More Than Metaphors: Masculine-Gendered Names and the Knowability of God

Abstract

MORE THAN METAPHORS: MASCULINEGENDERED NAMES AND THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD LYNNE C. BOUGHTON Chicago, Illinois W:HAT WAS ONCE a phenomenon confined to advocacy groups has appeared in ordinary Catholic parishes. Priests celebrating liturgies offer blessings "In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Holy Love." Such invocations of Persons of the Trinity by names indicative of divine action, as well as the " naming " of God with either gender-combined (Mother-Father) or gender-neutral (Friend) designations of personal relationships, suggest that the way in which God is addressed need not be different from the way in which one describes divine actions. Many argue that since one may refer to God's specific act as " Creator," characterize God's eternal and temporal activity as " Love," or note that in certain ways people experience God's care as that of a "Friend" or "Mother," these terms are suitable for addressing a divine Person . In early 1992 the Catholic Church's International Commission on English in the Liturgy endorsed non-gendered invocations by proposing that English language liturgical texts delete all masculine pronouns referring to God and replace "Father" in several prayers with gender-neutral names. Willingness to depart from the Father/Son/Holy Spirit terminology found in scripture and the Church's creedal statements is often grounded in the belief that God does not merely excel beyond human comprehension the fatherhood and sonship traditionally attributed to divine Persons, but rather that God, as transcendent being, is essentially unlike any quality that can be named. Those who define transcendence in this " epistemologi283 284 LYNNE C. BOUGHTON cal" way maintain that God is free of definition or distinction and that Persons of the Trinity negate and contradict, in their acts of existence, any permanent identity that the human mind may have " attributed " in scripture or Church doctrine to divine Personhood. Theologians such as Karl Rahner and David Tracy see no departure from the Church's authoritative theological teachings in their definition of transcendence as God's existential freedom from the limitations of eternally existing attributes of Persons. According to Rahner the names most indicative of who God is as God are " ineffable one," " nameless one," " silent one." For Tracy, the central " metaphor " and " doctrine" of Christianity is a " triune understanding" of the words " God is Love." 1 For theologians who define transcendence as God's being unconfined by categories, names by which divine Persons are addressed in Scripture are merely ways in which inspired communities or individuals likened God's dealings with them to lifeaffirming actions or admired personal qualities. If traditional names for God were " revealed" in this way, modern worshippers could reasonably address God in terms of likenesses to other, more 1 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, tr. William Dych (NY: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 46-71; David Tracy, "The Hermeneutics of Naming God," The Irish Theological Quarterly , 57 (1991) : 253-264. For an analysis and defense of the concept of transcendence as absence of metaphysical reality see Mark I. Wallace, "Can God Be Named Without Being Known?: The Problem of Revelation in Thiemann , Ogden, and Ricoeur," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59/2 (1991): 281-308. Although the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) listed "ineffable " among the attributes of God, God was not named in this way and, moreover, the context of other listed attributes (omnipotence, eternity) suggests that " ineffable " does not mean God is without anything that can be described but that descriptions of God are not comprehensible to humans [H. J. D. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed., trans. Roy Deferrari (London: Herder & Herder, 1955), # 428]. This point is illustrated by the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) which refers to God as "ineffably most high above all things " and then proceeds to list a series of attributes (Denzinger , # 1782). In the Council of Toledo, "ineffable" was used as a modifier ("ineffable Trinity," "ineffable substance," "ineffably begot") for terms that were defined in the Council's creed (Denzinger # 275-276). Further discussion of " ineffable" is in note 6, below. MORE THAN METAPHORS 285 inclusive, human qualities. Invoking, rather than merely describing or praising, God with names derived from creative/redemptive...