Feminist Voices on the Spirit of God

Helen Bergin

Feminist pneumatology is a rather recently-begun conversation which I wish to join. As a framework for this particular discussion, the first part of the article will offer an overview of some issues addressed in recent feminist theologies of the Spirit. It will then focus on quite specific aspects of two pneumatologies — those of North American theologians, Elizabeth A. Johnson and Nancy Victorin-Vangerud. While each theologian has made significant contributions to feminist pneumatology, there is nonetheless an interesting divergence within their interpretations of the Spirit. I will concentrate on a challenge put to Johnson by Victorin-Vangerud. An examination of the challenge may indicate possible future directions for feminist pneumatology. The second part of the article will begin to open up such reflection.

Current Feminist Pneumatologies

Setting the Scene

Over the last thirty-five years there have been fewer feminist theological works on the Holy Spirit than on God or Christ. This is not surprising as feminist pneumatology has followed the pattern of theology generally. Even so, for some time, isolated feminist views on the Spirit have been expressed. For example, British theologian, Mary Grey, raised feminist questions of the Holy Spirit early in the 1990s.¹ Dissatisfied with much traditional theology which tended to “tame” the Holy Spirit as well as diminish women, Grey suggested re-envisioning the quality of “connectedness” often associated with the Spirit. Grey highlighted this quality by giving it a potency and an intrinsic relationship with justice which she hoped would lead to a fuller life for women and for ‘invisible’ others. Her description of the Spirit as “today’s energy for connectedness” (Grey 1991: 95) pointed to a future where invisible ‘spirit-less’ women and visible ‘spiritual’ men might all be re-connected with their bodies and spirits, where human beings together might be more connected with earth and where privileged human beings might begin to empower the disenfranchised.²

One constant issue raised by feminist theologians relates to the Spirit’s traditional positioning within the doctrine of the Trinity. The Spirit’s continual inclusion as the third-mentioned of the Trinity, as well as the Spirit’s description as “from the Father and Son” or “from the Father and through the Son”, have each subtly conveyed in theological discourse a lesser or derivative role for the Spirit within the Godhead.³

Another issue relates to the feminisation of the Spirit subtly occurring over time. When the mysterious nature of the Spirit has been contrasted with the apparent “concreteness” of the Son and Father, links have been made between the ungraspable Spirit and anonymous “behind the scenes” lives of many women (Johnson 1993a: 130 and Grey: 90).

A further issue concerns theological concepts often used to speak of the Holy Spirit. Within the classical theological tradition, the Spirit has often been represented as “gift” of God, “love” of Father and Son, that which “proceeds” from another. It is not the Spirit that gives. The Spirit is the fruit of others’ loving. As “proceeding”, the Spirit is not described as “initiating.”

For such reasons, feminists have gradually challenged traditional language, imagery and interpretations of the Spirit.

Despite this, it is refreshing that some eco-theology of the past twenty years, for example, that of Sallie McFague (2001: 181-183) and Yvonne Gebara (1999: 103-109) has highlighted connections which have resonated with feminist theologians. It is in human interaction with the universe that links to pneumatology have also been forged.

In recent feminist theology, substantial ecumenical reflection on the Spirit has begun to appear. Elizabeth Johnson, from a Catholic background, has made a major contribution in her work She Who is: the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1993) and in a smaller publication Women, Earth and Creator Spirit (1993a). Nancy Victorin-Vangerud, from a Protestant tradition has also contributed through various articles (2001; 2001a) and particularly through her work The Raging Hearth: Spirit in the Household of God (2000). I will outline aspects of their pneumatologies particularly in regard to the meaning of the Spirit as “divine person.” It is the latter issue that undergirds the challenge posed by Victorin-Vangerud to Johnson.

