MADRID, Spain, APR. 12, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Theology, as seen by women, is the object of a collection by Desclée De Brouwer publishers (www.desclee.com), directed by Isabel Gómez-Acebo, married and mother of six, and a founding member of the Association of Spanish Women Theologians.
The book, “How We See God,” just published and the last of the collection, was written by five experts in the subject, and makes an additional contribution to current reflection on the face of God.
The Association of Spanish Women Theologians said, “The principal problem that women have in speaking about God is that all the language and categories coined have been done by men, from the vantage point of the values they regard as sublime: omnipotence, transcendence, luminosity, which clashes head-on with the sensitivity of the weak, where we women are traditionally placed, who see an immanent God sharing the life of suffering.”
The titles are “The Creator God,” by Felisa Elizondo; “The Disconcerting God in Some Texts of the OT,” by María Claustre Solé; “The Suffering God,” by Carmen Aparicio; “The Relational God. The Meeting With, and Elusiveness of, a Communicative God,” by Trinidad León; “Of Tenderness and Fidelities. The God of Compassionate Feelings,” by Elisa Estévez.
“In little more than 40 years, the number of women who have entered the field of theology and of thought about God, has grown,” Gómez-Acebo said. “There are still few, especially when compared to men, but they exist, something that was unthinkable a few years ago. Their existence makes us question ourselves on the types of problems of expression they face, and if they are like those of yesterday´s women.”
Gómez-Acebo believes that these difficulties continue at present because “we are in a phase in which language categories have not been created that express the God in which many of us women believe. To speak of the weakness and immanence of God, continues to elicit rejection in many circles, despite the fact that our Redeemer died a failure on a cross.”
