The Ordination of Women

[Donald_Kirchner]

"[The Father] is not a metaphor but rather, again, a name indicating whom is being referenced."

"Thanks, Scott - well put in all six (sic) of the sentences you wrote."

I suppose it could be argued that for anyone else to be a father can only be understood analogically. In fact, to understand my father, George Kirchner, as a father can, in a sense, only be understood analogically. That Christ is my Savior can, in a sense, be only understood analogically. So God the Father as Creator could, in a sense, be understood only analogically.

I confess, however, that God the Father as Creator of heaven and earth, who begat the Son, my Savior, is far more than metaphor.

[Brian Stoffregen]

God DOES have male genitalia. That's why God was circumcised on the eight day after His birth.  I realize this is (pardon the pun) rather a 'foreskin in the face' to feminist theology and "HerChurch" theology, but not so long ago the Lutheran Church used to sing:

Then the passage about God having a womb must mean that God has both.

[ptmccain]

Boris has dramatically illustrated the still startling reality of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

[FrPeters]

Which is why it is important to observe the Circumcision and Name of Jesus... Once again the Church Year comes crashing in with the full force of the reality of our confession...

[John Theiss]

Brother Boris, do both the Father and Holy Spirit have male genitalia?  Did the Son have male genitalia prior to his conception?  Are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all one person?  The whole doctrine of the Trinity places us into spaces where we risk saying more than God has revealed in trying to emphasize one aspect of a larger truth.

[ptmccain]

Brother Boris, speaking from an Eastern point of view, well summarizes the Western view too.

It is the Faith of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that God became Man and that the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is forever and always after the Incarnation, true God and true Man. To minimize, dismiss or otherwise attempt to regard the Incarnation of the Son of God as a human male is contrary to the catholic faith.

We have seen on this thread a very serious Christological heresy being espoused, in zeal to advance the agenda of the ordination of women. This has yet to be acknowledged and retracted.

[John Theiss]

Sorry, I must have missed something.  I did not note anyone on the forum saying that the Son of God did not remain a human male after his incarnation.

[ptmccain]

John, review the comments more carefully and you'll see the Christological error made when speaking about the human nature of Christ.

[Weedon]

Lewis nailed it:

What Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the organic adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity.

[Scott6]

I suppose it could be argued that for anyone else to be a father can only be understood analogically. In fact, to understand my father, George Kirchner, as a father can, in a sense, only be understood analogically.

Only in the obvious sense that no father executes his office in the exact same way.  But this in no way negates that your father is father to you in the exact same way that I am father to my children.  There is no analogy involved; rather, your father and I are univocally father in the exact same sense.

This cannot be said of God the Father where such univocal reference no longer works.

That Christ is my Savior can, in a sense, be only understood analogically. So God the Father as Creator could, in a sense, be understood only analogically.

I'm not sure why the first clause is true, so the second clause would be a non-sequitur.  But of course, the phrase "in a sense" would shield these claims from any criticism...

I confess, however, that God the Father as Creator of heaven and earth, who begat the Son, my Savior, is far more than metaphor.

Yes, like I said, "Father" is a proper name and not a metaphor, and "Creator" is a character of the one identified as "Father."

But if the desire is to understand "Father" as more than a proper name (which is already quite enough), then any sense of "Father" in relation to God is understood by way of analogy.

[Michael Slusser]

I confess, however, that God the Father as Creator of heaven and earth, who begat the Son, my Savior, is far more than metaphor.

Yes, like I said, "Father" is a proper name and not a metaphor, and "Creator" is a character of the one identified as "Father."

But if the desire is to understand "Father" as more than a proper name (which is already quite enough), then any sense of "Father" in relation to God is understood by way of analogy.

Early on in Christianity, "Father" was short for Pater ton holon, Father of the Universe, an epithet Christians shared with non-Christians. "Father" as proper name really comes in in reciprocal relationship with Jesus as the "Son."

Jesus himself was often called "Father" in the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

Peace,
Michael

[Scott6]

Jesus himself was often called "Father" in the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

Having read quite a bit from those centuries, I don't recall coming across Jesus as so referenced.  "Pais" (child) was common as were other descriptors, but unless I'm completely off my rocker, I don't remember "Father" as a title for Jesus.

I.e. do you have a reference?  I'd like to look at it.

[Michael Slusser]

Jesus himself was often called "Father" in the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

Having read quite a bit from those centuries, I don't recall coming across Jesus as so referenced.  "Pais" (child) was common as were other descriptors, but unless I'm completely off my rocker, I don't remember "Father" as a title for Jesus.

