all of his analysis or not, he points up the fact that we are indeed faced with a nationwide movement that is slowly but surely, through the efforts of its theologians, constructing a new church, on the basis of a new authority and theology. It is time that the church took a closer look at what is happening in it and to it. – Elizabeth Achtemeier
PREFACE
When Servant Publications asked me to expand a lecture that I had presented to an interdenominational church renewal conference in Chicago in March of 1984, it took me some time to decide whether to give an affirmative reply. I had already written a book on the problem of God-language and the man-woman relationship (Is the Bible Sexist?, Crossway Books, 1982). But many things have happened since then. The problem in the churches has become far more acute: there are now official committees at work revising the language about God in prayer books and hymnals. The NCC Inclusive Language Lectionary has been published and is being used in many churches. In addition, the nature of religious language has become a burning issue in contemporary theology. While I agree that some old “generic” words are outmoded according to contemporary usage, the attempt to deculturize often leads to resymbolization in which the language of the church is set in a new faith context.
It is my conviction that the current debate essentially concerns the viability of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the authority of Scripture. We should be alert to the fact that much deeper theological issues are involved than simply the updating of language. In an age when the first person of the Trinity is neuterized, the second person is spiritualized, and the third person is sentimentalized (Michael Novak), the church is challenged to retrieve the biblical and historical meaning of the triune God, the living God of the Bible.
My purpose is not to give a systematic exposition of the Trinity, but instead to show that the resymbolization of the language of faith decisively alters the way in which God and the world are conceived. I shall also endeavor to make clear that the debate on religious language has far-reaching implications for the understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
This book should be seen not so much as a polemic against feminist theology (though it includes this), but as a warning against current attempts from various directions to alter the traditional language of faith. It is not only feminists but also process theologians, liberationists, existentialists, and neomystics who are pressing for drastic revisions in the formulation of faith. I shall try to show that meaning is integrally bound up in language and that when foundational symbols are altered, the meaning also changes. What we need is not a new mythical or symbolic framework for the faith but a fresh interpretation of the faith informed by the new light breaking forth from God’s holy Word, a light that does not contradict but illumines what his inspired prophets and apostles said in the past.
Another issue dealt with in this book is the enigmatic relation between ideology and theology. Part of the problem today is that academic theology is becoming ever more vulnerable to ideological penetration, and this means that the message of faith is being adapted, often unwittingly, to the biases of the culture. It is not feminist theology per se, but cultural ideology (democratic egalitarianism, welfare liberalism, populism, ethnocentrism) that poses the principal threat to the faith of the church in Western culture at this time.
Theology needs to rediscover the early Barth and Kierkegaard if it is to resist the ideological allurements of our age. It was Barth appealing to the biblical principle of the infinite qualitative difference between time and eternity (rediscovered by Kierkegaard) who warned against the cultural synthesis perpetrated by the Neo-Protestants and their descendants the German Christians, those who tried to bring the faith into alignment with the ideology of National Socialism. Despite the fact that his political sympathies were on the side of the left, Barth was compelled to break with his religious socialist friends on this very issue – the transcendence of the claims of faith over the demands of ideology.
I write as an evangelical Christian who shares the concerns of those in the women’s liberation movement for fair practice in employment and wage benefits. I also believe that there is a biblical basis for women in leadership positions – both civil and spiritual. My book Is the Bible Sexist? was greeted with a signal lack of enthusiasm by both the ideological left and right for its effort to breakthrough the present-day impasse separating Christian feminists and patriarchalists or traditionalists. At the same time, it was applauded by many Christians, both men and women, whose loyalty to the gospel supersedes ideological commitments.
Though I regard myself as pro-woman, I sense in the modern feminist movement an ominous drift toward goddess spirituality, which calls people into a new faith orientation. Many women in the teaching ministry of the church, such as Elizabeth Achtemeier, Leslie Zeigler, and Elisabeth Elliot, have similar misgivings. The reappearance of the heresy of Gnosticism is especially evident in the cult of the goddess. Just as the ancient Gnostics sought a God above and behind the triune God of historical Christian faith, so their descendants are trying to do much the same thing.
