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Inclusive Language
The common practice of
English historically has been to use male nouns and pronouns
(man, mankind, he) when referring collectively to human
beings, regardless of sex. In recent decades some feminists
have claimed that this is offensive to them, as it
represents a "patriarchal worldview" in which men are
superior to women. Through their media influence they have
effectively ended such use in publishing, academia,
television and movies, as well as in common speech. Within
the Church, through the well-oiled machinery of dissent, the
rejection of such "non-inclusive" language has been applied
to the use of male terms in connection with God.
Whether in the secular
arena or in the Church, almost no resistance has been
offered to this forced development of language, and few are
even aware of what is at stake, seeing it only as a matter
of fairness to women. Thankfully, the Holy See has resisted
the tide and clearly drawn the lines between what is an
acceptable use of inclusive language and what is
unacceptable. Acceptable use would include those collective
expressions for human beings which today a speaker or author
would be expected to use, such as "ladies and gentleman" or
"brothers and sisters". It is unlikely that any one would
use "brothers" or "brethren" for a mixed audience today.
Thus, there is nothing wrong in principle to this kind of
horizontal inclusive language.
What is unacceptable to
the Magisterium, however, is the use of inclusive language
in collective terms for human beings which have an
anthropological significance, or, in terms for God or Christ
(vertical inclusive language). The collective term
man, for example, is both a philosophically and
theologically appropriate term for the human race. Just as
there is a certain precedence within the Trinity, by which
the Father is God, the Son is God by generation and the Holy
Spirit is God by spiration, Sacred Scripture reveals that an
image of this Trinity of equal Persons in God is reflected
in the creation of woman from man. Adam (which means man) is
a man, Eve is a man (since she shares his
nature), and each of their descendants is a man. This
expresses equality, NOT inequality, as feminists claim.
Whatever injustices men have perpetrated on women through
the millennia, Adam's sin is the cause, not God and His wise
created design.
So, human nature is called
man or mankind, and each human person is a man,
just as the divine nature is called God and all Three
Persons are God. (The sexual distinction is expressed as
male and female, though man and woman also does so. Even
these contain implicitly the evidence of the origins of woman
from man in the economy of creation.)
The problem with vertical
inclusive language with respect to Christ is similar.
Destined to be the New Adam Christ is prophetically
anticipated in certain Hebrew texts which play on the word
adam as both the name for the human race and the name
of the first member of that race. A good example, which can
be a test of a text to see if it has objectionable inclusive
language, is Psalm 1. It should read "Happy the man
who follows not the counsel of the wicked" (or similar).
Inclusive language versions will replace "man" with "one" or
"mortal" or some variation. The Holy See has rejected this
as contradicting the messianic references to Christ implicit
in the text, where man refers not only to David the
author of the psalm, but back to Adam (the man) and
forward to Christ (Son of David and Son of Man).
Finally, the use of
vertical inclusive language for God is likewise
unacceptable. No one should understand that God is male or
female. He is not. God is pure spirit, whereas masculinity
and femininity are the properties of animal bodies. In man
these bodies are united to a soul, and thus we can also
speak of spiritual characteristic of men and women - a way
of loving others, for example, that is characteristic of
women, versus men, and vice versa. Such spiritual
characteristics, whether of men or women, must be rooted in
some way in God, who is the source of all good. Thus, in the
Old Testament the love of God for his people is sometimes
referred to as a "womb-love" (rahamim), a clear reference to
the love of a mother for her child. Similarly, Jesus in the
New Testament speaks of wanting to take His People under His
wings like a mother hen. Thus, Scripture shows us, and the
Church teaches, that all that is good in man and woman, save
the purely material sexual distinctions proper to bodies,
comes from the Author of all that is good.
However, is this a warrant
to speak of God as Father and Mother, and to avoid the use
of male terms with respect to God (Father, Son, Him, He
etc.)? While it is certainly just to speak of what is
motherly or feminine in God, in the sense described above,
it is nonetheless certain that God has revealed Himself in a
certain way and that we must first respect His sovereign
decision, and second try to understand it. One of the
difficulties is that as the debate has gone forward, it has
become clear that many Catholic feminists do not respect the
Word of God, but see it the word of men re-enforcing an
unjust patriarchal order. Since this overthrows Divine
Revelation's authority, and many dogmas of the faith with
it, it cannot and should not be dialogued with or
accommodated in any way. Certainly, the Holy See has taken
that stance. Unfortunately, many others who do not intend
such a vast rejection of Tradition have been duped into
believing in the bias of translations and the influence of
patriarchy on the transmission of Revelation in the Church,
and so need a good explanation of the reasons for the usages
of Scripture and Tradition.
