2 KNOWING GOD BY NAME eschatology, community and inter-religious dialogue have led some to describe her as the leading feminist voice on the contempor

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1 INTRODUCTION God s prophetic word to the Church in every generation requires the empowering of the Holy Spirit in both the giving and receiving of that word in community, to speak it boldly, to test it in correspondence to the living Word and to be tested by it. In the heat of the Spirit s fire, we listen for God s euangelion to ring true in our contexts and in concert with the communion of the saints who have testified to God s revelation in Jesus Christ according to the witness of Scripture throughout the ages. The challenges are many, but they are not optional. Do not put out the Spirit's fire. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject whatever is harmful (1 Thess 5:19-21). Prophetic words are usually less welcome among established powers and centers of privilege, especially if that word means relinquishing privilege for the sake of others. It is tempting for those who benefit from the status quo to reject as harmful anything that threatens existing norms. Alternatively, the marginalized find it difficult to hold on to what is good when it involves selfgiving love that does not draw them further into existing spheres of power. And within those privileged spheres, the gospel s radical call to selfless power exercised in freedom for the other is nearly drowned out by the siren song of selfish domination. There are feminist theologians who rank among the prophetic voices of our day, calling the Church to repentance in regard to its treatment of women and the poor and challenging the Church to examine its language and doctrine accordingly. Historically these voices have often been treated with contempt, and they continue to risk being silenced under the weight of Church tradition and patriarchy. With more frequency, however, they are facing the challenges that come with being heard, for with hearing comes testing. This involves submitting to the community as it submits to the discerning fire and metanoia of the Holy Spirit, listening for and holding on to what is good and letting go of the rest. One woman who has spoken and is being heard, and whose message is tested and weighed in this book, is Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J. Johnson has had substantial influence on contemporary Roman Catholic theology and Catholic feminism, particularly in North America, over the past several decades. 1 Her writings on the doctrine of God, symbolic language for God, Christology, Mariology, women and the Church, pneumatology, cosmology, eco-feminism, 1 See, e.g., Neil Ormerod s positive assessment in Introducing Contemporary Theologies: The What and the Who of Theology Today (Alexandria: E.G. Dwyer, 1997), 185.

2 2 KNOWING GOD BY NAME eschatology, community and inter-religious dialogue have led some to describe her as the leading feminist voice on the contemporary theological scene. 2 Others name her among the loyal opposition who seek to stay in the Roman Catholic community while calling for feminist theological reform. 3 Among the primary reforms on the Catholic feminist agenda is the Church s traditional doctrine of and language for the Trinity, deemed to promote sexism and patriarchal idolatry. Sharing this conviction with her colleagues, Johnson places the female subject at the center of what she calls the historical juncture between traditional Christian thought and the a priori of human experience. 4 From there she asks, What is the right way to speak about God? 5 Her response is a reconstruction of Trinitarian doctrine and God-talk in ontological terms, using women s relational experience as the source and norm for understanding God as essentially, mutually related to the world. 6 In She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, 7 Johnson systematically re-schematizes those aspects of Christian doctrine that she believes 2 This citation is from the promotional cover of Things New and Old: Essays on the Theology of Elizabeth A. Johnson (hereafter: TNO), ed. Phyllis Zagano and Terence W. Tilley (New York: Crossroad, 1999). This volume provides a complete bibliography of Johnson s academic and popular writings, speeches, audiotapes and book reviews through See Luke Timothy Johnson, What Are They Saying About God? Something Fundamental is Afoot, Commonweal (January 1993): 17-22, Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (hereafter: SWI) (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 15, Ibid., 18. In The Right Way to Speak About God: Pannenberg on Analogy, Theological Studies 43 (1982): , Johnson opens by citing Pannenberg: A crucial, if not the most basic question of theology is the question about the right way to speak of God. From Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), Johnson, Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit (hereafter: WECS) (New York: Paulist, 1993), 32 and passim. This presupposition is not only basic to Catholic feminism but also to pragmatic feminism (Rebecca Chopp, The Power to Speak: feminism, language, God [New York: Crossroad, 1989]), lesbian feminism (Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation [New York: University Press of America, 1980]), process feminism (Sheila Greeve Davaney, Divine Power: A Study of Karl Barth and Charles Hartshorne [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986]), and poststructuralist feminism (Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Changing the Subject: Women s Discourses and Feminist Theology [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994]). 7 For critical reviews of She Who Is, see Amy Plantinga Pauw, Braiding a New Footbridge: Christian Wisdom, Classic and Feminist, Christian Century (November 17-24, 1993): ; Cynthia L. Rigby, a review of She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, by Elizabeth A. Johnson, Koinonia 5 (Fall 1993): 255-9; Mary Aquin O Neill and Mary McClintock Fulkerson, a review of She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, by Elizabeth A. Johnson, Religious Studies Review 21 (January 1995): 19-25; Sonya Quitslund, a review of She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 31 (Winter-Spring 1994): 190-2; Mary E. Hines, Mary Rose D Angelo and John Carmody, Review Symposium: Three Perspectives : With Author s Response, Horizons 20 (Fall 1993):

