tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post4859831370626132982..comments2024-03-19T16:52:19.962+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: The It SpiritPeter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-64327842685812026212010-10-27T19:53:45.024+13:002010-10-27T19:53:45.024+13:00"Neuter" is simply a classification of n..."Neuter" is simply a classification of nouns in Greek (and Latin) that may have little or nothing to do with sex. (Gender is a grammatical category.) Many Greek nouns (usually diminutives) denoting humans are formally neuter.<br />Hebrew doesn't have a neuter, but the fact that 'ruach' is formally feminine doesn't necessarily mean that spirits were thought of as feminine. (Sometimes they were, in Jewish intertestamental writing.)<br />But since Christian theology affirms the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, it is strange not to say 'He'. But hey, this is Bonnie Anderson speaking! to be fair, I have heard the same careless talk from Pentecostals.<br />Neuter pronouns and personal actions like thinking and feeling work fine in NT Greek, but much less so in modern English. And I don't think you could get away with calling a child 'it' outside a Victorian novel. <br />Al M.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-55060206301978842262010-10-27T10:49:18.089+13:002010-10-27T10:49:18.089+13:00It could be reading too much into the pronoun, Dou...It could be reading too much into the pronoun, Doug. And the point about 'pneuma' being neuter is an important observation.<br /><br />I wonder though about the child being 'it' and connecting that with 'mind' ... once we started to speak about the child having a mind, might we not then start to speak personally about the child and thus use 'he' or 'she'?Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-35984343054442257912010-10-27T10:39:46.434+13:002010-10-27T10:39:46.434+13:00Well, outside the Johannine writings, most of the ...Well, outside the Johannine writings, most of the NT technically refers to the Spirit as "it" since pneuma is neuter. Go back a testament and ruach is feminine.<br /><br />Or another take, when we refer to a child as "it" we're not suggesting it can't have a mind.<br /><br />I wonder if this may be reading to much into a pronoun in a language whose greatest limits become apparent in the ways we use it to explore a theological vocabulary which originated in and was transmitted by languages in which all nouns and not only personal ones are gender marked.Doug Chaplinhttp://clayboy.co.uknoreply@blogger.com