Note: To participate in the "study" pillar of Dominican life, the St Martin de Pores chapter (Austin) of Lay Dominicans in the Southern (US) Province is currently reading Fr George Montague's Holy Spirit, Make your Home in Me one chapter at a time, with one member presenting a reflection of the chapter during the meeting. This last meeting was my turn to present, and the chapter was titled Abba. Here then is my reflection.

We are studying a book about the Holy Spirit, yet this reflection is about Abba, the Father. The two are distinct Persons of the Trinity, so the first questions which I asked myself before beginning this meditation is this: why, in a book about the Holy Spirit, are we reading a chapter by the title of Abba? Seeing that the next chapter is given the title Jesus, my curiosity was piqued further.

The connection became more clear in two points which are somewhat interrelated. The first point, which Fr Montague presents later, is best phrased as a question: how do we address God? Or perhaps a better wording still: how are we to related to God? Who is He? The second point—presented first by Fr Montague—is a partial answer to the first: the Holy Spirit allows us to realize that we are God’s children, and thus that we can address Him as such.

Father Montague references two verses from St Paul’s epistles. In St Paul’s letter to the Romans we read:
“For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now you have not received a spirit of bondage so as to be again in fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by virtue of which we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God” (Romans 8:14-16, emphasis mine).

And similarly, St Paul tells the Galatians (and us) that “because you are [God’s adopted] sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into [your] hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:6). From these two verses, it is easy to simply say that God becomes our Father because we are given the Holy Spirit, and that when the Spirit dwells in our hearts, we begin to call God “Father.” This is indeed what St Paul is telling us: that when the Spirit dwells in our heart, He allows us to become God’s children, and so we begin to address God as Father as a result.

However, I think there is more to these verses, and to Fr Montague’s interpretation. Recall the moment which Jesus is revealed to the worlds as God’s own beloved Son. All three synoptic Gospels record this same event and in similar manner:
“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately on coming up from the water he saw the heavens opened up and the Spirit, as a dove, descending and remaining on him. And there came a voice from the heavens, ‘Thou art My beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:9-11).

Prior to this event, none save possibly the Holy Family knew Jesus’ real identity. Certainly, there were the shepherds and the Magi who visited the stable in which Christ was born, but they came to do homage to a Savior, a Messiah, a King; He had been prophesied, but the understanding of the prophecy was that he would restore the Davidic dynasty, would restore Israel’s independence (and her glory). Even John the Baptist sent two messengers to Christ from prison to ask Who He was (Matthew 11:3, Luke 7:19). It is at Jesus’ baptism that He is revealed as the Son of God.

Similarly, it is at our baptisms that we become members of the Church, as such become sons of God. Too many people have a view of baptism that it is a sort of spiritual inoculation; the proper analogy is not inoculation, but birth:
“Jesus answered [Nicodemus the Pharisee] and said to him, ‘Amen, amen, unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God’” (John 3:5).
The man being baptized is “born again…of the Spirit.” He is born anew, as a son not only of his earthly parents, but also of God, and of the Church. If he is in infant at the time, his parents are resolved to become cooperators with God a second time: first, as co-creators in giving birth, and now as co-parents with the Father in heaven. As such, the parents have taken on a new responsibility to raise their child so that he will know not only his earthly parents, but also his heavenly Father.

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The second connection between Abba and the Holy Spirit to which I alluded earlier is similar to the first. It is a connection with the identity of God in the epistemological sense: how do we know that God is Father? This is the question first posed by Fr Montague, and there are several parts implicit to this question; I would like to spend some time with each of these parts.

The first part is familiar to anyone who has delved into the world of apologetics—be it to explain or defend doctrine to oneself or to another. One of the basic questions faced by even the most novice Christian apologist is “Who or What is God?” I have already largely answered this question by answering the question “How should we relate to God?” Many of the arguments put forth to prove God’s existence—Including the Kalam Cosmological Argument and several of the other arguments used or supplied by St Thomas Aquinas—near their climax by stating that God exists as “the First Cause” (Kalam), the “Unmoved Mover,” the “Efficient Cause,” or the “Final Cause.” However, none of these necessarily define God to be personal as opposed to impersonal: a Being as opposed to a Force. Yet forces or actions must themselves be caused by beings, hence these proofs must be taken to a final step of showing that God is a Being and not a Force only: He is a Personal God.

