Holy Spirit: a "female" presence?

[lacoloratura]

For an interesting view of this, read First Comes Love by Scott Hahn.

[Thal59]

Originally Posted by Huiou Theou

Right, Thal, the word for sprit πνευμα is neuter in Greek.

However, the word paraclete--
John 14:16 παρακλητ-ον = Accusative case, masc/neuter.
could be neuter, BUT
John 14:26 `ο παρακλητ-ος = Nominative MASCULINE with definite article. Shown masculine, definitely masculine.

And when the Holy Spirit descended bodily 'as if' that of a dove? Lk 3:22?
περιστερ-αν --> feminine.

I don't know much about Hebrew, but I have seen where God dwelling in heaven is the masculine relative of shekina:
IS 57:15 =

So is the Holy Spirit revealed as feminine while on earth, but masculine when in heaven? :confused:

Nice to hear from you again, Huiou Theou.

The question I raised has nothing to do with physical gender. Nor does it matter how Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, English etc., or any other language decides to translate the Hebrew of the original text. The question I raised was simply... Why did the Holy Spirit always inspire the writers of the OT to render itself in the feminine? We can bicker over Hebrew from concordances, but to the best of my knowledge, such debates were unheard of amongst the Jews. They universally understood and accepted the feminine gender implications of the OT regarding the holy spirit without any apparent problems.

To me, in a nutshell, although God may not have gender as we know it, He certainly has the best attributes of humanity and to their fullest measure; whether or not these attributes are most noticeable in men or women. (His love, courage, gentleness, strength, etc., are at their purest, most perfect state.) So, there is God the Father, Sheckinah, and Jesus; or Patriarch, Matriarch, and Progeny.

In this way, God is more than a singular diety - He is a divine and eternal "family" unto Himself. Perhaps this is why, above and beyond all other institutions the world has ever known, The Catholic church is the most family oriented and family defending.

Thal59

[Huiou Theou]

So, there is God the Father, Sheckinah, and Jesus; or Patriarch, Matriarch, and Progeny.

Analogically this is a problem.

The Father + Holy spirit = son. Matriarch would imply that the Son came from the Mother spirit, which doesn't fit the pattern either incarnationally or trinitarian wise.

Incarnationally, the Spirit acted such that the son was born of a human woman. Either the spirit acted in a masculine gender, as spose of the church, or creationally which is understood as masculine in function.

The Father was understood as Father in the old testament because of the work of creation.

CCC 283

Many religions invoke God as "Father". The deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world.[59] Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born son".

Trinitarially, either the son and holy spirit BOTH proceed from the father, or the more specific Latin tradition -- the spirit proceeds from the father and the son.

from newadvent.com

As to the Sacred scripture, the inspired writers call the holy Ghost the Spirit of the Son (Gal., iv, 6), the spirit of Christ (Rom., viii, 9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil., i, 19), just as they call Him the Spirit of the Father (Matt., x, 20) and the Spirit of God (I Cor., ii, ll). Hence they attribute to the Holy Ghost the same relation to the Son as to the Father.

which shows the strength of the Filioque position.

246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)". The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration... And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son."[75]

...

248 At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.[77] The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason",[78] for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle",[79] is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.[80] This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.

I do agree that the Holy Spirit is beyond gender.

[exoflare]

Originally Posted by Bobby Jim

And I generally find arguments based on the gender of pronouns unconvincing. As others have probably said, there's not a strict correlation between grammatical gender and biological sex, in English or in other languages, and there is certainly no consistency in grammatical gender when translating from one language to the next. I'm not sure how noun genders are derived in the first place, but it seems like a pretty basic grammatical convention of the language, like the correct way to form a plural or the conjugation of a verb. To go about arbitrarily changing noun genders sounds silly, kind of like Yoda reversing sentences and placing objects before subjects.

Referred to as male, God was, because external his nature was!

Read JPII's "Theology of the Body" you will!

MMMMM!!!

(sorry I couldn't resist )

[Huiou Theou]

Thal,
Your post was not combatative this time. I like that. Also, the family aspect which Scott Hahn also writes on, attributes the heart to the Holy Spirit.

I think Scott, in his writing acknowleges the imperfection of the covenant approach to the Trinity. I don't see any problem with your approach on a poetic basis, but I am trying to keep catholic doctrine straight in my head.

I am uncertain what implications you are talking about, which Shekina had to the Hebrews on an OT basis.
Are you referring to some targums or something?

