I am not a female man

jen, i totally agree with everything here. i'm trying to get through graham ward's "cities of God" (but the pertinant chapter in is also in the "radical orthodoxy" reader) where he talks about the ascension being the neglected doctine where in a sense Jesus becomes transgendered in his absence/presence through the Eucharist.

I've always wondered why male minister don't play up the fact that the Church is the Bride of Christ, meaning that women have a privilege place of relation to Christ as feminine. Instead of asking the question of "how can women follow a male savior" we should ask "how can men participate is salvation if they aren't changed into female brides." of course both are ridiculous, and that's the point.

While I've tried to go through Fr. Hart's replies to best understand his argument, I have to confess that it was difficult to do anything else other than get his main points, given the nature of the back-and-forth of the comments on the post. And, indeed, his "female man" remark was really but one comment that was almost an aside.

Be that as it may, I offer this thought as perhaps a way to take the edge off the anger you feel.

It seems to me that what Fr. Hart says is actually precisely reconcilable with the Trinitarian post you gave earlier this week.

In Church Tradition, the main strain of Trinitarian theology (at least in the East) notes that the Father is the arche, or font of the Godhead. All Trinitarian relationships derive, essentially, though not temporally, from God the Father. The Father eternally begets the Son, Who Himself is eternally begotten of the Father, and seeks always to do not His own will, but the will of the Father. The Father eternally "processes" the Holy Spirit, Who Himself is eternally proceeding from the Father. Nowhere is the Son spoken of in anyway, within Trinitarian discourse, except as being begotten of the Father; and nowhere is the Holy Spirit similarly spoken of except as eternally proceeding from the Father. So, in this sense, the Son and the Holy Spirit derive from the Father.

Yet in no way are Son and Spirit any less than fully God.

So I think that since mankind is made in the same Trinitarian image, to speak of woman deriving from man--which, biblically speaking, is simple theological fact: the woman was formed from the man--hardly is a case for arguing for the lesser status of woman.

I realize that correct Trinitarian terminology has never been a guarantee against heresy and abuse, and neither would a correctly understood biblical anthropology such as Fr. Hart alludes to be any sort of prophylactic against misogyny. But just as odd cases make bad law, theology built explicitly as a reaction to and therefore on the foundation of heresy/abuse, can make for bad theology.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

The Bible does not say, anywhere, that the woman is less fully the image of God than the man. Even in Corinthians, Paul is referring to woman's glory and not her image. This seems to me to be what Father Hart and the other Touchstone articles are saying: because the male was created first, he is the full image of God and the representative/normal human in a way that the female is not.

Saying that woman derives or has her source in man just as the Son and Holy Spirit have their source in the Father is not the same thing as saying that the woman shares the IMAGE of God in a derivative way, but the man doesn't. That just suggests she's less the image of God than the man.

Also, contrary to what Father Hart writes, it is not Adam that is created in Genesis 1:27 but "adam" or "anthropos" or "man" or "humankind." Genesis 1:27 does not say that God created a male in his image, male and female he created them.

Cliff, I may misunderstand you but it seems as if you are arguing that the male is in the image of the Father but the female is more in the image of the Son or Holy Spirit since like the Son and Holy Spirit she derives from a source: man/Father. But that seems to divide up the image of the Triune God. Aren't men and women both the full image of the whole Triune God, of God who is being-in-communion?

I don't think I believe women are "fully the image of God."

But then again, I don't think I believe men are "fully the image of God" either. The relevant Genesis passage (1:26-27) seems to me to imply a similar mysterious oneness between the man and the woman as exists among the Godhead that created them. It's interesting to me that God speaks of himself in plurals here at the creation of man and nowhere else in the creation narrative. To me that use of the plurals to describe Elohim ("the many"--later to be further revealed as three--"who are one") points toward a similar plurality in his highest creation. Verse 27 points to mankind prior to the fall as "the many"--two, but soon to be a multitude--"who are one."

The second, humanocentric creation narrative alludes to this same concept when it points out that woman was "taken out of man" (Gen 2:23) in other words, that she is one with him in a fundamental way, and when it teaches that marriage between man and woman does something to restore this "oneness" in a fallen world--"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (2:24). (Jesus goes even further in his Matthew 19 commentary on this passage, saying, "They are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.")