Having established that God is personal, the next question is what kind of person He is. Within the Christian religion He is not one person but rather a Trinity: three Persons, one God. Here there arises another division, one of address. In the last few decades especially, there have been three forms of address: the traditional, theologically correct (though perhaps politically incorrect) Catholic Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the politically correct by theologically incorrect trichotomy of Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; and the radicalized feminist address—neither theologically nor even really politically correct—Mother, Daughter, and—for good measure, because “Holy Spirit” is not feminized enough—Sister Spirit.

I refer to the titles Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier as a theologically-incorrect trichotomy because these names because these names do one of two things to the Trinity: conflation of the three Persons on the one hand, compartmentalization of the tasks of God separately to these three persons on the other. In addition, they name God not by what He is but by what He does. This latter charge is analogous to defining a person by his occupation or ability: a scientist, doctor, artist, businessman, or unemployed person as opposed to a man, a friend, a mother, or a brother. The former charges are more grievous.

Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier are all applicable to every Person in the Trinity. The Father created, but then again, the Son is the Word, and “All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that has been made” (John 1:3). And the Father and Son created through the power of the Holy Spirit. All three Persons are similarly present in the tasks of redemption and sanctification. Thus, if a person is aware of this fact and uses Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctfier to refer to the First, Second, and Third Person of the Trinity, he is either dividing that which ought not be divided—giving the task of creation solely to the Father and thus denying the glory due to the Son and the Holy Spirit for their parts in creation, and similarly for redemption and sanctification—or he is conflating all three Persons of the Trinity so that the distinctions between them become blurred. That is, the names Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier subvert the doctrine of the Trinity, so that we have only one Person with three “masks” or “guises”—in short, a heresy.

The third pair of names, Mother-Daughter-Sister Spirit, are generally not found in the mainstream of Christian thought—even of non-orthodox Christian thought—but are almost exclusively in the realm of radically feminist circles. There is, however, a more common error of addressing God the Father as “Parent,” “Mother,” or even “Mother and Father.” Referring to the First person of the Trinity as “Our Parent” may seem a politically correct option of retaining the correct familial relationship with Him whilst ditching what feminists call “the masculine titles,” but it does indeed fall well short. We do not relate to our biological parents in a generic manner, but distinctly to our fathers or to our mothers. Parent retains only the biological function of relationship—“these are the two people who joined together to bring me into the world, whose DNA I happen to possess—and to the relationship of authority, as in a child’s parents each having authority over the child.

Both of these relationships are true analogies as far as they go. Children ought to be obedient to their parents—both parents—just as we are to be obedient to God. In this sense, both of our parents model to us the authority relationship between God and man, and they do so generically as parents. Similarly, we are born with the DNA of both parents, and so are born in the physical image of our parents, and with certain traits of their personality. Hence, a son my have “his father’s nose” or a daughter “her mother’s eyes.” This is the physical mirror of a spiritual reality, namely, that we are all created “in the image and likeness of God;” like God, man has an individual intellect, an independent will, and a soul which shall live forever.

However, God did not reveal Himself to us as merely “Parent,” but as specifically Father. He similarly did not reveal Himself as “Mother and Father” or as “Mother.” Why He chose Father and not mother may remain a mystery, at least in part. Father Montague and others have speculated that it is to heal the so-called “Father Wound” from which so many suffer. I would add that it may also be on behalf of all men in atonement for the “masculine wound” which many people have suffered in general—feminists especially included.

A child—and particularly a very young child—may not survive infancy if abandoned by his mother. Until the advent of baby formula, he needed her to be physically there to nurse him as a baby, and even before that to carry him in the womb. The mother could not abandon her child if he was to live. On the other hand, children can and very often do physically survive abandonment by their fathers; the cost is not physical death, even at a very young age, but rather emotional and spiritual injury.