Elizabeth Johnson’s Pneumatology

Among the many expressions used by Johnson to depict the Spirit,⁴ Johnson describes the Spirit as the divine mystery above and around all that is; as mediated in the events of history; as the movement of the living God; as the yearning of humans for “more” than might appear on the surface of lives (1993: 124). Reflecting on ways in which the Christian tradition has attempted to describe the Spirit, Johnson refers to the Spirit as “God passing by in vivifying, sustaining, renewing and liberating power in the midst of historical struggle” (1993: 127). The Spirit can thus, on one level, be understood as the mysterious God acting in history and yet leading history beyond its immediate configurations.

In outlining her goal for feminist pneumatology, Johnson says: “I propose to keep the traditional language of Spirit and test whether it is capable of a feminist retrieval” (1993: 132). She begins by exploring different perceptions of the Spirit active in the world. She refers to the Spirit as God “pervading the cosmos and all of its inter-related creatures with life” (1993: 134). Spirit-Sophia is also envisaged as God who groans with creation, who denounces wrongs and who works for liberation (See Johnson 1993: 135-9). The Spirit is evidently God acting, and doing so in a personal manner.

Johnson then proceeds to draw on the classical tradition which identifies “the meaning of the Spirit of God within a Trinitarian framework” (1993: 141). Thus, the elements of the Spirit’s personhood and divine inter-subjectivity are introduced. By claiming this tradition, Johnson situates talk of the Spirit within inter-personal divine Being. Therein, the Spirit has often been named as “love” and as “gift” shared between the first two divine persons, or, perhaps more fittingly described, as “loving” and “gifting.” Johnson concludes that both “love” and “gift” can be used of the Spirit by feminists “but [that each] must be appropriated critically for truly liberating language to emerge” (1993: 143). Aware of the inherent danger of such terms being used “to legitimize patriarchal structures” Johnson sees them nonetheless as potentially able to point to a Spirit who encourages “reciprocity in community” and the setting up of “a solidarity of reciprocal, freeing relation throughout the whole world as well as between herself and creation” (1993: 143). Reclaiming the image of “love” for the Spirit, Johnson believes love can “speak of the living God who is not isolated, nor static, nor driven, but who from profound mutual relatedness freely goes forth to quicken and renew” (1993: 144). It is from the depths of Trinitarian relating that divine love, namely the Spirit, freely disperses Herself into creation as life-giver and transformer.

In describing the relationality of the Godhead, Johnson speaks of the “living mystery of relation, to us and to herself” (1993: 201). For Johnson, “the Trinity provides a symbolic picture of totally shared life at the heart of the universe” (1993: 222). She stresses the impossibility of divine persons existing independently of relationships when she states:

Since the persons are constituted by their relationships to each other, each is unintelligible except as connected with the others. Relation is the very principle of their being …What this indicates in simple terms is that there is no absolute divine person. … At the heart of holy mystery is not monarchy but community (1993: 216).

Finally, for my purposes, while Johnson emphasizes the Spirit’s relationality both in respect of the divinity and in regards to creation, she also notes the freedom of the Spirit accompanying all such relating. She states:

Relationality is intrinsic to [the Spirit’s] very being as love, gift, and friend both to the world and within the holy mystery of God. At the same time that she is intrinsically related, the Spirit is essentially free … not, as feared, cramped or diminished by relation but by being distinctively Spirit precisely in and through relation (1993: 148).

In short, Johnson holds that the Spirit is a divine person freely, constitutively and intrinsically related to other “divine persons.” There are no unrelated divine persons. From the depths of their inter-subjectivity, the Trinitarian persons draw all creation to engage in living relationships of reciprocal love and freedom. The Spirit is relational within the Godhead; the Spirit is relational in respect of creation.

Nancy Victorin-Vangerud’s Pneumatology

While Johnson uses the classical tradition from which to develop a feminist theology of the Spirit, Nancy Victorin-Vangerud cites as her framework a “feminist maternal pneumatology.”⁵ Victorin-Vangerud acknowledges that she has striven consistently to encourage the concept of “mutuality” within personal and familial situations. As a professional woman involved in a church situation where truth-seeking demanded the Spirit’s inscrutable honesty for all involved parties, Victorin-Vangerud encountered the “energy for life” of the Holy Spirit. In The Raging Hearth she first reflects on various historical and ecclesial ways of social structuring where diversity, equality and mutuality have been denied. In highlighting these latter qualities Victorin-Vangerud offers a pneumatology which focuses on the Spirit’s agency in supporting personal differences and in allowing mutual recognition and transformation to flourish within the human community.