So I think that separating men and women for the purpose of discussion of the creation "in his image" establishes a false dichotomy, violates the consciously willed meaning behind the words of Genesis, and belies an agenda that is perhaps male-centric, female-centric, or humanocentric, but certainly not God-centric or word-centric.

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Phyllis Tribble's exegesis of Genesis 1-2 is helpful here. In Hebrew there is a generic word for the human race, translated "man" or "mankind" once upon a time, or "humankind" today. There are also specific words for male and female human beings. The gender-specific word for man is only used after the woman is created in Genesis 2:21-22. Tribble argues that the first human being was not male; "it" was a sexless human prototype. Gender came later, when God grabbed the rib. You can read more about it in "God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality." I shared this with my high school Sunday School class once, and the girls were all over it.

Marvin [gaffers@bellsouth.net]

Well. This is fun.

So, here is a question: Are men and women different creatures? I mean this in the sense that goldfish and moose are different. Or is mankind/humankind one creature with procreative manifestations (genders)? If we are a singular creature with gender, then why rank one gender over another? I think that the way Cliff explained the doctrine runs this risk. Women and men each participate fully in the Trinity. There is nothing about "subordinationism" in the Trinity. Why manifest that in our understanding of gender?

Or are we taking Calvin's naturalist route and saying that subordination of female to male is a sign of the fall?

AngloBaptist [tripp@anglobaptist.org]

I think it helpful for this discussion to note an extremely important technicality, a technicality blurred by our current sociological-political discourse. Male and female refer to different sexes, not different genders. It is important to note this basic biological fact. There are not an innumerable number of human sexes: only two.

If we are going to discuss biblical creation accounts, this is vital. Scripture nowhere designates human beings according to what we now understand as gender. It designates them according to sex, of which Scripture only envisions two.

Note: I am not making an argument that sex=gender. This is foreign to the discussion Jennifer has begun, and would only sidetrack the discussion. But because we moderns are so confused as to sex and gender, I think it necessary, if we are to speak accurately of biblical passages, that we do not assume more than scripture says.

This is why Marvin's comments as to the "sexless prototype" of human beings--regardless of how articulate is Ms. Tribble's argument--is highly misleading. Though it is the case that a handful of Church Fathers speculated on the sexlessness of the "original human" the Church as a whole has not adopted this teaching. And one is always on insecure footing to introduce speculative and novel interpretations.

The fact of the matter is that despite Hebrew's "generic" word for humankind, the word itself is a masculine world. There is no sound or logical way to turn what is consistently used in the masculine since--as well as used to speak on occasion of particular people--into some sexless denominator. Either Ms. Tribble is confused or mendacious, or Marvin misunderstands Ms. Tribble's argument (whose argument I must admit I have not read)>

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

I'm sorry. That last paragraph is a mess of spelling errors. Here's a cleaned up and once-edited version:

The fact of the matter is that despite Hebrew's "generic" word for humankind, the word itself is a masculine word. There is no sound or logical way to turn what is consistently used in the masculine sense, since it is a grammatically masculine word--as well as used to speak on occasion of particular people--into some sexless denominator. Either Ms. Tribble is confused or mendacious, or Marvin misunderstands Ms. Tribble's argument (whose argument I must admit I have not read).

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Tripp--Regarding your statement, "There is nothing about "subordinationism" in the Trinity," what of the doctrine of progression?

Cliff--Forgive me for saying so, but I think your distinction between "sex" and "gender" is a rhetorical red herring. For all intents and purposes in this discussion, they would seem to have equivalent meanings (unless you plan to introduce an argument later regarding hermaphrodites and the Imago Dei).

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

I quibble with Tribble? Hmmm...You should read her, Cliff. She is good. Now, this is where I would argue with you in terms of masculine nouns et al. Saying that the "adam" is masculine is like saying that "La montana" in Spanish assumes that all mountains are female in gender, or affect. This is foolishness. You know as well as I do that reding through Hebrew with that particular logic is a huge web of confusion and serves nothing.

Now, speculation is and novelty are something else we may have to struggle with. Don't you think that when the gentiles and Jews came together there was not a lot of speculation and novelty? Heck, the Trinity itself is novel, Cliff. It took the church centuries to nail that one down. Some would say we still argue it out.

