The Paternal
Metaphor
for God
did not happen
unconsciously
as if by
default.
A Maternal
Divine
has been
actively derogated
and consciously
erased
from acceptable
images
of the
Divine.
This erasure
accompanied the
emergence of
a patriarchy
as the dominant
ideology
in the Roman
Catholic Church.
The all-male
hierarchy
necessitated
exclusively male
ruling images
for God.
Two thousand
years of
non-experience
of women
in public
ecclesial roles
eliminated
maternal images for God
for
generations.
Contributing to
the image of
an all-male
God
was Aquinas’
systematic incorporation of
ancient Greek
biology
into Catholic
Theology.
From
Aristotle
and through
Aquinas
Roman Catholic
Theology
is base on the
idea that
in the act of
conceiving life,
the male is the
active partner
who provides the
vital form
and originating
movement
while the
female
is the
passive partner
simply providing
the inert matter
that receives
the form.
The resulting
child
is thus a
creation of male energy
working upon an
inactive female partner
with the two
radical opposites;
the man being
the vigorous actor
and the woman a
lifeless object.
According to
Aquinas,
because the
woman has no active part,
she is merely
potency
and thus
inferior.
For him,
female nature is
fundamentally inferior
to male
nature.
Hence, per
Aquinas,
and Roman
Catholic Theology,
a Mother,
who embodies an
inferior and passive principle
cannot provide a
suitable metaphor
for God,
the active
source of all creation.
To use such
imagery,
would be for
Aquinas and the Roman Catholic Church
to demean the
dignity of God,
who is pure
ACT
untainted by the
shadow of (female) passivity
and unrealized
potency.
All this
based on totally
faulty biology
raised to a
metaphysical level
and
a Roman Catholic
Theology
in support
of
an all-male
hierarchy.
No comments:
Post a Comment