In the midst of her work, Victorin-Vangerud dismisses as “poisonous pneumatology” all Christian social units that over time have subjected members to single authorities or single ways of operating under the guise of effecting unity in the Spirit. Clement of Rome and Tertullian, for example, are chastised for encouraging, in the Spirit’s name, church order which ultimately led to some people and some voices always being subordinate to others. In proposing a different paradigm for the Spirit’s agency in the world, Victorin-Vangerud asks: “Is it possible to embody a discipleship of equals, a community of multiple heads and multiple wills, rather than One Head and One Will?”(2000: 141). It is by means of the Spirit of God that she imagines such possibility. She says: “…when we trace the language of Spirit, we see glimpses of inclusive freedom and egalitarian community” (2000: 141).

Victorin-Vangerud clearly states the context of her pneumatology. She says: “The presence and power of God the Spirit requires re-imagining for We who are in the midst of struggle” (2000: 186).⁶ There is a practicality about Victorin-Vangerud’s reflection on God’s Spirit, namely, that the struggle of all might lead to “a transformed shape of solidarity in which family members are freed for love as mutual recognition” (2000: 211). Her goals are two-fold: to describe the Spirit, first as “an intersubjective reality of mutual recognition” and second, as “the sustenance of the struggle for life” (2000: 186).

In constructing such a pneumatology, Victorin-Vangerud’s main focus is on ordinary households where the Spirit, as she says, exists as “the social presence of God incarnate” who “overcomes the polarization between the One and others towards a re-centering of the Many” (2000: 187). Two elements are at work here. There is the element of the Spirit moving among the group as “social presence.” There is also the movement of the Spirit nudging persons away from single bodies overseen by single authorities towards a multi-faceted group of various bodies mutually recognizing one another — in the Spirit. Victorin-Vangerud explicitly focuses on the effects of the Spirit’s transforming presence within history and especially within human interactions. Nonetheless, an implicit conviction of equality among the Trinitarian divine persons appears to ground her hope for “an intersubjective reality of mutual recognition.”

Victorin-Vangerud uses family units (and not simply nuclear-sized units) as signaling where and how the Spirit might be discovered. She suggests that the Spirit might aid one person: to recognize the dignity of the other, to accept the diverse giftedness of the other, to seek truth in the other, to employ anger in the cause of reconciling love, to sustain conflict, difference and re-shaping - all in order to create communities of right relationships. As “social presence,” the Spirit is not an individual presence. For her, the Spirit constitutes a “We, a social infinite composing the textured and complex whole of relational life” (2000: 211). Enticing various groups or bodies into right relationships, the Spirit is known within “bodies of the Spirit.” Victorin-Vangerud suggests that there are “many Bodies of the Spirit … (with their own heads) … yet constituting a relation. … The image Bodies of the Spirit shifts pneumatological thinking from hierarchical ordering to mutual recognition” (2000: 208). Victorin-Vangerud finds conventional understandings of the Trinity limited and narrow. She envisages the Spirit of God, not limited to the Spirit of the Father, or of the Son. Rather, the Spirit of God is “the communal holy and whole-making presence of God” who engages with human beings and among human beings in their relationships with God and with the “plenitude of creation” (2000: 207).

I wish now to name the specific pneumatological challenge raised to Johnson by Victorin-Vangerud. While both theologians acknowledge the Spirit as ever-present divine agency in regard to creation, i.e. God as transforming and as life-giving, it is in the area of interpreting divine personhood that they differ.

The Challenge

Victorin-Vangerud acknowledges the major contribution to feminist pneumatology of Johnson’s work She Who Is. Especially, Victorin-Vangerud applauds the chronological priority that Johnson gives to discussion of the Spirit within the Godhead and Johnson’s application of feminist understandings to each person of the Trinity.