3 Introduction 3 maintain too radical a distinction between God, human beings and creation. She favors a panentheistic model of free, reciprocal relation: God in the world and the world in God while each remains radically distinct 8 although the absolute difference between Creator and creature is encircled by God who is all in all. 9 Johnson s panentheistic ontology rejects all forms of what feminists anathematize as classical theism. Classical theism, often described by feminist theology in highly deistic terms, is a theology in which God is ontologically distinct from and in free (unnecessary) asymmetrical relation to and with creation. From a feminist perspective, divine distinction means divine indifference and distance from human experience. Thus the God of classical theism, equated with the Triune God of Christian theistic tradition, is the God that feminists love to hate. 10 Johnson intends to reform her theistic Christian tradition at precisely this point, offering a panentheistic relational ontology that remains recognizable within the contours of Christian faith. She makes those contours flexible by utilizing multiple metaphysical systems to develop her own hybrid system. These include Karl Rahner s transcendental anthropology, certain feminist concepts of relationality, and those contemporary theo-ontologies and symbol systems that align with or support her foundational beliefs. Bringing together the strange bedfellows of classical wisdom and feminist thought in particular, Johnson explains her approach as follows: In She Who Is I draw on themes and ideas from Thomas Aquinas to explore a feminist theology of God. I do so not to replicate the past, let alone as an adherent of a totalizing discourse that claims to be able to explain everything... I also make ontological claims and draw references about the way things truly are, but these are not beholden to any complete metaphysical system. They may in truth be compatible with many systems. With regard to the Trinity I play with multiple models, convinced that pushing only one alone inevitably leads to a regrettable univocity in speech about the divine... Using an entirely different conceptuality, a contemporary reading of Aquinas with Rahnerian and feminist presuppositions, I have also suggested Trinitarian language with a profoundly relational cast... Why not let a thousand flowers bloom and rejoice that multiple thought patterns are able to express a contemporary understanding of divine mystery? 11 This book tests and weighs Johnson s Trinitarian and Christological assertions of the way things truly are from this entirely different conceptuality. It asks whether her methodological, philosophical principles and 8 SWI, Ibid. 10 Janet Martin Soskice, Trinity and Feminism, in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology, ed. Susan Frank Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), TNO, (emphasis added).

