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Question Title Posted By Question Date
God addressed as She Chas Saturday, October 10, 2009

Question:

The following from Wisdom 9:
With you abides Wisdom, who knows your works.
She was with you when you made the world.
She knew what was pleasing to your eyes.
She saw what was right according to your precepts.
Send your Wisdom from the highest heaven;
send her from the throne of your greatness;
that she may abide with me and work with me,
so that I may know what it is that pleases you.
For Wisdom knows everything, and understands;
she will lead me wisely in what I do,
and protect me in her glory.

What is the best way to respond to those that take these passages to claim that we can refer to God as "she" since they say this is talking about the Holy Spirit and since the Holy Spirit is God we can then say that there is nothing wrong with referring to God in feminine pronouns, "she" and "her", even to the point of calling God our "Mother"

Thanks and God Bless.
Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM

Dear Chas:

We cannot refer to God as "she". That idea is feminist dribble. An EWTN expert, David Gregson on 11-08-2005 answered this question quite well. I quote an excerpt from him:

As for Wisdom being characterized as female in the Book of Wisdom, that is based on nothing more than the feminine gender of the Greek word sophia. Nothing of theological moment can be inferred from that. In fact, wisdom personified in the Old Testament was often identified with the Son by the early Church Fathers. So it's evident that they didn't see any significance of the noun's gender. The word pneuma, for spirit, is itself neuter, though we don't infer from that that the Spirit is thing rather than a Person.

[As for the Holy Spirit as feminine, God is not like either sex] It is a principle of dogmatic theology that, while creatures may be said to be like God, in this or that respect, God may not be said to be like creatures. This relationship of likeness is asymmetrical. A clear, if inadequate illustration, would be one's reflection in a mirror. The reflection may be said to be like oneself, but it would be odd to say one is like his reflection.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary
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