Johnson re-images the Trinity as Spirit-Sophia, Jesus-Sophia and Mother-Sophia. However, Johnson’s use of Sophia is challenged by Victorin-Vangerud who claims that Sophia “represents personified Wisdom in female form — an individual woman form” (2000: 185). Victorin-Vangerud claims that Johnson moves at this point from an “intersubjective model back to a subjective one.” Her critique continues: “Johnson focuses on Spirit, Jesus and Mother as relational persons, rather than on relationships themselves, inclusive of the persons” (2000: 186).

This issue is significant for feminist pneumatology. It concerns how one expresses divine personhood, not only in relation to the Spirit of God (our particular interest), but in relation to the tri-personal God as well. It connects too with the issue of whether divine person and divine agency can be separated. This latter issue is not new to traditional Christian pneumatology.⁷ However, in this instance of feminist theology, it is the meaning of divine person specifically that has become open to challenge.

Granted that Johnson and Victorin-Vangerud both in different ways understand the Spirit as agent, I will now focus on the following question: “How does each feminist pneumatology interpret the Spirit as divine person?” For each theologian, the Spirit is intensely relational, whether within the Godhead or within creation. We recall Johnson’s previously-mentioned words “relationality is intrinsic to [the Spirit’s] very being as love, gift, and friend both to the world and within the holy mystery of God” (1993:148) and Victorin-Vangerud’s interpretation of the Spirit as “the social presence of God incarnate” (2000:187). Both descriptions suggest the Spirit as essentially-relating divine presence.

Victorin-Vangerud’s challenge, however, takes us further than the issue of relationality. It raises the question of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to which there will be different responses depending on whether one speaks of divine or human persons. Johnson is claiming divine inter-subjectivity in which the Trinitarian persons and their relationships are inseparable. She says: “Since the persons are constituted by their relationships to each other, each is unintelligible except as connected with the others” (1993:216). For Johnson then, divine relating and divine persons co-exist. The so-called “inter-subjectivity” within the Godhead includes divine persons within their relating.

On this basis, therefore, I do not uncritically endorse Victorin-Vangerud’s challenge, stated above. While Johnson employs the inter-trinitarian model of God developed by the classical tradition, the Spirit in her feminist pneumatology is essentially relational within the Godhead and, consequently, relational beyond. Divine persons and relationships co-exist.

On the other hand, Victorin-Vangerud’s descriptions of the Spirit as “intersubjective reality of mutual recognition” and as “the sustenance of the struggle for life” offer fruitful insights which may at present be understated within feminist pneumatology. We will shortly consider them.

Pathways Ahead

By way of stark contrast to the pneumatologies of both Johnson and Victorin-Vangerud it is helpful to remind ourselves that the powerful, disturbing Spirit has frequently been privatized to become God dwelling in individuals; she has been restricted to certain ecclesial rites and functions; she has been linked to women who “in the Spirit” have loved without receiving love, and to women who “in the Spirit” have given, regardless of developing their gifts. Rather than break boundaries, the Spirit has often been accessory to a destructive sacrifice of self. The Spirit has sometimes been confined to certain historical eras and to human beings, rather than to the whole of creation. Johnson and Victorin-Vangerud offer feminist pneumatologies that differ greatly from the above understandings.

For the remainder of this article, I will explore Victorin-Vangerud’s two recently-noted descriptions of the Spirit which I believe can provide helpful path-ways for developments in feminist pneumatology.

Critical Questions

First, I wish to concentrate on Victorin-Vangerud’s insight of the Spirit as “intersubjective reality of mutual recognition” (2000: 211). Victorin-Vangerud believes that the Spirit is discovered in the relating between persons and among all “Bodies of the Spirit.” Other feminists have written similarly. Rita Brock, for example, speaks of relationality as “the site of divine presence and power” (cf. Victorin-Vangerud 2000: 177).⁸

Worthy of attention, first, is Victorin-Vangerud’s focus on the agency of the Spirit in enabling human persons to come to themselves as persons in their own right so that they are received in their own right by others. The Spirit acts both within the human relationships and within the terms of these relationships. The Spirit encourages and brings about relationality towards the self and to the other.