4 4 KNOWING GOD BY NAME presuppositions are internally consistent and inherently plausible. If so, are they compatible with Johnson s Roman Catholic Christian tradition and do they remain within the contours of the Christian faith? What are those contours, and how are they determined? And what effect do Johnson s metaphysical principles have on the divine-human distinction and freedom that she believes is fundamental to Christian faith and God-talk? These questions are theological and methodological, but they are also unavoidably ethical. Johnson s efforts to promote necessary metanoia in the Church in regard to women, the poor, and co-humanity in the image of God must somehow avoid the pitfalls of the modern foundationalism that fosters and sustains the oppression she opposes. Johnson s concerns and the approach she has taken to address them make Karl Barth a lively theological conversation partner for her. At first Barth may seem an odd choice to include among those who represent the bedfellows of feminist ethics and Christian theology, even with Barth s immeasurable influence on almost a century of Trinitarian theology. And yet, his ecclesial and political opposition to the religiously sanctioned, oppressive ideology of early twentieth century Germany makes him a significant conversation partner indeed. Barth s ethics, like Johnson s, are inseparable from his theology and epistemology. And like Johnson, Barth considered Christian experience of God to be personal and comprehensive, impacting every aspect of human life. In his European context, through two world wars, Barth witnessed and denounced the idolatrous oppression that resulted from the unholy wedding of Christianity to a totalizing ideology, particularly one that deemed certain human beings ontologically superior to others. In contrast to Johnson s perspective, however, Barth considered the modernist theological and philosophical presupposition of a general (or selective) human capacity for God to be the sand upon which Europe s oppressive structures were being built, one upon the other. Without the bedrock of God s unique Self-revelation in Jesus Christ, any new construction, no matter how ethically praiseworthy its design and intent, could not help but perpetuate similarly disastrous results. Given the importance of Johnson s and Barth s ethical concerns, and their understanding of the cost of an inadequate theological anthropology on those most marginalized, there is reason to examine their theological criteria and to bring these into dialogue. This is especially true as each theologian begins from a set of Trinitarian assumptions that establishes the possibility of God s goodness to be experienced in the created order. And yet, from her earliest writing on the question of God and experience, Johnson has positioned herself against Barth, particularly his theology of Trinitarian revelation and the place of human experience in the knowledge of God. Barth s view of God s holiness and wholly

5 Introduction 5 otherness separates God not only from creation but also from its present concerns. 12 This priority of distinction is also foundational to Johnson s Catholic, Thomistic tradition. It is the backbone of classical theism, upholding a disengaged, patriarchal Christian doctrine of God. Thus her challenge has been to find a way to think and speak of God that lessens this distinction and unites God to creation s concerns in ways beyond the Christian narrative while still using its categories even as she redefines them. In one of Johnson s earliest essays, she states her intent in terms of moving beyond Barth and his theological concerns. Johnson s challenge is thus twofold; she must reconstruct Christian doctrine while remaining within Christianity s contours and must move beyond the theological affirmations and concerns Barth raised so prolifically regarding the human capacity to know and name God. Johnson s challenge is made even more difficult for her having, in her words, imbibed Karl Rahner s transcendental theology like mother s milk. 13 Johnson readily attributes the foundational development of her own Trinitarian theology, Christology and theological anthropology to Rahner, who is described by some as a twentieth-century Aquinas and by others as the Friedrich Schleiermacher of contemporary Catholic theology. 14 Whatever sphere of influence Johnson has is subsumed under the enormous shadow cast by Rahner. However, among the principal influences on Rahner s Trinitarian theology, and on a century of Western Trinitarian thought, is Barth. If Rahner is best known for his Trinitarian axiom in which he equates the immanent with the economic Trinity, he is less known for having borrowed and revised Barth s language in the Church Dogmatics as its source. Agree or disagree with Barth; he must be reckoned with in contemporary Trinitarian discourse. Given Johnson s adherence to Rahner s philosophical theology and her early vow to develop a theology beyond Barth, engagement with Barth s theology might be expected. If this is absent in Johnson s writing, perhaps it is because she dismisses Barth along with much of her own tradition as hopelessly tainted by classical theism. Whatever the reason, in some small measure this book provides opportunity for such engagement. It hardly seems possible to move beyond Barth without having engaged him at the center of his theological concerns. 12 Johnson, The Legitimacy of the God Question: Pannenberg s New Anthropology, The Irish Theological Quarterly 52 (1986): TNO, See Anne Carr, Karl Rahner, in A Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Martin Marty and Dean Peerman (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), 520; A Map of Twentieth-Century Theology, ed. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 277.