I.e. do you have a reference?  I'd like to look at it.

The evidence is set out in Raniero Cantalamessa, "Il Cristo 'Padre' negli scritti del II - III sec.," Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 3,1 (1967): 1-27. He cites the Epistula apostolorum 41; Martyrdom of Peter 10, in the Acts of Peter, Lipsius-Bonnet I 98, 3-4; Acta Ioannis 77 & 122; 2 Clement 1.4; Letter to Diognetus 9,6; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. I 6, 42,3; Pseudo-Clementine Homilies III 19,1 [GCS 43, 63.14] . . . That gets me to p. 4 of his article. He continues for 20+ pp.

He concludes as explanation that, before Christianity began to reserve "Father" to the person who is Father of Christ, it used father as it was customarily used, with reference to the nature of the divinity.

Peace,
Michael

[Scott6]

Jesus himself was often called "Father" in the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

Having read quite a bit from those centuries, I don't recall coming across Jesus as so referenced.  "Pais" (child) was common as were other descriptors, but unless I'm completely off my rocker, I don't remember "Father" as a title for Jesus.

I.e. do you have a reference?  I'd like to look at it.

The evidence is set out in Raniero Cantalamessa, "Il Cristo 'Padre' negli scritti del II - III sec.," Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 3,1 (1967): 1-27. He cites the Epistula apostolorum 41; Martyrdom of Peter 10, in the Acts of Peter, Lipsius-Bonnet I 98, 3-4; Acta Ioannis 77 & 122; 2 Clement 1.4; Letter to Diognetus 9,6; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. I 6, 42,3; Pseudo-Clementine Homilies III 19,1 [GCS 43, 63.14] . . . That gets me to p. 4 of his article. He continues for 20+ pp.

He concludes as explanation that, before Christianity began to reserve "Father" to the person who is Father of Christ, it used father as it was customarily used, with reference to the nature of the divinity.

Peace,
Michael

I'll look over all the references you mention, but a quick glance indicates that the word "father" was not used as a title or a name in the Epistula or Clement but as a quick relational description (such as an Ethiopic variant that says the disciples responded to Jesus by saying, "Lord, you are our father").  I'll give a more complete analysis tomorrow when I can actually look at all the documents to which I have access...

[Tom Eckstein]

Jesus himself was often called "Father" in the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

Having read quite a bit from those centuries, I don't recall coming across Jesus as so referenced.  "Pais" (child) was common as were other descriptors, but unless I'm completely off my rocker, I don't remember "Father" as a title for Jesus.

I.e. do you have a reference?  I'd like to look at it.

The evidence is set out in Raniero Cantalamessa, "Il Cristo 'Padre' negli scritti del II - III sec.," Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 3,1 (1967): 1-27. He cites the Epistula apostolorum 41; Martyrdom of Peter 10, in the Acts of Peter, Lipsius-Bonnet I 98, 3-4; Acta Ioannis 77 & 122; 2 Clement 1.4; Letter to Diognetus 9,6; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. I 6, 42,3; Pseudo-Clementine Homilies III 19,1 [GCS 43, 63.14] . . . That gets me to p. 4 of his article. He continues for 20+ pp.

He concludes as explanation that, before Christianity began to reserve "Father" to the person who is Father of Christ, it used father as it was customarily used, with reference to the nature of the divinity.

Peace,
Michael

I'll look over all the references you mention, but a quick glance indicates that the word "father" was not used as a title or a name in the Epistula or Clement but as a quick relational description (such as an Ethiopic variant that says the disciples responded to Jesus by saying, "Lord, you are our father").  I'll give a more complete analysis tomorrow when I can actually look at all the documents to which I have access...

I've read some (not all) church history on this issue, too, and Jesus being called "father" was more of a title (as "Christ") and never a proper name, as in "Our Father..."  A good example of this is in Isaiah ch. 9 where among various titles given to the messiah is "Everlasting Father" (according to some translations).  Here the Hebrew for "father" is more in the sense of "Lord" of "Head" and, again, not a proper name.

Also, we need to avoid the idea that we call God "father" because this is an extrapolation of an earthly father - that is, we tend to understand God in terms of human relational categories.  But this is theology of glory and puts us in bondage to the abstract - as does Feuerbach with his "Fatherhood of God."  In contrast, Scripture teaches that God IS father and earthly fathers share in (but not completely) his image, as earthly marriage is an image of the TRUE MARRIAGE that is between Christ and His Church.

Just my two cents worth.