Despite these profound reservations, I do not wish to leave the impression that my reaction to feminist theology is totally negative. We can learn from this new adversary to traditional Christian faith, just as we can learn from both process and liberation theologies. Feminist theology, for example, has given us an expanded notion of sin. In addition to viewing sin as unbelief and pride, we also need to see that it entails oppression and exploitation as well as disturbing acquiescence to these social evils. This theology reminds us, moreover, that Christ is model as well as Saviour. Our Lord’s treatment of women as well as of cultural minorities can be a salutary example for our time. The interdependence of man and woman, as advocated by biblically qualified feminists,* is a welcome alternative to both the servile dependence of woman on man (as found in patriarchy) and the independence of woman from man (as found in mainstream and radical feminism).
* Since this position is not characteristic of those who identify themselves as feminists, it might be better termed a “covenantalist” approach. A covenantalist affirms that the two sexes are created for fellowship with God and with one another. When we remain true to the divine imperative, we shall inherit the divine promises. See my Is the Bible Sexist?, pp. 84ff.
Where feminist theology makes its most signal contribution to theology is the way in which it calls us to re-examine the language of faith. It reminds us that much of the language of Scripture is symbolic and pictorial, that it points beyond itself to realities that cannot be directly apprehended by theoretical reason. If we think of God as Father in a univocal way, then God becomes male, and this is indeed idolatry.
The question nonetheless persists: Do the foundational symbols of the faith impart real knowledge, or do they merely evoke feelings of reverence and delight toward a God who is basically ineffable and undefinable, who will always remain hidden from human sight and understanding?
This book is primarily a discussion of theological epistemology with special bearing on the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. It is therefore relevant for all Christians who seek a firmer foundation for their faith than that presently offered by a great many self-styled theological experts who believe that the main barrier to faith lies in the archaic language in which the faith has come to us rather than in the scandal of the cross, the gospel of the vicarious, atoning sacrifice of Christ for the sins of a fallen human race.
THE CURRENT DEBATE
A GROWING CONTROVERSY
Two decades ago the principal issues in the church were whether the Bible should be demythologized (Bultmann) or deliteralized (Tillich). Now the main issue is whether the Bible should be resymbolized. Various theological movements in the church today are pressing for the resymbolization of the Christian faith, but none is so powerful and vocal as feminist theology. What is needed, the feminists say, is a new imagery that will reflect the holistic vision of modern culture. The biblical metaphors drawn from a patriarchal and hierarchical culture are considered dualistic and monarchial and should be replaced by images more in tune with the spirit of the times.
Patriarchalists, those who see the man as head of the woman and the voice of authority in the family, not surprisingly resist such efforts, fearing that any change in the language of faith that would call into question the sovereignty of God and the lordship and headship of Jesus Christ over his church would threaten family solidarity and social structure. Opposition to proposed changes in language in liturgy and worship also comes from traditionalists who simply have a romantic nostalgia for the past.
There are others within the church, however, who are equally disturbed by the feminist demands for resymbolizing the language of faith. Their concern is that the very meaning of the faith might be changed, that the particularistic claims of the Bible might be compromised. These are people who may well be sympathetic to the demands of women for equality of opportunity and who may well be open to women in positions of leadership in the church. Yet they are alarmed at what a shift in metaphors will do to such doctrines as the Trinity and the incarnation. I align myself with this group, though this does not mean that I am unwilling to listen to what feminists are saying in this crucial area.
Besides feminism, other theological movements seeking to alter the basic symbolism of the faith include process theology, liberation theology, and neomysticism. I shall be saying more on this subject in chapter four, but for our purposes here it is well to recognize that such movements reflect a growing discontent in the academic circles of the church with the traditional language of faith, which no longer seems to speak to people of culture. As avant-garde theologians see it, such language is not able to connect with modernity, and this means that the Christian faith can then no longer penetrate the enclaves of the culture.
The conflict on this issue is accelerating as policy-making boards and agencies of the church become more receptive to feminist demands. There are currently committees at work in nearly all the mainline Protestant denominations revising the language of liturgy and compiling new hymnals. A United Church of Christ document says that we should “avoid the use of masculine-biased language applied to the Trinity as in ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost’.” We are also instructed to avoid the use of masculine pronouns and adjectives in reference to God, such as he or his. We are even asked to abandon masculine role names for God including “Lord,” “King,” “Father,” “Master,” and “Son”. At the United Methodist General Conference in Baltimore in May of 1984, Methodists were urged to begin finding new ways of referring to deity, such as alternating male and female pronouns or using genderless terms. The majority of an eleven-member committee in the Church of Scotland recommends a “restrained and sensitive use of feminine language both to describe and to address God.” The new Inclusive Language Lectionary put out by the National Council of Churches in October of 1983 has heightened the controversy by deleting references to Christ as “Lord” and “Son” and by calling God “Father and Mother”.