6 6 KNOWING GOD BY NAME Johnson argues that the intellectual vitality of the feminist theological agenda is matched and even outpaced by its existential importance, and that indeed the very viability of the Christian tradition for present and coming generations is at stake. 15 With the stakes this high, it seems appropriate to finally bring Barth s ethical, epistemological and theological concerns into dialogue with Johnson s to test her feminist proposal for its viability and sustainability for Christian doctrine and Church renewal. This book focuses attention on four areas of Johnson s thought: her feminist methodology, her transcendental anthropology, her epistemology and her panentheistic, relational ontology. These areas come under consideration and critique, especially in regard to their viability for Christian Trinitarian theology and Christology. Finally, a sustained critique of Johnson s God-talk is made within the context of Thomistic scholarship and modern feminism. Chapters One and Two look specifically at Johnson s Catholic reformist feminist methodology and epistemology and how they prioritize experience and the ontological principle of relation. The first chapter focuses specifically on Johnson s place within Catholic reformist feminism and its characteristically modern shift away from the traditional view of revelation from above. The second chapter sets a wider contextual frame, noting the shared convictions of Johnson and Western feminist theologians outside her tradition. It places Johnson in relation to their shared opposition to Barth and his view of God s freedom, Trinitarian revelation and God-talk. Chapters Three and Four set forth Johnson s repristination of Rahner s transcendental metaphysics and theological anthropology in her own feminist context. It assesses the challenges she faces, in both transcendental and feminist terms, from her agnostic presuppositions and conflicting appeals to experience. Chapter Three clarifies Johnson s assumptions by describing them in the form of an arbitrary set of principles culled from her various writings. Chapter Four examines how Johnson s attempt to integrate feminist and transcendental concepts creates challenges in terms of competing claims and appeals to experience. The goal is to highlight the problems these transcendental principles raise for feminist essentialism and for what is essential to her Thomistic tradition, mainly the radical distinction between God and the world. In short, are her systems compatible? Chapters Five and Six analyze and critique her panentheistic, relational ontology. Chapter Five explores her relational ontology focusing on her reschematization of traditional Trinitarian theology and Christology. The key issues concern God s tri-personal being in the context of this ontological description, whether or not divine personhood is essential in her concept of 15 SWI, 15.

7 Introduction 7 relationality and the parameters of divine-creaturely relationality. Chapter Six evaluates Johnson s assertions by focusing on specific aspects of Barth s contrasting Trinitarian theology and Christology. Questions are raised regarding (1) the uniqueness of divine revelation in human experience, (2) Trinitarian participation and the language of the Church, (3) the homoousion as the center of inquiry regarding divine-human distinction and integrity, and (4) the work of the Holy Spirit in the experience of the human subject. Chapters Seven and Eight assess Johnson s analogical and symbolic approach to God-talk as a safeguard against univocal or equivocal God-talk. In Chapter Seven her approach is assessed from the perspective of her Thomistic tradition, following Battista Mondin s analysis in particular, and with others among whom Johnson places herself, such as Paul Tillich and Sallie McFague. A final brief assessment is made in Chapter Eight that follows on from work done by Serene Jones on Barth and Irigaray. It highlights the importance for Johnson as a Christian and a feminist to honor difference and distinction between humans and God, and between human persons themselves. Conclusions will then be drawn for Johnson s theology as Christian doctrine, particularly as she pluralistically restates her position in her recent Quest for the Living God. 16 Johnson is speaking, and she is being heard. This book is a testament to that hearing. It honors and supports her call to the Church to repent of its collusion whether through omission, intent, or ignorance in systems of injustice that marginalize women in the name of Jesus Christ. It also represents an honest effort to listen long and hard to her conceptuality of the way things truly are for all humanity and to weigh it in correspondence to that good, veridical and historical Word made flesh. A good word inevitably draws us to Jesus Christ. There we see God and the living hope of our permanent restoration as unique human beings in God s image. 16 Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (hereafter: QLG) (New York: Continuum, 2008). See also Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints (London: SCM, 1998) for a re-articulation of the themes of She Who Is.