Talk:Gender of the Holy Spirit

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Explanation of changes[edit]

A couple of explanations for the changes I just made to the page.

1. I removed the reference to Carol Meyers because, while her point is valid (and made by many scholars writing on this issue), she is writing about the Israelite views on God generally, not on the issue of the gender of trinitarian persons in Christianity.

2. I removed the reference the Odes of Solomon being Gnostic. That view, made popular by Harnack, is not a current consensus view of historians of early Christianity. See the article James Charlesworth in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (v. 6).

3. I moved and re-phrased the statement about grammatical gender and its relation to personal gender. I intentionally removed the link to the Catholics United for the Faith website. I made this change because Ashbrook Harvey's comments are an historical observation about the role of grammatical gender played vis-a-vis the HS in one branch of early Christianity. They are descriptive, rather than normative, statements. The CUF reference makes normative claims about whether the HS should be referred to using feminine language. They may or may not be right, and there may be a place for their views in this article, but it doesn't seem appropriate to place them directly after Ashbrook Harvey's descriptive statements as though they are making a counter-claim. I did not cite sources for the statement that "most scholars" agree that there is no necessary correlation between grammatical and personal gender. Being the person who originally the listing of contemporary Christian theologians (with references) who have argued for feminine language for the HS, I am not aware of a single one who doesn't concede that grammatical gender alone is not determinative.

4. I also removed a couple of references to Martin Luther and the Church Fathers beliefs on these issues. These were links to websites which did not provide any substantiation for their laughable claims. Andowney (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

How "The dominant male metaphors for God may seem sexist and problematic in today's world, when wrenched from their Iron Age context. But it is worth considering that the many male images and the fewer female ones together were powerful vehicles for expressing the fundamentally nonhuman character of God" can be taken to argue in favour of a female gender beats me. If the male images are "many" and female ones "fewer", the predominant picture is surely male, not female!

And questions of grammar are not questions of anthropology. Soidi (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not about masculinity or feminity, but about gender in the actual physical sense, and not the literary or narratological perspective. In the sense that Jesus is commonly known as true Lord / true Man (cf Chalcedonian Creed), there have been related theological questions as to whether the Holy Spirit could ever have the same human gender as Jesus. Also, there is a sub-field in anthropology called anthropological linguistics, which happens to include grammar. ADM (talk) 14:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the article is "about gender in the actual physical sense", then for nearly everyone (except LDSs?) it is nonsense, since the Holy Spirit isn't generally considered to be actually physical. The writer on the Book of Exodus who takes note that male images of God appear in it more frequently than female ones was not "arguing in favour of a female gender" of God, but was instead defending the book's more frequent use of the male image on two grounds: in view of the Iron Age culture of the time; and because the male and the female images in the book "together were powerful vehicles for expressing the fundamentally nonhuman character of God" (neither male nor female). The heading of a section on the grammatical gender of the name used for "Holy Spirit" in various languages should, I think, be headed with the clear unambiguous "grammatical gender" rather than the ambiguous vague "anthropological perspectives". Soidi (talk) 17:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Whether God can be human or not is another question altogether. The institutional Church teaches the dogma of the Incarnation, and so many Christians do believe that God can become human. The Incarnation mostly involves Jesus, but it also implicates the Holy Spirit and God the Father. We know for sure that Jesus was born as a male human, and there are also strong indications that God the Father is masculine because of his Father status. The question remains for the Holy Spirit ; the current article will not attempt to definitively prove any theological opinion, but it will try to explain the contemporary and historical views on the topic. ADM (talk) 17:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The use of "Father" does not, in the opinion of most Christians, indicate that the First Person of the Trinity is male "in the actual physical sense", any more than the female descriptions indicate that the First Person is female in the actual physical sense. The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trintiy resulted in the existence of the human being Jesus: only the Second Person became incarnate, became an actual human being. The choice fell on becoming a male in his humanity (which says nothing about any alleged sex of the Second Person in his divinity), as the choice fell on the Mediterranean culture, with bread and wine and oil, not on, for instance, Japanese culture, with rice and sake and ... Mention of speculation about the First Person or the Third Person of the Trinity becoming incarnate too would of course require citation of reliable sources. And such imagined incarnations would say nothing about any alleged gender of these Persons before becoming human beings of one actual physical gender/sex or the other. Soidi (talk) 18:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most cultures at the time were staunchly patriarchal, and many still are, and so it doesn't make sense whether the context is Japanese, or Chinese or not. The Japanese have never awaited a Messiah, but cultural anthropologists do believe that they have similar beliefs to that of the Holy Spirit in monotheistic religions. In fact, many cultures that do not have a Christ figure still have a Spirit figure, and most of the time that Spirit figure definitely has male characteristics. As for the Father, the most cited passages on this question of christology is I and the Father are One [1] and He who has seen me has seen the Father [2] ADM (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how any of that is related to the thesis that those who believe in the Holy Spirit have the idea that the Holy Spirit is, "in the actual physical sense" (your phrase), either male or female or neuter. They consider that, while the male sex was chosen for the incarnation of the Second Person, the female sex could theoretically have been chosen instead, just as the American Indian or the Chinese culture could theoretically have been chosen rather than the Mediterranean; and so the human sex of Jesus says nothing about any actual physical gender/sex of any of the Persons of the Trinity in their divinity, not even of the Second. Analogous words like "Father" and "Son" are not meant to refer to an "actual physical" gender/sex in God. Soidi (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I get what you mean, but I sense a vague form of modalism in your logic. Modalism is when the terms Father, Son and Spirit become mere symbols and are otherwise dependent on the private representations of the believers. Please note that when Jesus is called the Son of God, and not something else, it's more than just a figure of speech. The problem with this kind reasoning is that it tends to deconstruct most if not all of Trinitarian theology, to an extent where many feminist theologians have completely abandoned the doctrines of Nicea and have reverted to ante-Nicene Gnostic and Arian theologies. ADM (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No modalism, since there is insistence on a real distinction between the three Persons, only one of whom was incarnated, and on a real distinction also between the human nature of the Second Person, which did have an "actual physical" gender/sex, and the divine nature of that same Second Person, which is not, "in the actual physical sense" (your phrase), either male or female or neuter. The Holy Spirit, having no human nature, has only the divine nature, which is not, "in the actual physical sense" (your phrase), either male or female or neuter. Soidi (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neuter attribution[edit]

