HE Will Glorify Me, Part II

Linguistic Gender versus Personal Gender

The English language is one of the few languages in the world that does not employ linguistic gender; that is, nouns (inanimate/impersonal or animate/personal, concrete or abstract) are assigned masculine or feminine gender. The linguistic gender of a noun has no relation to the personal gender of an object, for inanimateobjects also possess linguistic gender. For example, in French, la tabla—the table—is feminine, as is la pluma—the pen. Neither of these objects possesses personal gender because they are not persons. Further, the linguistically gender neutral Greek pronouns ekeinos, autos, and houtos are neutral precisely because, like tofu, they are intended to take-on the “flavor” of the noun to which they refer, whether masculine or feminine, personal or impersonal.

Biblical Terms for the Spirit

Greek: pneuma: spirit, wind, breath; linguistically gender neutral.
Hebrew: ruach: spirit, wind, breath; linguistically gender feminine.
Latin: spiritus: spirit; linguistically gender masculine.

Followers of Jesus Christ certainly ought to desire that as many people as possible embrace the gospel. One may not, however, surrender theological truth falsely grounded on a linguistic construct. For example, an argument that asserts that the Holy Spirit is “genderless” because the New Testament term for “Spirit” (pneuma) is a gender neutral term is fallacious because it fails to consider the above distinction between linguistic gender and personal gender. If such an argument is to be consistent with all of the linguistic data, it would have to assert that, in the Old Testament, the Spirit is feminine, but then, in the New Testament, the Spirit is now neuter, and then when Latin becomes the ecclesiastical language, the Spirit acquires masculinity. The argument for denying the Spirit’s personal gender based on linguistic gender, then, is clearly not only unhelpful but fallacious.