How this playes into issues of gender (or sex) is not a novel question. It is one that the Fathers wrestled with. The desert monastics wrestled with it. Amma Sarah said to some brothers, "It is I who am a man, you are women." This unflattering idea raises all sorts of questions around the idea of who was perceived to be in the image of God and thus "more fallen."

Where does this come from?

AngloBaptist

progression...I guess that has some uses here, but what I wonder is if the Word is co-eternal, the Son is co-eternal...and one assumes that the Spirit is as well, how does this work into our understanding of gender (sex) and the Trinity? Maybe I am not in posession of a full understanding of progression. Good question, Daniel.

AngloBaptist

The main point I took issue with is the belief that males are the image of God but females are the image of God derivatively, and that males are the primary and representative human beings. My use of the word "fully" was meant in the sense that woman is not less the image of God than man.

The stories in Genesis are meant to explain why things are the way they are and not to prescribe how things should be. Why does a man leave his mother and father and marry? Because woman was created from man and they are one flesh, so it's right that they become one flesh through marriage again. I take the creation story seriously but not literally.

I have read Dr. Tribble's article. I like it, though I agree it's not how the passage has traditionally been interpreted. But I don't have a problem with offering new understandings - there are other new translations and interpretations of Scripture and theology being considered out there that enrich us (I'm thinking of Paul and justification, Dr. Hays's faith in/of Jesus Christ re: Galatians).

I've been thinking about Trinitarian anthropology, which I think is what Cliff's trying to do. He's also trying to get us Westerners to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and not the Father and the Son. Women and men belong in relationship with one another because God is a being-in-relatonship. But I'm not sure that I'd agree that man is to woman as the Father is to the rest of the Trinity.

We need to define subordination before we discuss it, otherwise we're going to make assumptions that aren't necessarily meant.

"Otherwise we're going to make assumptions that aren't necessarily meant."

Isn't that half the fun of blog commenting? =)

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Jennifer:

Thanks for the "benefit of the doubt" reading you've given me!

Actually I wasn't trying to disabuse you all of the double procession of the Holy Spirit (though admittedly, I would if I could ;-) ), but rather was trying to emphasize the doctrine of the Father as font of the Godhead, as man might analogously be termed the font of humankind. There is distinction within the Trinity, as there is within humankind (male and female), yet also full equality.

I think the Orthodox marriage service gives a huge emphasis to this equality: the bride and groom are both crowned, and both only give their consent to the wedding, no other thing is said by them (for example, the bride is not "given away" as she is in the Western liturgies). They both stand together, side by side in the Church and are blessed and sanctified for marriage.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Daniel:

On the contrary, I defy anyone to show from the original Hebrew (or, heck, the Greek as well) how gender is the same as sex (as Tripp rightly points out though he misunderstands my point). It's not. Plain and simple. Next question.

That we moderns understand gender to be about sex only shows the novelty of our view--a view not yet tested by time as to whether it's useful or not. (I would suggest not.)

So my divorcing of sex and gender when discussing what Scripture says is only an attempt to take Scripture on its face and not introduce into it ideas it does not contain.

But mine is an often lonely quest. Many want to treat Scripture as something like a Rohrschach test.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Tripp:

If by Trinity being novel you mean that it wasn't thought up till centuries after Christ, I have to most profoundly disagree. And if I understand you correctly, I don't think we have any common ground to start from on this. The Trinity was understood by the Church from Pentecost (or at least post-Resurrection). It was not something new dreamed up later.

(I suspect I misunderstand what you're saying here.)

Re: the gender of nouns and discussion of the creation of humankind and the Trinity. It is of course the case that grammatical gender does not unequivocally equate to the essential maleness or femaleness of the thing to which a word refers. But it does not follow that then grammatical gender has no basis in reality, or does not ever refer to something essential. That is the fallacy of gender. One has to look further within written contexts to find clues as to what is or is not the significance of grammatical gender.

When it comes to humankind (I am perforce, due to the nature of this discussion, using as neutral--a grammatical case--a term as possible), Scripture consistently uses the masculine gender to refer to humankind as a whole (even when the word used is not specific to male and female sexes), as well as to the Trinity. It also makes "theological hay" as it were of this grammatical fact. All God-talk is consistently masculine (unless, of course, some metaphors require the feminine) in gender. All talk of humankind makes much of the fact that humankind as a whole (both male and female) derives from the man.