The not-surprising openness of many feminists (even some evangelical feminists) to goddess spirituality augments the growing polarization in the church today. At a conference sponsored by the C.J. Jung Center at the Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver in April of 1984, feminist author Jean Bolen encouraged her hearers to offer prayers to such goddesses as Athena, Demeter, Artemis and Aphrodite. While discounting these as literal or anthropomorphic deities, she nonetheless accepts them as powerful symbols of creative powers within all of us.
Not only conservatives, but also those who might be described as moderate or mainstream in theological orientation are beginning to react against this concerted attempt to alter liturgy and spirituality. Elizabeth Achtemeier, Old Testament scholar and teacher at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, has this to say about the NCC Lectionary:
“In short, the canon of the Christian faith has been turned into a propaganda document for a special-interest group. Faith has become subservient to ideology, scholarly honesty to current notions. The authority operative here is no longer the canon, but the views of radical women’s groups.” (Elizabeth Achtemeier, “The Translator’s Dilemma: Inclusive Language,” Interpretation, vol. 38, no. 1 [January 1984], p.66.)
John Meyendorff, professor of church history at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Crestwood, N.Y., gives this dour appraisal: “Any translation is always an interpretation, but this translation departs from the intention of the writers. It’s a deception… It shows a deplorable attitude and will bring in more dissension between the churches.” Bruce Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary, who chairs the committee on reworking the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, is equally forthright: “The changes introduced in language relating to the Deity are tantamount to rewriting the Bible. As a Christian, and as a scholar, I find this altogether unacceptable. It will divide the church, rather than work for ecumenical understanding.”
Not all feminists go along with the demands for resymbolization. While open to supplemental language in which feminine images of God are sometimes used in prayer and worship. Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt trenchantly perceives that language revision could call into question such crucial doctrines as the Trinity. “The doctrine of the Trinity.” she says, “remains in the twentieth century a test of Christian orthodoxy. Thus it is both desirable and essential that liturgical worship acknowledge God with the biblical names Father. Son. and Spirit.” With curious inconsistency, however, she insists that masculine pronouns for God create an unnecessary offense to women and ought to be avoided wherever possible.
TYPES OF FEMINISM
Because feminism is not a monolithic movement, we need to differentiate between its various strands. First of all, there are the more conservative feminists who while committed to challenging patriarchal subordinationism are not willing to abandon the historic language of the faith. They may well press for making people language more inclusive replacing such terms as “man,” “men,” and “mankind” by “people,” “humans,” and “humankind,” or something comparable. Yet they balk at any basic revision of the language about God, since this indicates for them a change in faith orientation. Among such persons are Martha Stortz, Paul Jewett, Thomas Finger, Jean Caffey Lyles, Patricia Gundry, and to a lesser extent Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt, though a few of these are willing to appropriate feminine imagery for God wherever feasible.
It is my conviction that the current debate essentially concerns the viability of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the authority of Scripture.
Then there are the reformist feminists who seek a wholesale revision of God-language in order to counter alleged sexism in this language and to prepare the way for a more inclusive family of God. They do not wish to deny the Trinity, but they urge more inclusive language for the Trinity such as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. God becomes “Eternal Spirit” or “the Holy One” rather than ‘‘Heavenly Father.” Christ is described as “Child” rather than “Son,” as “Friend” rather than “Lord” and “Master.” Often the Holy Spirit is referred to as “she.” These feminists wish to work within the church as a reforming element, committed to the goal of a purified Christianity, purged of sexism and patriarchalism. Many (though not all) of these people are attracted to the ancient myth of androgyny in which God is portrayed as female as well as male. Leading thinkers in this group include Rosemary Ruether, Sallie McFague, Dorothee Soelle, Anne Carr. Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Susan Thistlethwaite, Joan Chamberlain Engelsmann, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Nancy Hardesty, and Letty Russell.