[KBarn]

It might not be a huge problem to attribute some feminine characteristics to the Holy Spirit. If the Catholic Church is the Bride of Christ, that is, essentially feminine, and the Holy Spirit is the soul, or form, of the Church, then is it such a stretch to think that the Holy Spirit my have feminine attributes?

As I recall, I believe St. Maximillian Kolbe went as far to call the Virgin Mary the quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I realize that I am just re-hashing Scott Hahn, but I think there might be something to that.

But I will accept the Church's judgment in all things. If I am wrong, I recant.

[AlanFromWichita]

When God made people, He made them male and female.

Why? Because they made a complete unit. Neither man alone, nor woman alone, contained a complete unit.

The Trinity makes a complete unit. In a very abstract way I could argue that could imply the Holy Spirit has aspects the other males don't, but I think it's mostly intellectual self-stimulus, so to speak.

Having such poor theological knowledge can be fun .... I just make it up as I go!

Alan

[piety101]

Well, the scriptures call God our FATHER. Now that sure doesn't portray a "she", but a masculine noun. Obviously our Lord is a man, because he became man and rose as a man. Thirdly, God is spirit. But yet he is our father. Since his spirit comes from him, his spirit must also be masculine. Otherwise we would have a feminine spirit coming forth from both the Father and the Son who are masculine..

[Huiou Theou]

Hi Alan,
Yes I am sure it is emotional, not merely intellectual, autophysis


Hi KBarn,
That's interesting.

Men who are male, do have some feminine characteristics, but they are not therefore spoken of as female. If a spirit has a gender, I would expect it to align with the gender of the person whose spirit it is. The soul is the essential form of the body.

There is a role for male and female in the relationship of marriage.
But I don't expect that the union of souls in a marriage constitutes a gender change for the man's soul in that union to a feminine one.

Each person remains the same person, but the flesh is united into a singular unit. My body is no longer my own, but belongs to my wife as her body belongs to me. In natural marriage this union lasts until the loss of a body at death.

In the supernatural marriage of christ, which is an analogy, Jesus is male and therefore marries a church which must be female.
Since preiests are in persona Christi, they too must be male -- for they marry the church in persona Christi.
This is the sign of the priesthood on earth.

Now the holy spirit being the soul of the church is another thing.
It is tempting to think of the Holy Spirit in a feminine sense rather than just as beyond gender. ( Poetically, you can ).

However, as the spirit of the Church, the Holy Spirit was not created. When Adam died the death of sleep, God took a rib from him and formed a woman. Her soul, however, was created at that moment -- it wasn't taken from the man. The two were one flesh, as an identity of source of flesh, but two souls.

In the case of the Church, something different exists.
Jesus, in the death of the cross, opens his side from whence comes the church. But the Spirit of the church was not created, rather the Spirit of Jesus gave life to the church.

The question of the gender of the Spirit is not really affected by the marriage analogy as far as I can see.

Other opinions?

[didymus]

Originally Posted by AlanFromWichita

When God made people, He made them male and female.

Why? Because they made a complete unit. Neither man alone, nor woman alone, contained a complete unit.

In His image he created them.
SO if males and females are created in God's image. God is not male or female but He must have qualities that reflect in us as male- and femaleness.

The Trinity makes a complete unit. In a very abstract way I could argue that could imply the Holy Spirit has aspects the other males don't, but I think it's mostly intellectual self-stimulus, so to speak.

Having such poor theological knowledge can be fun .... I just make it up as I go!

Alan

Yes the Trinity form a Unity but they are three separate Persons.
I don't know why people get so upset by the idea of the Holy Spirit as "a female principle" unless it's because mostly feminazis are pushing it. I don't think the idea is heterodox per se. Thinking about it, I realize I've always unconsciously vaguely thought of the Holy Spirit as female. Maybe that's because of the OT "Spirit of Wisdom" imagery or a subliminal assumption that at least one Person must be female.

[AlanFromWichita]

Originally Posted by didymus

I don't know why people get so upset by the idea of the Holy Spirit as "a female principle" unless it's because mostly feminazis are pushing it. I don't think the idea is heterodox per se. Thinking about it, I realize I've always unconsciously vaguely thought of the Holy Spirit as female. Maybe that's because of the OT "Spirit of Wisdom" imagery or a subliminal assumption that at least one Person must be female.

I've never thought any of this before, but I think it's interesting.

