This post is part six in a series looking at Donald Hook and Alvin Kimel’s 1993 article, “The Pronouns of Deity: A Theolinguistic Critique of Feminist Proposals,” published in Scottish Journal of Theology and currently freely accessible through Alvin Kimel’s academia.edu page.
In a new section, the authors proceed to critique proposals for alternatives to using masculine pronouns for God in English. The first of these, still quite common today almost thirty years later, is the option of avoiding pronouns altogether. They forward an interesting thesis: “The assignment of linguistic gender [here: English third-person pronouns] is complex, nonreflective, sometimes dialectal, but above all societal, cultural, historical, and beyond the control of the individual…. [T]he practice of avoiding the masculine pronoun when talking about God will never become habitual and routine; such practice must and will remain at the level of self-aware rebellion” (313). In one sense I disagree. This has become almost reflexive for me over three years of writing a dissertation in theology. I wonder if others have had the same experience.
I do think the authors have a point, though, when they continue, “To the extent that American society is influenced and shaped by the biblical stories of the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ—and that influence has been pervasive—the popular conception of God will in fact be formed by these stories” (313). The masculinity of the biblical God is unavoidable for anyone dealing closely with the text, and in my opinion it would go beyond the scope of translation (though some have attempted this, such as here and here) to excise masculine pronouns for God from English Bible translations. What is instead needed is a constructive theology that both acknowledges the biases of the texts and draws on minority traditions within those texts to find a God beyond male and female. It is in the latter where avoiding (or varying) pronouns for God has its place–though it should be noted that this is my opinion and not that of Hook and Kimel.
The authors provide three more arguments against the pronoun avoidance option for God in English, the first of which I will address in this post. Pronoun avoidance can lead to misunderstanding: “Out of context, for example, the sentence ‘Joan sent Joan’s son’ is ambiguous. It does not necessarily communicate that the son who was sent is the son of the first cited Joan. On the contrary, the sentence appears to indicate just the opposite, for many females may bear the proper name Joan” (315). The authors don’t say, but the example is a particularly important one because it comes straight out of John 3:16: “God sent his Son.” Reformists have different options here, such as repeating the noun: “God sent God’s Son,” using a definite article: “God sent the Son,” perhaps inserting an adjective: “God sent the divine Son,” or use of the passive: “God’s Son was sent.” Third-person pronouns can often be avoided through paraphrase or the above strategies. Where a possessive is necessary, though, such as here, indicating the relationship between God and the Son, options quickly run out. For ease on the ears, the latter three options are better. For clarity, the first, repeating the noun, is better, though I admit this can be jarring, and I am sympathetic to, but not convinced by, the authors’ criticism that this “linguistically marks or implies two different Gods” (315).
Again, I do not think these strategies are necessary in biblical translation, in which case I think it best to maintain masculine pronouns for God. In biblical studies too, and exegetical passages in other areas of theology, I do not see the need to avoid them. In constructive theology as a whole, the writer has other options available to them. Repeating the noun in close proximity to the previous mention can be jarring, but perhaps it will become even more acceptable the more this practice (which is probably forty or more years old by now) is undertaken in theology. I think the authors’ concerns are worth hearing, then, but I do not think they constitute an argument against third-person pronoun avoidance for God.
The authors acknowledge the possibility that pronoun avoidance might stick in theology (and it certainly has in areas, though not yet universally). But they point to Mussolini’s Italy, in which the dictator rejected the formal second-person pronouns Lei and Loro, and commended the familiar tu and voi for general usage. “This practice became the mark of the Italian whose consciousness had been properly raised, the verbal equivalent of the Fascist salute” (316). But after the fall of Fascism, the polite forms came back into common usage. The lesson here is that “the syntax, function words, and deep structures of language are intractable to individual manipulation and ideological enforcement” (316). The authors are not talking about just any language changes, which take place all the time, but changes at the most basic level, such as in pronoun usage (I don’t think Mussolini’s is the best example, as English not too long ago shed its familiar second-person pronoun, thou, and the polite you assumed general usage; the example also makes an unfortunate comparison between feminist language reforms and Fascism, something reinforced by the language of “propaganda” and “ideology” used throughout the article). I am not yet convinced. I could point to the success of feminist language reform in substituting generic he in English for singular they or he or she (see an earlier post in this series). I could also point to the increasing use of singular they or alternative pronouns for genderdiverse and non-binary people in English, as the increasing visibility of this group has forced English to once again confront its own limitations.
In the next post I will examine the authors’ criticisms of the neologism Godself and that pronoun avoidance depersonalises God.
Other posts in this series:
#1 Feminist proposals
#2 Grammatical gender
#3 Gender and pronouns in English
#4 The masculine God in Scripture and English
#5 The gender of the Holy Spirit
‣ #6 Pronoun avoidance and the issue of clarity
#7 Godself
#8 Pronoun avoidance, depersonalisation, and other reformist proposals
Cameron Coombe 