What's Right with the Trinity?

Conversations in Feminist Theology

Hannah Bacon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754666738
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134761906
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The doctrine of the Trinity poses a series of problems for feminist theology. At a basic level, the androcentric nature of trinitarian language serves to promote the male as more fully in the image of God and as the archetype of humanity, pushing women to the margins of personhood. It is no surprise then that feminist scholarship on this doctrine has often focused on what's wrong with the Trinity, setting out the problems raised by the use of traditional androcentric trinitarian language. This book brings together a discussion of feminist theological methodology with a critical exploration of the doctrine of the Trinity. Focussing on what's right with the Trinity as opposed to what's wrong with the Trinity, it considers the usefulness of this doctrine for feminist theology today. It replaces a stress on trinitarian language with an emphasis on trinitarian thought, exploring how we might effectively think rather than speak God in light of feminist concerns. In particular, it asks how a trinitarian understanding of God might support, and be supported by, key values which underpin a feminist way of doing theology, specifically values which underpin the methodological use of women's experience in feminist theology. The central argument is that thinking God as Trinity need not serve to reinforce patriarchal values and ideals but may in fact promote the subjectivity and personhood of women.

PART ONE Thinking the Trinity

1 What’s Wrong with the Trinity?

A Feminist Critique

DOI: 10.4324/9781315547398-3

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new …

Divorce me, unite, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthral me, never shall be free,

Not ever chaste except you ravish me.¹

¹ John Donne, ‘To the Trinity’ cited in Mary Grey, ‘The Core of Our Desire: Re-imaging the Trinity’, Theology, 93 (1990): 362–72, esp. p. 365.

What then is wrong with the Trinity according to feminist theological debate? This question is not an easy one to answer. Feminist discussion surrounding the Trinity reveals a range of views and perspectives. Indeed, what is clear is that feminist theologians do not all agree on where the problems lie, consequently leading to a diversity of suggestions as to how such difficulties might be overcome.

At its most basic, however, the feminist critique surrounding the Trinity tends to identify two main areas of contention. First, it highlights how the obvious androcentric nature of trinitarian language serves to reinforce men as more fully in the image of God and as the archetype of humanity, pushing women to the margins of the imago Dei and of human personhood itself. Second, it highlights how the imagery such language depicts serves to sacralize the patriarchal values of power, rule, authority and self-sufficiency, carrying with it violent overtones² which tend to depict God as a coercive, and controlling monarch who both justifies and supports abusive relationships. Such overtones are indeed evident from the sonnet by John Donne cited at the outset of this chapter.

² See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (London, 1991).

In addressing these interlinked concerns, relatively few feminist theologians have provided sustained, full-length studies of the doctrine in its entirety. Although feminists such as Elizabeth Johnson, Sallie McFague and Catherine LaCugna offer detailed examinations, the majority of feminist literature tends to focus on one particular ‘person’ or hypostasis within the trinitarian community; either on God the Father, God the Son or God the Holy Spirit. In seeking to survey feminist theological approaches and responses, this chapter therefore organizes feminist perspectives in relation to the three individual titles of the trinitarian name.³ Such a categorization does not intend to imply that each hypostasis can be viewed separately from the others – as will become apparent in our discussion in the next chapter – but instead, serves to break down feminist contentions so as to present a more manageable account of feminist debate. The chapter begins with an outline of the main areas of difficulty identified by feminist theologians surrounding this doctrine and then moves on to address and critically assess feminist responses. The chapter ends by clarifying my own suggestions in relation to how best to speak the Christian God.

³ For a further summary of feminist contentions surrounding the Trinity see Hannah Bacon, ‘What’s Right with the Trinity? Thinking the Trinity in Relation to Irigaray’s Notions of Self-love and Wonder’, Feminist Theology, 15/2 (2007): 220–35.

God the Father

Feminist concerns surrounding understanding God as ‘Father’ tend to focus around three main points of criticism_

1. that this serves to reinforce the maleness of God;
2. that this justifies and reinforces patriarchal values and ideals; and
3. that taken together, both of the above serve to perpetuate an unhealthy understanding of divine transcendence.

The Maleness of God

The language of God as ‘Father’ has perhaps come under the most intense scrutiny from feminist theologians to date. At one level, the critique says that such language perpetuates the idea that God is male, or at least the idea that God is more like men than women. Thus, in her text, Beyond God the Father, Mary Daly famously asserts that ‘If God is male, then the male is God’,⁴ drawing attention to the way in which the exclusive symbolization of God as male serves to compromise women’s humanity and divinize the male. Such language, she claims, stands to both affirm and justify patriarchy because it highlights the male as both dominant and normative for understandings of what it means to be human. She therefore concludes that the signifier of God the Father can only ever serve to diminish women and must, therefore, be abandoned.