Finally there are the revolutionary feminists who regard Christianity as incurably patriarchal and sexist and who therefore opt for a new religion, one that proves to be a form of nature mysticism. Mary Daly began as a reformer in the church, but she has since thrown her Christian commitment overboard and embarked on a quest for a spirituality based exclusively on woman’s consciousness. Naomi Goldenberg calls for the restoration of the religion of witchcraft, which is more in tune with the cycles of nature. Other women who are attracted to a naturistic mysticism are Meinrad Craighead, Starhawk (Miriam Simos), Sheila D. Collins. Charlene Spretnak, Carol Ochs, Rita Gross, Carol Christ, Judith Plaskow, Shirley Ann Ranck, and Penelope Washburn.
We should also note those women in the church who find themselves at odds with ideological feminism but nonetheless support the movement for women’s rights within society. Some would be opposed to women’s ordination, but others would be very supportive of women in positions of spiritual leadership in the church. Among such persons are Elizabeth Achtemeier, Jeanne Kun, Ronda Chervin, Leslie Zeigler, Sister Miriam Murphy, Lucetta Mowry, Susan Foh, Marion Battles and Julie Loesch.
We should keep in mind that ideological feminism includes not only women but also men who seek to break down hierarchical structures in church and society and who are committed to the cultural vision of a holistic humanity. Among male theologians and other scholars who espouse the cause of feminism in varying degrees are Burton H. Throckmorton. Jr., Matthew Fox, Paul Jewett, Donald Celpi, Thomas D. Parker. Robin Scroggs, Tom Driver, Leonard Swidler, Fritjof Capra, John Cobb, Charles Hartshorne, Mark Branson, and Jurgen Moltmann.
THEOLOGIANS BEHIND FEMINISM
Moltmann’s position in particular is seen as lending support to the feminist life- and world-view. Moltmann conceives of God as bisexual and regards the Spirit and the Shekinah as denoting the feminine principle within the Godhead. In place of monotheism, which supposedly is tied to patriarchy, and pantheism, which is associated with matriarchy, he proposes “panentheism,” which is rooted in androgyny. In panentheism God and the world are not identical but interdependent.
Drawing upon Hegelian insights, Moltmann speaks of a history within God whereby God unfolds himself in the world of time and space. No longer a sovereign being transcendent over the world, God now becomes “the event of self-liberating love” or the eternally “self-communicating love. ’ The Trinity is no longer a supernatural fellowship beyond history, but an eschatological process within history in which we can be included. He rejects the traditional Christian doctrine of the creation of the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) and instead interprets creation in terms of emanation in the sense of a divine overflowing. In his view “all people and things … partake of the ‘inner-trinitarian life’ of God.” The unity of the Trinity is to be found in suffering love. Moltmann acknowledges his affinities to the process philosophy of Whitehead as well as to the dynamic idealism of Hegel. We see in him the convergence of process theology, liberation theology, and feminist theology.
Another theologian heavily influenced by Hegel and in whom the Neoplatonic influence is equally conspicuous is Paul Tillich. Tillich, too, has proved to be a significant source of support for Christian feminists. Like Meister Eckhart and other mystics in the Neoplatonic tradition, Tillich speaks of a God above God. the infinite ground and depth of all being. At the same time, Tillich aligns himself with the innerworldly mysticism of Boehme and the later Schelling in which this infinite ground becomes a source of creativity and power at work within the world. We make contact with God not by ascending above nature, but in descending into the depths of nature. This is why he calls God both the infinite abyss and the eternal ground. We perceive God not in a world beyond nature, but precisely in the rhythm and rhapsody of nature and also in its incongruities and discords. God is the infinite in the finite, the spiritual in the material. No wonder Tillich calls his position an “ecstatic naturalism.”
Tillich sees God as essentially Spirit or Spiritual Presence, and Spirit, it seems, is conceived basically as feminine rather than masculine. He describes the action of the Spirit as “the mother-quality of giving birth, carrying. and embracing, and, at the same time, of calling back, resisting independence of the created, and swallowing it.” God is pictured as “the divine life . . . actualizing itself in inexhaustible abundance,” rather than the divine act that calls the worlds into being. At the same time, Tillich insists that the true God – the infinite depth of all being – transcends the polarity between subject and object, masculine and feminine, and is best understood as suprapersonal rather than personal per se.
