‘Becoming of Women’ as ‘Unfolding of God’ in the Post-Christian Theology of Mary Daly

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Women Studies, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Theoretical Foundations of Gender, Women and Family Research Institute, Qom. Iran.

Abstract

Feminist theology, mainly, is committed to dealing with theology to empower and liberate women. The theologian feminists have taken three approaches to traditional Christianity: revolutionary, reformist, and reconstructionist. Mary Daly, as a revolutionary feminist theologian, strongly criticizes traditional Christianity which, she believes, is based on unreformable sexism. She, using the method called transcendence, transcends the central Christian concepts and teachings such as God the Father, Christology, the Fall, and the Church, and expresses her main ideas in the form of post-Christian theology. In this article, by the method of text-oriented analytical interpretation, Daly's major ideas are explained and analyzed, including the concepts of goal, faith, freedom, ethics, and sisterhood, all of which can be actualized via ‘becoming of woman.’ To understand ‘becoming of woman’ from Daily's point of view, it must be understood in correspondence with God as Verb (the Verb of Verbs). God as Verb, as the ultimate reality, is Be-ing and is always dynamic. Similarly, women also have a type of be-ing that has the ability for existential participation and dynamic intuition in/of Be-ing, the result of which will be the actualization of the feminine Metabeing. The main reason for becoming of woman is women's inner aspiration for self-transcendence, which ends in a new unfolding of God called second appearance by Daly.

Keywords

Main Subjects

پترسون، مایکل. 1379. عقل و اعتقاد دینی. ترجمه احمد نراقی و ابراهیم سلطانی. تهران: طرح نو.
تانگ، رزماری. 1396. درآمدی جامع بر نظریه‌های فمینیستی. ترجمه منیژه نجم عراقی. تهران: نی.
دیلی، مری. 1400. فراتر از خدای پدر به سوی فلسفه آزادی زنان. مترجم فرناز عبدالباقیان. تهران: هرمس.
ساشوکی، مارجوری. 1388. «الهیات فمینیستی». در فمینیسم و دانش‌های فمینیستی، ترجمه اسماعیل آقابابایی و علیرضا شالباف و حمیدرضا حسنی. قم: دفتر مطالعات و تحقیقات زنان.
ورنو، روژه، ژان وال، و دیگران. 1372. نگاهی به پدیدارشناسی و فلسفه‌های هست‌بودن. ترجمه یحیی مهدوی. تهران: خوارزمی.
Berry, Wanda Warren. 1988. “Feminist theology: The ‘verbing’ of ultimate/intimate reality in Mary Daly.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 11(3): 212-232.
Clifford, Anne M. 2001. Introducing feminist theology. United States: Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America.
Daly, Mary. 1975. The church and the second sex. New York: Harper & Row.
Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Boston: Beacon Press.
Daly, Mary. 1984. Pure lust: Elemental feminist philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Daly, Mary. 1985. Beyond God the Father: Towards a philosophy of women’s liberation. Boston: Beacon.
Daly, Mary.1998. Quintessence...realizing the archaicfuture: A radical elemental feminist manifesto. Boston: Beacon Press.
Harrower, V. J. 1985. Feminist critiques of a male saviour: Christology in the writings of Mary Daly and Rosemary Reuther. Toronto: University of St. Michael’s College.
Henking, S. E. 1993. “Rejected, reclaimed, renamed: Mary Daly on psychology and religion.” Journal of Psychology and Theology. 21.
Isherwood, Lisa, and Kathleen McPhillips. 2008. Post-Christian feminisms: A critical approach. Sydney: Ashgate.
Parsons, Susan Frank. 2002. The Cambridge companion to feminist theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pui-Ian, Kwok. 2000. Introductions in feminist theology. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. 1983. Sexism and God-talk: Toward a feminist theology. Boston: Beacon Press.
Schneider, Laurel C. 2000. “From new being to meta-being: A Critical analysis of Paul Tillich's on Mary Daly.” Soundings 75.
Slee, Nicola. 2004. Faith and feminism: An introduction to Christian feminist theology. London: Darton Longman & Todd.
Wood, Hannelie. 2015. “Revisiting Mary Daly: Her views on the Trinity, Mariology and the Fall as post-Christian myths.” Studia Hist 41.