A direct understanding of
God is not accessible to human reason. Spirit cannot be
perceived or tested experimentally, and so God must speak in
analogies familiar to our experience. In choosing which
analogs to use in reference to Himself He chose those most
suitable within creation. Unlike the Shamrock of St.
Patrick, which has a certain similitude to God, there was
and is nothing more suitable for explaining God than the
creatures He made in His image and likeness, both as God and
as Trinity. Thus, He chose the human race to explain Who He
is. Man is both the creature in the visible creation most
like God, and the creature most understandable to man.
Image of God in the
Nature of Man
The closest likeness to
the spiritual nature of God in the visible creation is the
human soul. The spiritual nature of the soul gives to man
the capacities to reason and to choose, to know and to love.
This is why God made Adam governor of Eden and told him to
name the other creatures. In giving Adam a wife God made her
a helpmate in these tasks, as she too, having the same human
nature as Adam (unlike the other animals), is suited to this
collaboration. It should be noted that this work is in the
first place a spiritual work, knowing creatures, especially
their natures and ends, and willfully directing them to
God's purposes. In the creation in which Man lives, however,
this cannot be separated from the need for a body. Thus,
although the image of God is primarily said of the soul of
human beings, the body of Man has been so designed as to
serve the soul and the special place of Man in creation.
Unlike God, without a body Man cannot accomplish what has
been given to him to do. Thus, both man and woman have been
equipped with the primary faculties needed for this work
(intellect and will), and with bodies which complement each
other in the multitude of different tasks which must be done
in life.
Image of God in the
Differentiation of the Sexes
God is not a solitary
nature but a Communion of Persons. As noted above, the
Processions of Persons (Father generating the Son, and
Father and Son spirating the Holy Spirit) is reflected in
the order of Man's own creation. "Let us make man in our
image and likeness. Male and female he created them" (Gen.
1:26). God made the representative type Man (Adam) first,
and then differentiated Man into two kinds, male and female,
by creating Eve. With respect to the likeness of God's
divine nature in Man, man and woman are equal. Thus, Adam is
the representative type because of his humanity, not his
maleness. However, with respect to the order of creating, as
a created analogy to the order of procession within the
Trinity, there is a first and second. Adam is analogous to
the Father in coming first, Eve to the Son in coming second.
Within God this is not a sexual distinction, the Eternal
Word is not male or female in the divine nature, but God
from God. Rather, it is an order of the procession of life
and love. The Father gives life and love to the Son, and the
Son returns both infinitely and perfectly, which can only be
a Divine Person, the Holy Spirit.
God's taking woman from
man emphasizes in the first place, therefore, a fact about
God's own interior Life. It then establishes a reality about
Man - there is to be an orderly procession of life and love
within human nature, as there is in God. This is made
possible in human nature by the distinction of the sexes and
a complementarity of psychology and body suited to the
perpetuation of human love and life in this world. These
bodies, male and female, are therefore particularly equipped
to pro-create and nurture human life to maturity. The
psychology and body of a man enables him to give life and
love actively in a manner analogous to the First Person of
the Trinity in generating the Son, but also analogous to
God's creating the universe outside of the Godhead. On the
other hand, the psychology and body of woman allows her to
receive, nurture and herself communicate life and love,
analogous to the Second Person receptively then actively
loving and giving life, as well as the creation receiving
life from God and nurturing it within.
So, in giving human nature
this created order, an order which in our embodied existence
includes a common nature, as well as male and female, God
not only stamped us with an image and likeness of His own
nature and the Trinitarian Communion, but gave us a means
and a language to understand Him. The use of male terms
(Father, Son, He, Him etc.) are not statements about the
masculinity of God, but ways to understand from our
experience of ourselves, imperfect as we are, what are
essentially spiritual realities. If God's self-revelation is
perverted, then both our understanding of God and ourselves
is changed, as well. When God is named Mother (and a name
speaks of what is of the essence of a thing), God is turned
into an earth goddess of which we are but a part (panentheism).
This is, in fact, what New Agers believe, and sadly some
Catholics. On the other hand, as Father He is the
transcendent Creator. Likewise, if there is no order in
creation between man and woman, then the Church's sexual and
marital teaching is not valid. Not surprisingly, there is a
close connection between the ideological foundations of
feminism and those of lesbianism (less so, male
homosexuality). Thus, it is both theologically and
anthropologically necessary to preserve the use of male
terms with respect to God and Christ, as well as in some
case of collective nouns referring to the human race.
Answered by Colin B. Donovan, STL
from:
http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm
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