tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post818212815322415262..comments2024-03-14T11:50:14.761-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Sex, Grammar and the Holy SpiritDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-77997694989659165472015-06-15T15:50:21.141-04:002015-06-15T15:50:21.141-04:00John,
Grammatically gender ≠ sex. Sure. But if yo...John,<br /><br /><i>Grammatically gender ≠ sex. Sure. But if your "Spirit" is feminine in your language, it's totally appropriate (and grammatically correct) to refer to Spirit as "She."</i><br /><br />Well, yes, in the sense that pronoun and noun should agree in grammatical gender just as they should agree in number and case. <br /><br /><i>In English, "Spirit" is neuter, so we would normally refer to a spirit as it. (As in "The spirit of rugged competition is thriving here. You can feel it..." But what do you do for a non-sexual entity that is not "thing" so it's inappropriate to call the entity "it"? Traditionally in English we refer to the Holy Spirit as "he" to emphasize that the Holy Spirit is a person, but I would think Martin is right that "she" is just as accurate. God transcends sex.</i><br /><br />I'm not sure I'd say that "spirit" is necessarily neuter in English, so much as that since we don't have grammatical gender anymore in English, the gender imputed to a spirit depends on what we're talking about. For instance, "the spirit of Jane Austen no doubt looks with mild chagrin at the antics of her modern day followers" sounds perfectly reasonable with a feminine pronoun, because Jane Austen is a woman and so it seems perfectly reasonable for her spirit to be feminine.<br /><br />What I would say is that in English we tend to use "it" for things, while using "he" or "she" for persons. "He" (sometimes the plural "they") is used as a sort of default, and "she" is used on specifically to refer to someone who is female. Thus the problem with Fr. Martin's usage in this case: In English saying "she" would specifically identify the Holy Spirit as female, and that's certainly not how Christianity had traditionally seen the Holy Spirit or God.<br /><br />On the use of "spirit" in Hebrew...<br /><br />Clearly, although the proper name Holy Spirit is not current in the Old Testament, references to God's spirit exist, starting right in Genesis when the Spirit of God is described as being upon the waters. <br /><br />However, my point is: We don't really know how Jesus himself referred to the Holy Spirit. We know how he is described as referring to the Holy Spirit by the Gospel writers. However, the Gospel writers are already in a new context, that of early Christianity, and it may be that the way they convey Jesus's words is formed by how early Christians, who did have the concept of the Trinity, had come to speak of the third person of the Trinity. Did Jesus say Holy Spirit or Spirit of God or Paraclete or some other term? Honestly, we don't know, nor do we need to know since the tradition conveyed to us through the Church and the Gospels provides us with what we need to know about the Holy Spirit. <br /><br />Which is why I think that trying to draw linguistic insights out of the words that Jesus might have used is misguided.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-29801676993313724052015-06-13T00:08:27.410-04:002015-06-13T00:08:27.410-04:00As an example of what I mean by "nobody blink...As an example of what I mean by "nobody blinks an eye" at references to the Holy Spirit in the Gospels, Jesus says in Matthew 12 "Whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." Jesus's listeners don't say, "Wait, what are you talking about? What's the Holy Spirit?"<br />Similarly, Gabriel says to Mary at the Annunciation, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you...." And Mary doesn't say, "What does 'Holy Spirit' mean?" That's because Holy Spirit is just another term for the Spirit of the Lord, used in the first century because people were tried to avoid saying "God" or "Lord" to prevent taking the Lord's name in vain.Johnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-16108648253251884402015-06-12T23:58:54.869-04:002015-06-12T23:58:54.869-04:00Grammatically gender ≠ sex. Sure. But if your &q...Grammatically gender ≠ sex. Sure. But if your "Spirit" is feminine in your language, it's totally appropriate (and grammatically correct) to refer to Spirit as "She."<br />However, if you're translating a language with grammatical gender into English, you should normally remove the grammatical gender. In English, "Spirit" is neuter, so we would normally refer to a spirit as it. (As in "The spirit of rugged competition is thriving here. You can feel it..." But what do you do for a non-sexual entity that is not "thing" so it's inappropriate to call the entity "it"? Traditionally in English we refer to the Holy Spirit as "he" to emphasize that the Holy Spirit is a person, but I would think Martin is right that "she" is just as accurate. God transcends sex.<br />As to the Holy Spirit not being referred to in Hebrew, kind of. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit fairly frequently in the Gospels and nobody blinks an eye. That's because Holy Spirit is just another phrase for "the Spirit of God." And you find references to "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of the Lord" throughout the Old Testament. "The Spirit of God was upon the waters" at creation, and "the Spirit of the Lord" came upon the prophets.Johnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-58531047598405137162015-06-02T22:00:22.838-04:002015-06-02T22:00:22.838-04:00I don't think Fr. Martin is trying to be heter...I don't think Fr. Martin is trying to be heterodox. I think he's trying to play and attract people to Christ, but he's having taste problems. I went through the stage of thinking it was cool to call God "Her," but I got over it once I knew more. Shrug.<br /><br />Anyway, I like the womb info. <br /><br />And pens are feminine when they're la pluma, but male when they're el boligrafo. So obviously ballpoints are somehow more manly than quill pens.Bansheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12594214770417497135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-12587783255459516472015-06-02T19:12:58.298-04:002015-06-02T19:12:58.298-04:00I had an interesting discussion with my Hebrew tea...I had an interesting discussion with my Hebrew teacher last night, and although I was aware that grammatical gender doesn't necessarily align with biological gender, he pointed out something that sort of takes the wind (no pun intended) out of Fr. Martin's sails: the word for womb (רחם) in Hebrew is masculine. SO much for grammatical gender and biology.Deacon Bill Burnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11484509700642430451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-75512628268153577322015-06-02T17:55:19.524-04:002015-06-02T17:55:19.524-04:00Leave aside the controversy baiting, which he so c...<i>Leave aside the controversy baiting, which he so coyly engages in</i><br /><br />It's his m.o. He's unwilling to openly embrace heterodoxy, so as usual he presents his dissent in a manner that allows just enough plausible deniability in case he's called on it. Say what you will, but at least the Father Radcliffes of the world are unafraid to dissent openly and cleaerly.Paul Zummohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01574775522802920843noreply@blogger.com