A father can and often does choose to abandon his children, both in our society and in societies past. He is not physically attached to the child during pregnancy, as is the mother, and can choose to leave the baby (and the mother). However, God the Father does not do this; He chooses to stay with us—not out of necessity to himself, but out of love for us.

There is a second problem with addressing the First Person of the Trinity as “Mother,” and that is the analogical difference between mothers and fathers as pertaining their biological functions. Biology is, of course, only an analogy for the spiritual things, and for God; He is masculine, though not male, for masculine is a spiritual reality whereas “maleness” is a biological—that is “bodily”—reality only. Since only the Son has had a body (a male one, to be sure), it does not make sense to refer to God as “male” or “female,” but since He is spiritual, it does make sense for Him to be “masculine” or “feminine.”

What does this have to do with God being Father as opposed to mother? As I have said before, physical reality often mirror spiritual reality, and in this case an analogy can be drawn between God and man. In human relationships, fathers “beget,” and mothers “give birth.” This distinction is theologically important for two reasons: one being the relationship between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, the other between God and creation.

As to the former: our Nicene Creed states that the Son is “eternally begotten of the Father,” and also that He is “begotten not made.” Biologically, to beget means to procreate as the father, but it has a second meaning, namely to produce, especially as an effect or an outgrowth. Thus, there are two additional differences between “begetting” and “birthing.”

The first is that birthing is inherently not an eternal action; I think most women are grateful for that. But this also means that if the Son is “born” and not “begotten,” then He is not eternal; this is an error made by Arius and his followers, among others, and that was without the confusion added by the verb “born.” If the Son is born rather than begotten, then He truly is not eternal—He would truly come into existence after the father, and would thus not be God; nor, for that matter, would the Holy Spirit be able to exist for eternity as God either, since He is the love of the Father for the Son and vice-versa. On the other hand, begetting can be an eternal action in that the Son is an eternal “outgrowth” of the Father: He is eternally produced (or “sent”) by the Father, and is eternally God, not a created thing but One who creates.

As for the relationship between God and the universe, birthing does not make sense here, either. For if the universe is born of God, then the whole of it has a divine nature. I am, of course, making a slight distinction between being God and being divine. To be divine is to be God-like: resurrected man is in a sense divine, as are angels, but none of these is God. As such, the universe would be properly given worship, praise, or at the least veneration which, while not being on a par with God, would still be on a par with the angels or with men. This ultimately leads to pantheism, which is compatible with Buddhism or Hinduism, but not with Christianity. We are placed above the rest of nature or the universe in the hierarchy or heaven, not below or beside it.

Moreover, the universe exists so long as God wills its existence, and not a moment longer. This also points to begetting (“producing as an effect”) and not to birthing; we do not believe in a deistic God who created the universe as a large clock or machine and then left it to run as He went on to other things. Yet the God who “births” the universe would be just such a God in that she could give birth to the universe and then “nurse” or sustain it to “adulthood” before abandoning it to survive on its own.

Having established that God is Father, the Spirit allows us to take one last step, as instructed by Our Lord. We refer to the first person of the Trinity not only as “Father,” but as “Abba,” which translates to “Daddy.” Daddy is a term not merely of relationship but also of affection; it is a call for us not only to be His subjects but to be His sons; and not only to be his children, but to be His beloved children, to imitate his Beloved Son. It is an invitation to overcome our “father wounds,” on the one hand, but also our “God wounds” on the other. Like children who stub their toes and run crying to Daddy, we are to turn all of our pain, suffering, and sorrow over to Our Father, to Abba. Just as a child’s father may comfort him and wipe away the tears from the pain, so does Abba offer us comfort and love.

The philosophy professor Peter Kreeft notes that any baby first learning to speak can babble the words “Daddy” or at least “Papa” or “Dada,” and just as easily so “Abba.” Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God becomes not merely the Creator and ruler of the universe, but the Father as well. And He becomes not only the loving but distant Father, the Parent Who makes and even at times enforces the rules of the house, but instead humbles Himself to enter baby’s playpen as “Daddy.” Such is the Love of the Father for us: such is the power of the Holy Spirit.