Also noteworthy in Victorin-Vangerud’s insight is that such Spirit-filled relating is not necessarily connected with harmonious community living. Rather, it concerns Spirit-filled interchanges where differences are heard and received — for the sake of truth and justice. Such relationships demand risk, courage to express selves, commitment to a vision of wholeness and above all, a willingness to honour the dignity of others. Victorin-Vangerud depicts persons seeking fullness within themselves and a corresponding fullness within relationships. The Spirit revealed in such interactions persists through tentativeness and struggle. Such a Spirit empowers and challenges.

It becomes clear in the above discussion that the Spirit of God is both the divinity in relationship with finite humans and also the forger of deeper relating among humans. The Spirit, with the other two divine persons, is the “inter-subjective reality of mutual recognition.” Yet, among humans, the Spirit of God fosters the gradual coming to such recognition within the bounds of time and history. It is often necessary in pneumatological discourse to keep distinct, but not separate, our understandings of the Spirit as agent vis à vis creation and as totally received gift within the Godhead.

One possible critique of Victorin-Vangerud’s understanding of the Spirit as “inter-subjective reality of mutual recognition”, however, refers to the imaginable situation where mutually fulfilling relationships might not be based on the Spirit, even if worked through with difficulty and apparent openness. Even in such a social context relationships might be based on self-interest or collusion under guise of the Spirit. By contrast, the Spirit might be seen, in the interests of justice and truth, as a “destructive” agent in some relationships. Much depends on how one gauges the Spirit and on how one discerns the Spirit as belonging to God. If a relationship genuinely seeks truth for all, the Spirit may indeed under-gird and permeate the relationships. “Mutual recognition” needs somehow to alert all parties to the possibilities of both deception and transparency.

A further, possibly-debatable, critique is owed to an insight expressed by Elizabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza. When speaking of feminist Christology, Schüssler-Fiorenza warns against Christ-based relationships being “conceptualized in personalistic, individualistic terms as connectedness between individuals” (Schüssler-Fiorenza 1995: 54). Aware of the need to open mutual relationships out into “sociopolitical categories” I imagine Schüssler-Fiorenza might ask something like: “To what extent do relationships that reveal the Spirit offer something of value to the oppressed and poor?” Following this line, there might in fact be a danger in confining the Spirit’s power, even to the struggle of well-meaning groups set on truthful relationships. Feminist pneumatology, if it is about nourishing the reign of God, cannot be dispensed from opting for solidarity with the wider community. Thus, choosing to discover God’s Spirit in the engagement of “Bodies of the Spirit” demands that the struggle for truth reach into social and political spheres where transformation, not only of special groups, but of all groups can be the field of engagement with the Spirit.

Victorin-Vangerud’s second insight about the Spirit as “the sustenance of the struggle for life” focuses on the naming and identity of the Spirit. Victorin-Vangerud has located the Spirit in the midst of struggle. Johnson likewise mentioned the presence of the Spirit in historical struggle for genuine liberation (See Johnson 1993: 126-7). However, a question might be asked of Vangerud: “Is God’s Spirit, therefore, simply the movement or process of clarification which occurs among different persons or, in her terms, among ‘Bodies of the Spirit?’” Certainly, the Spirit as “the sustenance of the struggle for life” can lead parties to some sort of fullness. However, one might question further: “At what stage is the Spirit of God acknowledged as a “sustaining” reality outside of, or more than, the process itself?” And, “Is the Spirit simply one participant assimilated into, or reduced to, human activity?” Finally, how does one connect the Spirit who “struggles” within humanity to the Spirit eternally loving within the Trinity?

An associated issue relates to the mysterious problem of evil. It is not always evident that parties involved in truth-seeking towards wholeness are actually equal and capable partners in processes geared towards truth and mutual recognition. Victims can still be victims for many reasons outside their control. If attempts to meet the needs of all do not succeed in favour of truth and dignity for all, must one admit that the Spirit was not present or that the Spirit failed?