In the process theology of Charles Hartshorne, who gladly acknowledges his commitment to feminism, God is conceived of as bisexual with the feminine aspect being dominant. That is to say, God is understood primarily as the receptacle of the world’s impressions rather than as a creative agent acting on the world. God is the Cosmic Consciousness inclusive of all that is good and beautiful in the world rather than an almighty Creator and Redeemer. Hartshorne contends that the picture of God “as all-creative, all-determining Cause, effect of, influenced by, nothing” can no longer be seriously entertained. “Much more appropriate is the idea of a mother, influencing, but sympathetic to and hence influenced by. her child and delighting in its growing creativity and freedom.” Thus God is much more the sympathy that soothes than the fire that burns. Hartshorne has no compunction in referring to God as “He-She,” signifying that God is both creative and receptive. Indeed, he refers to God as “the supreme Creative and Receptive Spirit of the cosmos.” A growing number of feminist theologians draw generously from the tradition of both process philosophy and theology, whether this be the Hartshornian. Whiteheadian, Teilhardian, or Hegelian brands. (Among feminists who seek to utilize the insights of process philosophy and theology are Mary Daly, Denise Larder Carmody, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Patricia Wilson-Kastner, and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite.)
Other philosophers who have a special appeal to feminists include Carl Jung (who resurrected the myth of androgyny), Wilhelm Reich, William Blake, Jacob Boehme, Hebert Marcuse, Simone de Beauvoir, Theodore Roszak, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, and to a lesser degree Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Valentinus. Feminist theology particularly open to neomysticism as we see this in Schelling. Tillich, Schleiermacher, Kazantzakis. and Teilhard de Chardin (who envisioned an androgynous mystical unification as the climax of history). In this kind of mysticism we find God not be trying to escape from the world or transcend the world but by immersing ourselves more deeply in it. God is experienced in the depths rather than the heights, in the instincts and sensations rather than in the world of pure spirit.
THE GNOSTIC CONNECTION
The surprising affinity between modern feminism and Gnosticism also needs to be explored. (Gnosticism represented a syncretistic religion in the Middle East that antedated Christianity but assumed Christian forms. Its distinctive note was its claim to a special or esoteric knowledge (gnosis) that was available only to the pneumatics or spiritual ones. While Platonism and Neoplatonism saw the light of God reflected in the creation, Gnosticism regarded the created or phenomenal world as evil. The two great Christian Gnostics were Valentinus and Basilides.) In the tradition of Gnosticism, eternity is found by looking inwards; the universal awareness of divinity residing in humanity takes precedence over the particularity of a divine revelation in history, and self-understanding (gnosis) is regarded as superior to simple faith in a living God. “For the gnostics,” says one renowned scholar, “bisexuality is an expression of perfection: it is only the earthly creation which leads to a separation of the original divine unity, which holds for the whole Pleroma.” In Christian tradition it was the Gnostics who spoke of God as both Father and Mother and conceived of God as bisexual – the feminine element being the Eternal Silence and the masculine the Primal Depth (Bythos). In Gnostic speculation the feminine dimension of the sacred was also represented by the Holy Spirit and Wisdom (Sophia) and the masculine by the Demiurge, an inferior deity, the creator of our particular world; the last was often equated with Jehovah, the God of Israel. Though Gnosticism occasionally made use of trinitarian terminology, basically it saw God not as a Trinity, but as a dyad whose nature includes both masculine and feminine elements.
The debate in the church today is not primarily over women’s rights but over the doctrine of God.
