In her work, She Who is, Elizabeth tries to create a new impression that God’s being could be as equally represented as a female as it has been represented in form of males. She develops an interesting thesis that would be very hard to believe or support. Her analysis wth regard to God’s being is very scanty and the evidence she gives does not leave a watertight argument that God could posses feminism. Most of the issues that she quotes only shows the immense strength and massive ability that are possessed by God, and not the representation of feminism.
First, the author shows the masculinity of Jesus. She also appreciates that Jesus continually referred to God as His Father in heaven. However, she tries to show that the Spirit of God has been continually referred in feminine terms. This, according to her, leaves the possibility of God being either male or female, since the other parts of the Holy trinity are male and female. However convincing this argument may look, it cannot nullify the references that Jesus made to God as father, which has a masculine understanding. Though the Holy trinity has been appreciated and acknowledged, we cannot use this argument to state the masculinity or feminism of God. However, we have a full evidence from Jesus, the only part of the Trinity that spoke to man directly, to categorically state that God is indeed masculine. Part III of Johnson’s book attempts to discuss the Holy trinity, all as female, relating all of them to feminine Sophia. She describes the Spirit Sophia, Jesus Sophia, and Mother Sophia.
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The author argues that God is Wisdom. She extrapolates this and notes that Wisdom is usually offered a female gender, which attempts to concluded that God possesses feminism.
However convincing the statement may sound, it is equally erroneous because there are many other nouns that have been used to describe God. He has been described as the Father to every being, thus can be associated with everything. Furthermore, the author contradicts herself when she notes that despite God being Wisdom, wisdom is not God. It would therefore be erroneous to state an irreversible statement and use it to cement her argument.
Furthermore, it is canonized among all cultural and humanitarian sense, male were superior and could own everything, including their wives. This, in itself, shows that God who is the owner of all is most likely to possess similar natural traits that would render him masculine.
The author further notes that during the era of the New Testament, Christology did not exclude women and they had a good chance to be heard and appreciated. She argued that the Hellenistic period was the period when things changed and women were regarded as inferior, and that God took the biased masculine reference. This argument may be used, but it has a contradictory tone. First, we can argue that the era of the New Testament was a period preceded another of the old testament. During the earlier era, there was little recognition for women, as high priests and leaders of the church were all men. We can therefore state that as far as the church was concerned, the church leaders were all masculine, leaving the main one, who was worshipped by all to have the superiority that church leaders enjoyed. It would be erroneous to say that God possessed feminism, which was ranked lowly by the people and the believers. From this simple analysis, it can be effectively argued out that God would not possess what seems to be the weaker gender orientation among human beings.