I removed reference to "nonpersonal". A dictionary search (Dictionary.com) reveals that a definition would be deemed to be the traditional "nonpersonal" and not a reference (as it may be) of being a non-person or "Spirit". The reference cited might be to the statement but was only referenced and not quoted or balanced. 205.242.95.131 (talk) 16:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the following;

"In English, the word "it" implies being a thing, not a person, and so its use for the Holy Spirit has found favour only among non-Trinitarians who see the Holy Spirit as a nonpersonal influence."

I removed source; William Evans, The Great Doctrines of the Bible (Kessinger Publishing, 2004), pp. 68-71.
  • Rational; "It" does not only refer to an inanimate object or thing. Example:(used to represent a person or animal understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned whose gender is unknown or disregarded): It was the largest ever caught off the Florida coast. Who was it? It was John. The horse had its saddle on. Referenced by http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/it.
The part, "and so its use for the Holy Spirit has found favour only among non-Trinitarians who see the Holy Spirit as a nonpersonal influence.", has many flaws, 1)- The term "non-Trinitarians" is too broad to represent all that are not Trinitarian; 2)- Nonpersonal influence would mean that those that are not Trinitarian see the Holy Spirit as an influence that is not personal. The term could have been used as refering to a "non-person" but then the statement is unclear.
The reference list 4 pages as source and it not shown what part of what page is to reference anything in the removed paragraph. Otr500 (talk) 05:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Synthesis[edit]

This article seems to be largely original research, and I've attached a warning indicating this. Unless some references can be added showing that scholarly research has been done into the gender of the Holy Spirit I will propose the article for deletion. See WP:OR for more information about what constitutes original research. Pburka (talk) 19:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've checked the diff from when you posted this to now, and I only see a couple differences in the references list. However, even the version from when you posted the warning seems to be well referenced, so I'm removing the cleanup tag. I'm also removing the unreferenced clean up tag. However I'm leaving the rewrite tag as it's not very clearly or well written, is confusing at places, and repeats itself word for word at least once. 24.13.24.127 (talk) 13:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quality[edit]

I must say this is one confusing and disorganized article. Material was moved here from Holy Spirit per talk there, but that material and this material are all low quality. Not Afd material, but needs to be shortened by 70% to remove the clutter. Not my topic, but whoever want to cut it back, feel free to do so. You have my vote for a major trim. History2007 (talk) 12:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Blessed Virgin Mary[edit]

One of the numerous titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary is Spouse of the Holy Spirit. So, I would definitely say that although God Has no Gender(except for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who Became Incarnated as Man), The Holy Spirit is spoken of in the Masculine sense.--Splashen (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mormonism[edit]

I believe in the church of Latter Day Saints, The Holy Ghost/Spirit is considered a male and has had the form of a man when appearing to church fathers. If someone could source this, it should be added to the article, as Mormonism is a major, if late, denomination holding to a trinity theology. 71.32.253.184 (talk) 17:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is in the article. It's the last paragraph in Christianity. As far as I am aware LDS theology has never mentioned an appearance of the Holy Ghost at any other time other than what is in the New Testament. Dromidaon (talk) 15:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize in advance for any breaks of convention -- first time contributor. The Book of Mormon describes someone seeing "the Spirit of the Lord" and describes him as "in the form of a man". Found in 1 Nephi 11:11. More importantly, on the Church's official site the Host Ghost is referred to always in He/Him pronouns. Found here. I feel this is sufficient evidence to conclude that Latter-day Saints do not see the Holy Spirit as feminine.

Rewrite of the article[edit]

The header of this article says that it needs to be rewritten. I'm up for rewriting it as time allows and I'll post periodic updates. Andrew (talk) 19:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that the header is only the opinion of a single editor, and that changes have been made since he added it in March 2011. But do propose your rewriting. Be bold. Esoglou (talk) 20:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hindu-Christian take[edit]

Since the Toronto blessing, there have been plenty of polemics concerning equivalence or otherwise of the Holy Spirit with Kundalini (AKA Kundalini Shakti). Now, the gender of the latter indwelling spiritual presence is unambiguously documented as feminine. Would it be WP:SYNTH to mention the above as potentially relevant information? K2709 (talk) 13:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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