That is just the basic data with which we have to deal.

Now we can disagree with it, of course. We can decry the "patriarchy" of Scripture. But then the onus is on us to show why that is not what God wants and intends. In short, we must debate the Scripture itself. But then we're back to questions of authority. Another discussion in itself.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

In regards to the grammar, you're asking us to assume that God ordained the Hebrew language to refer to the man with a masculine article or whatever because God wanted to make certain we know that humankind derives from the male and thus the male represents humankind (which I assume answers the question why was Jesus male, the first Adam, the last Adam, etc). You're assuming God ordained patriarchy. I assume there was patriarchy and people wondered why, so thus the creation story was written. We've agreed before on Tripp's blog that Paul's argument about mutual submission is dismantling patriarchy, blowing it apart. I see Jesus lifting up women's worth through many of the stories in the Gospels, and hear Paul addressing women as his coworkers.

I look at what's written about slaves and slavery in Scripture but understand that we do not think slavery is acceptable. I think Paul was trying to do the same thing with slavery as with the patriarchal family - conform it to Christ so that it became unrecognizable to society. "In whatever condition you were called, there remain with Christ." But no one takes that literally now; slavery has been abolished. So why should we view patriarchy differently?

"On the contrary, I defy anyone to show from the original Hebrew (or, heck, the Greek as well) how gender is the same as sex (as Tripp rightly points out though he misunderstands my point). It's not. Plain and simple. Next question."

Oh Cliff, I wasn't trying to be a smart ass. I was trying to ask you to explain your assertion that sex and gender are two different things in Scripture. Although I like to use big words like "hermaphrodites" and "doctrine of progression" to hide it, I am in essence ignorant and unlearned. I know next to nothing of Hebrew. Would you care to take the teacher's role, or are you more comfortable with that of the debator?

Oh, and remember you're talking to the "postmodern poster boy" here (Jen's words), so please quit calling me modern. ;-)

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Jennifer:

I find myself in the curious position of having fallen into taking up Fr. Hart's position--which I did not, nor do I now, intend to do. What I've been attempting is to show that the actual language of the Scripture would seem to resonate quite well with Trinitarian theology and without the diminishment of the female sex. I for one do not think Scripture to be full of the sort of patriarchy that is often claimed for it. If it is a patriarchy, it is so only in a countercultural way, a way eminently modelled in Ephesians 5.

I have attempted a way of understanding Fr. Hart's "female man" that both gives full credence to Scripture and Trinitarian theology and to current concerns related to the equality of the sexes. I cannot help that others will read the Scripture with lenses that can only see it in terms of oppressive patriarchy, nor that they will then dismiss the actual evidence before their eyes.

I certainly can understand why this is so, since fallen humankind (or is it okay to say here "mankind?) has distorted the Scriptural message through sinfulness and negligence. Nonetheless, I do not think a new interpretation is needed, so much as a better understanding of the actual texts taken on their own terms. Which terms can be checked through the Church's historical reading of the texts.

Finally, I do not go so far as to say Hebrew is God's ordained language, since I also take the Septuagint to be equally, perhaps more so, authoritative than the Masoretic text. More to the point, it's not that I necessarily affirm that God has ordained theology through the grammatical constructs of Hebrew and Greek, but rather that whatever insights such grammatical nuances can give to us must be weighed against the clear meanings of the Scripture as a whole. Thus the Genesis 2 account of the origin of woman from the side of man, and of the masculine grammar involving words for mankind, male and female, man and woman, must be understood in light of what Paul has to say in places like 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy 2, Ephesians 5, and so forth. If these, and other Scriptures, indicate that woman has her origin in man, and that there is important theological meaning in that fact, then it is fair to understand grammatical nuances in ways that reinforce those other passages.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Daniel:

I'm sorry for my tone. It's difficult to read online text with the appropriate inflections the author intends. I've misread yours; please, forgive me.

With regard to the gender. First, it's simply the case that our modern understanding of gender in terms of sex, is just simply that: modern. You will not find it in antiquity.