Now that you mentino it, I don't know why people get so upset about any idea???

I mean, think about it. Physically, there are some electric fields and electric devices that change my punching a bunch of buttons into words, and then someone goes and reads those words and gets all upset. When they do that, they are literally allowing my buttons in my apartment to stand as proxies for their buttons.

Like I have a serious reason to lose my peace because somebody on the other side of the planet punched buttons on his keyboard in a certain order. It's like one big worldwide videogame of emotions. You type stuff, you get stuff typed back by other consciousness units in places unknown. It's fascinating. It's like we have everything we need to hook up verbally, intellectually, and emotionally and help piece together the Kingdom of God.

Alan

[Caramel]

Hi! I haven't had time to read all the posts on this thread. I've never heard before of the idea of the Holy Spirit being a "female" presence. However, I would like to point out that in the original Aramaic version of the "Our Father", Christ himself referred to God as "Oh Birther, Father-Mother of the Cosmos". So there must be female characteristics in God. This is of course assuming that I have a correct translation from the Bible.

Just thought I would throw that in...

Love in God,
Caramel

[Donna P]

My humble understanding is that God/Holy Spirit - are spirit. neither male nor femail as we know male and female.

However, God as the Creator chose His Son as our Redeemer our Heavenly Spouse. His Church is His Bride. So God chose His gender if you will.

We do not have the choice of un-choosing what God has done.

[adriancombe]

Some people got very upset about what Dr. Hahn wrote in that book. I kind of liked it myself.

To summarize/paraphrase:

God has no gender, being pure Spirit.

Causality requires that anything a mortal has, God has more, bigger, better. In other words, God is a community of persons, and within that community, there must exist 'super qualities', of which the genders as we perceive them as extremely pale, blurry images.

Reaffirming every stated above about the grammatical genders being a wash, except in Hebrew, but you cannot base theology on grammatical gender.

God, in Holy Scripture, says certain things about the Holy Spirit that imply a maternal quality:

Mark 3-
. 28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”

(reminiscent of how human males defend the honor of a mother even when they allow other insults! - note also that blaspheme in Greek means to 'speak ill of' - this verse is immediately followed by a verse discussing Jesus' Mother!)

Eph 4
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

- evokes the image of a Jewish mother telling her boys not to make her sad

Rom 8
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

-Abba means Daddy; just as a Mom teaches a baby to call its father Daddy, to the Spirit teaches us

Also at least two early saints/church fathers called the Holy Spirit 'Mother'

[BerhaneSelassie]

The word for "spirit" in Hebrew is _ruach_ which is grammatically feminine.

The Holy Spirit is presented as sometimes in the masculine, and sometimes in the feminine, Luke for example presents the Spirit in the masculine since He overshadows the Virgin.

The Hebrew word ruach can be BOTH Masculine and Feminine, in the Bible the Holy Spirit sometimes talks in the masculine and sometimes in the feminine. (see Jewish Encyclopedia on Holy Spirit to see so)

Some of the Early Church Fathers, mostly the Syrian ones like Dr. St. Ephraim and St Aphraates the Persian Sage referred to the Holy Spirit in the feminine in continuation of the Rabbinical custom of doing so, since they heavily relied on it, and the Aramaic translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as "She"

The Early Church writing from the late 1st to early 2nd century the Odes of Solomon explicitly refers to the Holy Spirit was a She and it even sort of metaphorically feminizes the Father.

"who is it that leaves father and mother to take wife? The meaning is this. As long as a man has not taken a wife he loves and reveres God his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and he has no other love..."--St Aphraates the Persian Sage, Demonstration XVIII

"it is not to be said that the Spirit is a daughter or sister, but that (She) is from God and consubstantial with Him."-St Ephraim, EC Ar, 19,15

"May the Holy Spirit listen to the priest...May She receieve vows with sacrifice..."--Balai

Pope John Paul I in his one month as Pope did refer to God as being a Father and a "Mother".

As far as feminists go, I do not understand their objective in making God a woman. I suppose they will want to expand their annoying influence to Mormonism too and demand they call themselves "Morpersons" since Morman would be unfair to all the "Morwomym"

Anyway. The Catechism says God is not a male or female, God's God.

To learn more about the Syrian Fathers read "Symbols of church and kingdom: a study in early Syriac tradition" by Fr Robert Murray, where he includes an occasional discussion where the Syrian Fathers refer to the Spirit in the feminine