Scott Hahn

[Brother Adam]

Thank you for those who have been clearing this up. That is correct that Hahn does not assign the female gender to the Holy Spirit. His writings in "first comes love" are well within the doctrinal teaching of the Church. As cmom said he makes an oath of fidelity to the Church every fall in the opening mass here at Franciscan.

Everyone has to have someone to bash I suppose. I also agree this was all based on emotional argument and not intellectual arguement.

[popestpiusx]

There are some circular arguments going on here. The statements must be weighed on thier own. What oath's are taken, or what schools he has gone to or who has invited him to speak or what, if any) problems New Oxford Review may or may not have, are all quite irrelevant. The statements themselves must be looked at and only then can any judgement be made. I have personally heard some of these statements. However, I don't have anything in print right now to make a case either way. When I heard the statements I knew next to nothing about theology. Did they bother me? Yes. But I need to go back and look at what he is saying, now that I can do so with a better theological foundation. So I am not judging in either direction at tis point.

[Guest Aluigi]

Jesus compared God to a mother hen... oh my.. blasphemy?

no.

God is masculine because that's how He revealed Himself, it is heresy to claim otherwise.
The family is parallel to God. There are paralells that can be drawn between the earthly family and the Inner Life of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit, in this figurative paralell, corresponds to the woman in a family.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

lumberjack,
CatholicIntl.com is not a "very Catholic" website. Sungenis is quite on the edge of dissent.

[Dave]

There was a link to Catholic Apologetics International earlier in this thread that had some anti-Scott Hahn material on it. Robert Sungenis, who heads that up, has become an ultratraditionalist and thus would be called "phishy" if he were to come here.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='the lumberjack' date='Dec 1 2004, 04:33 PM'][quote]the Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Church, which is the bride of Christ. And since the spirit is the form of the body and the body is feminine, that would make the Holy Spirit feminine[/quote]
way to JUMP to conclusions, eh?[/quote]
I could only find this statement on someone's blog. Here's the google result:

[url="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22that+would+make+the+Holy+Spirit+feminine%22&hl=en&lr=&fiddler=0"]http://www.google.com/search?q=%22that+wou...en&lr=&fiddler=0[/url]

So again, it seems as if the quote is not directly taken from Dr. Hahn.

[Guest Eremite]

Here's what Dr. Hahn said in his book, "First Comes Love":

"By divine actions that are bridal and maternal, we may come to discern a divine
bridal-maternity in the Holy Spirit! It is in the relations of the human family that the life of the Trinity is reflected more truly and fully than anywhere else in the natural order. In other words, the analogy of bridal-motherhood is relational and familial, not physical or sexual (much less political)."

Note that he calls it an ANALOGY of "bridal-motherhood". God's creation reflects God; he does not reflect his creation. Hahn is saying that the human elemtn of "bridal-motherhood" reflects an element of the Holy Spirit (as opposed to the Holy Spirit reflecting that element). He expliclity states this analogy is "relational and familial, NOT physical or sexual (much less political." Hahn is pointing out the obvious, what the Saints have always understood.

ST.CATHERINE OF SIENA (DOCTOR):
"The Holy Spirit becomes for the people who abandons themselves to Providence a
mother who feeds them from the breast of divine charity" (Dialogues)

ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE (MARTYR):
"They share a single motherhood: the divine Maternity of love"

ST. EDITH STEIN (MARTYR, PHILOSOPHER):
"In this womanhood devoted to the service of love, is there really a divine image? Indeed, yes such love is properly the attribute of the Holy Spirit. Thus we can see the prototype of the feminine being in the Spirit of God poured over all creatures. It finds its perfect image in the purest Virgin who is the bride of God and mother of all mankind."

This is not to mention all the Patristic sources, particularly Syrian, that uphold Hahn's words.

[Brother Adam]

Thank you. I was going to post that later tonight.

[Oik]

I'm not a hanvert.

I heart Scott Hahn books!

[Socrates]

Until someone can give a direct source and quote of what Scott Hahn supposedly said, this "debate" is meaningless, no more than gossip.

[Brother Adam]

Someone did. Read the whole thread.

[Socrates]

Sorry.

Looks like people are getting all worked up over nothing, seeking out scandal.
Scott Hahn is merely showing showing how married love reflects the life of the Holy Trinity - a quite traditional Catholic concept, by the way. He is making an analogy (which he explicitly states is "not sexual"), which you may like or not like, but he is not being heretical.

He is not saying the Holy Spirit is "feminine" or the female principle of God, or any such thing.

[kateri05]

[quote name='Duc_In_Altum' date='Dec 1 2004, 02:59 PM'] Hey yall, watch it. Let's keep the Scott Hahn bashing to a minimum, yo. He's my uncle.


God bless,


-Joe Hahn


[/quote]
:thread highjack:

ps. thats totally cool

sorry, catholic star struck moment :-p

:returns thread to original discussion:

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='Dave' date='Dec 1 2004, 05:35 PM'] There was a link to Catholic Apologetics International earlier in this thread that had some anti-Scott Hahn material on it.  Robert Sungenis, who heads that up, has become an ultratraditionalist and thus would be called "phishy" if he were to come here. [/quote]
Whether he would be phisy on here, or whatever else you would like to say is irrelevant. Address the claims. Don't bash Sungenis. He's not the only one to have problems with Hahn's theology. This is all distracting from the real issue.

I have tremendous respect for Dr. Hahn. On most things I think he is dead on. But that doesn't mean that to disagree with him on this, or any other issue (unless it is defined doctrine that he is defending) makes one a bad Catholic.

Edited December 2, 2004 by popestpiusx

[Guest JeffCR07]

pspx, I agree. I also have a deep-seated respect for Dr. Hahn, but [i]ad hominem[/i] attacks on Sungenis will get us absolutely nowhere.

Eremite provided a brief quotation from one of Dr. Hahn's books that dealt with the issue, and provided at least a somewhat solid argument for the case that Dr. Hahn was asserting an analogy, not an ontological truth regarding the nature of God. Does anyone in the opposite camp have a refutation of these points?