⁴ Daly, p. 19.

The Reinforcement of Patriarchal Ideals

At a second level, the language and image of God as ‘Father’ has been criticized for reinforcing and promoting the patriarchal ideals of hierarchy, violence, dominance, rule and control. Again Daly remarks: ‘If God in “his” heaven is a father ruling “his” people, then it is in the “nature” of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male-dominated.’⁵ In other words, if God is both male and sovereign, male domination is placed safely within the will of God, ordained as holy and right. Within this context, maleness and rule come to be knitted together to form an inseparable bond which inevitably carries disastrous implications for women. Indeed Daly argues that the image of God the Father justifies all systems serving to oppress and ‘castrate’ women and other minority groups.⁶

⁵ Ibid., p. 13. ⁶ Ibid., p. 10.

In a similar vein, Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that the over-reliance of Christianity on the model of God as ‘Father’ often tends to present God as a ‘neurotic parent who does not want his children to grow up’.⁷ Such a model, she says, suggests a permanent parent-child relationship between God and humankind in which human subjects are encouraged to remain in an infantile, dependent relationship with God. In this context, autonomy and personal responsibility are represented as the gravest of sins.⁸ Such a model, she claims, reinvests patriarchal power with divine credence and enables men to claim authority over women and children.

⁷ Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston, 1983), p. 69. ⁸ Ibid., p. 69.

Understanding Divine Transcendence

Taken together then, such an emphasis on the maleness of God and the sacralization of patriarchal values and ideals can be seen as contributing to a particular patriarchal understanding of divine transcendence. Within this understanding, God is depicted as absolute, almighty, all-powerful, controlling, self-sufficient, immutable, impassable, infinite and sovereign. In short, God is understood to be totally ‘other’ and infinitely different – ‘he’ has all the power leaving us with none.⁹

⁹ McFague voices this critique in relation to God in general. See Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological Nuclear Age (Philadelphia, 1987), pp. 9–19.

For Sallie McFague, such an emphasis on the distance and otherness of God may serve to polarize God and world, God and humanity, so that God the Father is seen as all-powerful, absolute and timeless, rendering human subjects passive, temporal and dependent. Indeed, as Father, God may be understood as ‘set apart’ from the world, a notion clearly central to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. For McFague, this is indeed the dominant understanding of God. ‘His’ kingdom is not of this world and to reach it we have to depart from this earthly existence. Such an understanding, she claims, is deeply problematic in an age threatened by ecological deterioration and nuclear extinction since it encourages Christians to treat the world as a hotel rather than a home.¹⁰

¹⁰ Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (London, 1993), pp. 100–129.

This understanding of divine transcendence, however, may be more far reaching than this. Rather than simply serving to polarize God and world or God and humanity, this understanding may also serve the ideological agenda of polarizing males and females. If God is aligned with traditional and stereotypical understandings of the male-masculine, then the world is similarly aligned with traditional and stereotypical understandings of the female-feminine. Hence the following dichotomies come to be constructed:

God	World
Male	Female
Transcendent	Immanent
Powerful/active	Passive
Spirit	Body/flesh

Of course, such identifications are not exhaustive – the list is potentially far more extensive yet the dualisms mentioned here are arguably the most significant. Where God is male, the world is female; where God is transcendent, the world is immanent; where God is powerful and active, the world is controlled and dependent; where God is spiritual, the world is bodily.

The main difficulties with this particular understanding of the Father’s transcendence, however, are that it conveniently serves to justify male domination, portrays an oppositional relationship between women and God, and reinforces harmful stereotypes of femininity. Just as God the Father rules over the world and is above and beyond it, so the male is justified as ruling over the female, being above and beyond her in power and influence. Since the world is anti-God then women are likewise depicted as anti-God and are once again pushed to the margins of imaging the divine. Since the world is seen in opposition to God as female, immanent, passive, and bodily, patriarchal stereotypes are once more reinforced, identifying women with bodiliness, sin (the ‘flesh’), and passivity.¹¹

¹¹ See Loren Wilkinson, ‘“Post-Christian” Feminism and the Fatherhood of God,’ in Maxine Hancock (ed.), Christian Perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Community (Vancouver, British Columbia, 2003), pp. 103–26, esp. p. 110.

However, crucially, the relationship between God and world is not only presented here as oppositional, but more importantly, as hierarchical. Whereas God is symbolized as holy, the world is symbolized as sinful. Thus, all qualities associated with God – namely maleness, transcendence, power and spirit (or mind) – are not only symbolized here as being differ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Thinking and Speaking Rightly about God
• PART ONE THINKING THE TRINITY
• PART TWO FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY
• PART THREE THINKING THE TRINITY IN LIGHT OF FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY
• Conclusion: What’s Right with the Trinity?
• Bibliography
• Index