Such difficult questions need to be explored. On the one hand, if a process of engagement really ends in offering deeper life for those involved, is that not a sign of the presence of the powerful but unseen Spirit of God within the process itself? On the other hand, if such life is not ultimately apparent, does one then link the Spirit to something beyond the process and therefore to a transcendent reality pointing beyond the process towards eschatological truth? Victorin-Vangerud’s treatment of God’s Spirit has raised deeply significant and valuable issues.

Ongoing Issues in Feminist Pneumatology

Feminist pneumatology needs to keep addressing the nature of God’s Spirit. For example, “How ‘personal’ and ‘inter-personal’ is the divine Spirit?” And, what do those terms mean? I question whether one ought to overlook the distinctive and particular personal presence of the Spirit of God whom Victorin-Vangerud might criticize as “individual.” If the divinity is love reaching outwards for all then the Spirit as manifestation of divine, inclusive love not only expresses something ‘personal’ in regard to all humans but this Spirit of God also expresses something ‘inter-personal’ from within Being Itself.

Within all such discussion, there is also, as Johnson indicates in She Who Is, a need to acknowledge the utter distance between human beings and the mystery of God. No matter how satisfactorily relationships in the private or public spheres may arrive at some sort of life-giving resolution, there is still an independence of God’s Spirit from all human engagements and outcomes. Not only does the Spirit encourage parties to come towards one another in deeper understandings of their truth, but the Spirit also encourages parties towards further not-yet known experiences of truth. The Spirit of God may be signaled, in Victorin-Vangerud’s words, in the We who are of struggling humans but the Spirit is also the We who are in reference to her own inter-personal relationships within the Godhead. The principle of holding on to the Spirit’s immanence and transcendence is critical.

For the future, feminist pneumatology, might well concern itself with the above issues. It might also consider the ramifications of multiple “Bodies of the Spirit” functioning in unity while retaining particularities pertinent to each “Body.” The aspiration to move from hierarchical “Bodies” towards participative, mutually relating “Bodies of the Spirit” might well draw on basic Trinitarian belief as a foundational symbol for such engagement.

Feminist pneumatology might also, in acknowledging the above aspect of “struggle”, make links with Christology regarding implications of the Spirit’s role within struggle. For example, what might one say about the nature of the Spirit when Jesus, “filled by the Spirit,” does not appear to receive mutual recognition as he dies? Once again, in connection with Christology, feminist pneumatology might also examine links between the Spirit and the Risen Christ within the Christa/community of disciples.

Finally, feminist pneumatology might consider further the nature of the Spirit as the latter inter-relates with finite human and non-human creation. For example, how might human beings give full recognition to the Spirit’s nature and role within non-human creation? What can feminist understandings of matter and spirit offer to this discussion?

It is clear that feminist pneumatology is a burgeoning area for critical reflection and I have only touched on some of its possibilities.

Works Cited

Gebara, Ivone. 1999. Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Grey, Mary. 1991. “Where does the Wild Goose Fly To? Seeking a New

Theology of Spirit for Feminist Theology” New Blackfriars Feb. 90-91.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. 1993. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist

Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. 1993a. Women, Earth and Creator Spirit. New York: Paulist Press.

McFague, Sallie. 2001. Life Abundant: Re-Thinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 181-183.

Schüssler-Fiorenza, Elizabeth. 1995. Jesus, Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet. New York: Continuum.

Victorin-Vangerud, Nancy. 2000. The Raging Hearth: Spirit in the Household of God. St Louis Missouri: Chalice Press.

Victorin-Vangerud, Nancy. 2001. “The Sacred Edge: Seascape as a Spiritual Resource for an Australian Eco-eschatology.” Ecotheology, 6.1, 6.2, 167-185.

Victorin-Vangerud, Nancy. 2001a. “The Sacred Edge: Women, Sea and Spirit.” SeaChanges Vol. 1 (Jan.), 1-28.