Thus, since I am asserting that gender understandings did not exist at the time of the writing of the Scripture, it will be impossible for me to prove that which does not exist. The onus, therefore, is on those who assert gender to do so on the basis of the Scriptural texts themselves. I submit that such is not possible.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Clifton, I have a more basic question: what do you mean by gender? My dictionary gives two definitions for the word: first, the grammatical meaning; second (which it calls "colloquial"), the sexual meaning. You can't be saying that the two aren't related, because your whole point seems to be that they are related. So I can only think you have a third meaning, which I did not study the right subject in grad school to understand.

Camassia [camassia1@yahoo.com]

See, Cliff? I'm not even smart enough to form my own question properly. What I'm really asking you is the question Camassia just asked. What do you mean by gender, and how is it different from sex?

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Two models of the Trinity and humankind:

Father
Son Holy Spirit
man
woman

Father Son Holy Spirit
man woman

(In both models there should be arrows within the Trinity to suggest procession)

Can you have the first model without saying women are less the image of God? I think Cliff is saying yes, because all are still equally God. Simply because one's source is in something else doesn't make it lesser. But does the first model overemphasize the procession so much that it lends itself to misunderstandings or even heresy? Such as: viewing the Father as the boss who orders the Son and the Holy Spirit around. (Son: What, I have to become incarnate and get crucified? Can we discuss that in committee? Father: NO.) I think many people, though not admitting it, have this image in the back of their head. It leads to the charge of God as the cosmic child abuser (and I've read some bad theology that argues that.) And from this model, some see the justification for the oppression of women.

I think the second model emphasizes the mutuality and harmony of the Trinity. There are probably other ways of drawing this that are better, so feel free to doodle and tell me what you come up with.

I don't think that the source of woman's image of God is derived from the man. Since God created woman, her image must be derived from God. (Also, the issue of image doesn't appear in the Genesis 2 story, only in 1:27).

Gender has kept arising here, which I believe to be tangential to the discussion, so aside from trying to clarify a technicality, I've avoided getting into it. I want the discussion to stay on topic.

Sex refers to the biological male and femaleness of human beings. There is a male sex, and a female sex. In modern parlance, gender is not necessarily aligned with one's sex, and is generally believed to be maleable, even if such morphing is not consciously volitional. This understanding of gender is simply absent from Scripture.

While it would anachronistic to say it this way, for Scripture sex is gender. A man is such by virtue of his sex, as is a woman.

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Cliff: "While it would anachronistic to say it this way, for Scripture sex is gender. A man is such by virtue of his sex, as is a woman."

It seems like what you really mean is that it is BIBLICAL to say it that way. If you are, then I agree with you. Sorry to pull you into a tangent, but some of us needed to be educated prior to being able to enter into the discussion on your terms (which I, for one, really wanted to do).

Jen: "Does the first model overemphasize the procession so much that it lends itself to misunderstandings or even heresy?" Perhaps. I think the example heresy you offer is a bit simplistic (in that it ignores that it was the WILL of the Son to lay down his life, and more generally that it assumes that disagreement within the Trinitarian Community is a possibility). If that model DOES overemphasize the doctrine of procession, what other, balancing doctrine is underemphasized as a result?

From my perspective, the fact that co-equality and submission coexist within the Trinity is a powerful model for both to coexist within the ideal man-woman relationship.

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Daniel:

I'm not sure what you mean by distinguishing between Scripture and biblical. Do you mean that since Scipture does not speak of gender, it is not actually accurate to say "Scripture says sex is gender"? And therefore, one must speak of biblical themes. Something like the difference between ipsissima verba and ipsissima vox?

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

Brother Cliff, I think maybe we need a translator. =) I wasn't trying to make a distinction; I was just trying to agree with you that the Scriptures make no distinction between sex and gender. Regardless of whether it would be anacrhonistic or not, it is Biblical to say that sex equals gender. Physical sexual traits are not separable from gender, Biblically speaking. Have we arrived?

Daniel [neotheologdeathtospam@godsfamily.com]

Daniel:

Hee hee. Yes. I think we've arrived.

Boy I can be thick headed can't I?

Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]

I'm the Head of this blog, which was created in the image of Me, and I am its Source, its Authority, and no one has arrived until I say so. You think I'd let you boys have the last word?

Thanks everyone for the discussion.