Feminist spirituality has many things in common with Gnosticism, though it also contains thrusts that point in another direction. (This is why it is more appropriate to view it as a form of Neo-Gnosticism.) (Feminists who seem open to or have been influenced by Gnostic spirituality include Mary Daly, John Dart, Matthew Fox, Margot Adler, Rebecca Oxford-Carpenter, Elaine Pagels, Mary E. Giles, Pheme Perkins, and Rosemary Ruether. Ruether appreciates the Gnostic affirmations of the bisexuality of God and the essential equality of man and woman. She takes issue, however, with the Gnostic denigration of bodily existence. She also raises the question whether Gnosticism really overcame the androcentric principle. See Rosemary Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk [Boston: Beacon Press, 1983], pp. 36, 37, 100, 101. The Gnostic character of Mary Daly’s theology is clarified by Ruether: “Daly’s vision moves to a remarkable duplication of ancient Gnostic patterns, but now built on the dualism of a transcendent spirit world of femaleness over against the deceitful anticosmos of masculinity.” Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, p. 230. Daly refers to herself as a “Nag-Gnostic.” (See Mary Daly, Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy [Boston: Beacon Press. 1984].) The conception of a primal unity encompassing both masculine and feminine and needing to be recovered or rediscovered is prominent in feminism (as in Gnosticism). A turning away from procreation and motherhood in order to pursue life’s goal is characteristic of both movements. While the Gnostics envisioned the return of spirit to its divine source and ground, the feminists look forward to a holistic humanity – the complement of a bisexual divinity.
The ancient prison motif, prominent in Gnosticism, reappears in feminism. In Gnosticism, spirit is believed to be encased in materiality and temporality and needs to be released in order to be reunited with the kingdom of light. In feminism it is commonly held that both men and women are caught in a web of alienation and fear, engendered by a patriarchal culture, and need to be set free in order to realize their full potential as human beings liberated from sexual stereotyping. The Gnostics sought to facilitate the awakening of the “seed of light” residing in humanity. Similarly, feminists see their mission as the awakening of the consciousness of living in a male-female world (rather than a world that is exclusively male-oriented).
While for some of the Gnostics “perfect knowledge” is manifested in “fearlessness and independence,” so feminists regard the quest for autonomy as the indication of an enlightened consciousness. Many of the radical feminists celebrate nature and even uphold a polymorphous sexuality. But this, too, is anticipated in Gnosticism: the libertines among the Gnostics exalted in a vitalistic intoxication of the senses, viewing it as a freedom from taboos and restrictions that characterize the beginners in the religious life.
A Gnostic thrust can be detected not only in feminist theology but also in the writings of such neomystics as Heidegger, Jung, Tillich, and MacGregor. It was the Gnostics who misunderstood and sought to subvert the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Gnostics as well as the Neoplatonic mystics conceived of a God above God, the “Eternal Silence” or “Void” beyond the Trinity.
WHERE THE ISSUE LIES
The debate in the church today is not primarily over women’s rights but over the doctrine of God. Do we affirm a God who coexists as a fellowship within himself, that is, who is trinitarian, or a God who is the impersonal or supra-personal ground and source of all existence? Do we believe in a God who acts in history, or in a God who simply resides within nature? Are we committed to a God who saves the world by a sacrificial act of undeserved compassion, or a God who moves the world by the lure of his magnetic love (the God of process theology)? Do we believe in a God who created the world out of nothing or in a God whose infinite fecundity gave rise to a world that is inseparable from his own being? Do we affirm a God of the heights or a God of the depths?
Also of crucial significance in this debate is the adequacy of human language in describing God. Are the words of faith only ciphers of transcendence (Jaspers, Buri), only symbols that point to an ineffable ground of all being, or can such words give us real knowledge of the eternal God? Did God really reveal himself decisively and definitively (though not exhaustively) in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, a man who lived and died in history, or is Jesus Christ only a symbol of divine-human unity, or of transformed human identity, a possibility within the reach of all of us? Is the language of faith the indispensable means for knowing God, or does it stand in the way of knowledge of God?
The conflict as I see it is really between the historic Christian faith and a refurbished form of the old heresy of Gnosticism. It reflects the historical incompatability between biblical theism and Gnostic and Neoplatonic mysticism. It is already anticipated in the Old Testament in the rival claims of the monotheistic religion of the prophets and the naturistic religion of the fertility cults. What is at stake is not simply the doctrine of the Trinity but the integrity and identity of the church of Jesus Christ. It seems that we have to choose between the latest form of culture-religion and the prophetic religion of the biblical and catholic heritage of the church.
This controversy is therefore much more serious than most people who prefer to stand on the sidelines are willing to acknowledge. There can be no neutrality where the faith of the church is called into question. Feminist theology is only the tip of the iceberg. It is only one manifestation of the resurgence of the pre-Christian gods of ancient mythology, the gods of the barbarian tribes, as they seek to make a comeback in a time when our culture languishes in a metaphysical vacuum.