crabsy,
My suggestion here (re: Mary's procreation) is merely speculative - not an attempted rewrite of theology. Nevertheless, one of the most profound and most persistent roles of the Virgin Mary in history has been her function as a bridge builder to other traditions, other cultures, and other religions. For Catholics, she is the Theotokos through whom God enters human history; for Muslims, she and her son are signs to humankind (Sura 23:50) - thus making clear God's concern for humanity's universal, spiritual needs, even those of which humanity is unaware. Ironically, Mary's submission to God is very Islamic in orientation.

In classical Sufism, Mary provides "the medium by which [God] comes into concrete existence in terms of human perception." Therefore, she is a window through which each tradition's conception of the Godhead may be explored - logically, my allusion to Mary 'giving birth' to the Christian Trinity or Godhead seems to follow. Primarily, it is only through the feminine that the deity is initiated and revealed.

The three Cappadocian Fathers taught that God is one ousia in three hypostaseis, thus both preserving Christian monotheism and accounting fully for the biblical confession of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think it noteworthy to say the deepest thinkers within each religious tradition express a profound sense of mystery, insisting that the ultimate reality to which their faith is oriented lies in its fullness beyond the range of our comprehension, but interestingly, there is no objective tribunal from which to weigh their relative truth value (and I do not count on papal infallibility). An almost hysterical Saint Jerome, (376), wrote to Pope Damasus about the phrase 'three hypostases', "Accordingly, now - O woe! - after the Nicene creed, after the Alexandrine decree (with the West equally in accord), I, a Roman, am importuned by the Campenses, that offspring of Arians, to accept a newfangled term, “three hypostaseis.” What apostles, pray tell me, authorized it? What new Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, has promulgated this doctrine?"

So take heart anyone who reads, not even the Saints are apt to understand.

Ive been away a few days and what a fascinating turn this conversation has taken!

My take on the Trinity is that the limitations of discursive language preclude us from any complete and satisfying verbal representation of God.This would explain why attempts to systematically 'clarify' Trinitarian doctrine invariably lead us into one or another of the heresies... modalism for example.

It is necessary to use metaphorical language to extend our ability to talk about God.Trinitarian language is metaphorical which is why it works.Furthermore no one metaphor can be adequate in itself so,again,it is necessary to use a wide range of metaphors.This leads us to the notion of clusters of metaphors and symbols which are needed to facilitate talk about God within any given community/society. This, of course, opens Pandora's Box with the infinite possibilities of metaphorical language which could lead us almost anywhere.

Father, Son and Spirit constitute a sufficient set of metaphors which work together as an organising principle for all metaphorical language that would qualify as Christian.

This is not the same thing as saying that the Trinity is the only language we should use or that it is a complete formula for all that God is. So if the langage we use with regard to Mary converges with our other metaphors for God then that is fine provided we do not violate the organising principle of the Trinity. Thus we can recognise the 'Godliness' of Mary or see God as 'mother' through a Marian perspective. Is it necessary then to include Mary in a 'quaternity'? Only if we understand the Trinity as literal, discursive language asserting that God is male gendered. To say that God is father metaphorially does not make any assertion about the gender of God and so it would be unnecessary to introduce a new person into the 'n'ity of God simply to eliminate the 'male assertion'. If, on the other hand, we assert Gods gender through a proposition that God is a father then, yes, it would be better to introduce a new person into the 'Godhead' in order to negate that assertion.

George

I have the greatest respect for your thoughtful and generous approach to theology. I am more than happy to call an end to our 'priestess' debate and 'agree to differ'.

On the other hand I WILL defend my anti-authoritarian credentials thus:

If Einstein had been prepared to accept Newtons 'authority' then it would have been left to someone else to 'discover' relativity. Even so, when faced with the equation e^2=m^2*c^4 he failed to discover anti-matter as a result of his 'conventional' dismissal of the negative root.

In theology, even more so than in physics, it is important to question and challenge the most 'sacred' traditions. In at least this respect theology may claim to be 'scientific' in its method if it proceeds by the path of 'informed suspicion'.

Sells,
Thank you for an interesting exposé of the theology behind the Trinity doctrine. However, I do not understand why a personal perspective - that does not want to contradict the “official“ explanation of the doctrine - “must be rejected”.

The three aspects or levels of a person’s contact with outer reality, namely

(a) aesthetic,
(b) rational,
(c) ethical,

with their three norms or ideals

(a) beauty,
(b) truth,
(c) goodness

pursued through

(a) seeing (perceiving without analysing or judging),
(b) reasoning, analysing,
(c) acting,

are the foundational blocks of a personal philosophy that is hard to explain in 350 words. It is a prism through which one gains an outlook that makes many things more comprehensible, at least for me, or - In Tillich’s words - for anyone “who is willing to look in the same direction, ... (making) the reality which these ideas are supposed to reflect (more) understandable.“ I certainly never claimed that this is how the doctrine SHOULD be interpreted. Perhaps the same is true about the interesting interpretation by Barth that you refer to.

The correspondence I had in mind goes something like this:

(a) when one looks at and admires the Creation one has in mind the Father, the author of the created Beauty;
(b) one usually associates, at least in the Catholic tradition, the Holy Spirit with learning, i.e. the rational aspect of our contact with reality (the singing of “Veni Sancte Spiritus” at the beginning of the school year);
(c) the God Incarnate became our Teacher not so much of aesthetics or logic but of ethics, of how to live a moral, good life.

Also, I am not sure the Pope suggested “Greek philosophy as a ground for Christian theology”. In his words, an “inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history“, though he indeed warned against “dehellenisation of Christianity”, and gave as an example sola scriptura. (ctd)

(ctd) This reminds me of the two (complementary?) interpretations of the Divine that we had already discussed on this OLO: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed to us in the Bible, and the God of philosophers (and scientists) revealed to us through our investigative nature and culture. This is how I understood Benedict’s emphasis on the “inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry”. However, who am I, a theological semi-literate, to defend Benedict!

waterboy,
I hope I too am anti-authoritarian, where authoritarian, according to my dictionary, means “enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom”. This has nothing to do with either

(a) accepting the opinions of specialists in a field beyond my expertise (acceptance on authority), or
(b) accepting the rules of an organisation, body (a state, a Church, sporting competition, etc) that I am or want to be a part of.

Nobody wants you to accept anything on specialists’ authority - case (a) - in a field where you feel as knowledgeable as was Einstein in physics. There were certainly people, who thought they could improve on Newton, but who did not become “Einsteins”, and I am old enough to have seen a lot of nonsense written by people who wanted to “correct” Einstein, without understanding what he was saying.

That is all I wanted to say: I am not a theologian, nor an exegete, so I accept the opinions of specialists in these fields, of which there are many, and the Pope happens to be one of them.

I also agree that it is important “to question and challenge the most 'sacred' traditions” in theology or elsewhere. I have only difficulties with various fads that seem to be just chasing the zeitgeist. I have probably read (and understood) more theology written by Protestant than by Catholic theologians. The more languages you speak the deeper understanding you have of your own mother tongue. The same about one’s “mother” and “foreign” interpretations of the Christian world view.

George, an interesting couple of posts.

The specialists, in this case the Catholic church are not always right. One only has to look at the way they treated Galileo when he showed that the earth was not the centre of the universe. Once again, science prevailed over dogma.

Our concept of ethics was born long before the advent of the birth of Christ. The Christian church gives itself too much credit for those things in the world which are good, but it is very tardy in accepting responsibility for those thing in the world which are evil.