[REFLECTION] Christmas: God assumed humanity, not maleness alone

In celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the monumental first ecumenical council of Nicaea, which solemnly defined the divinity of Jesus Christ, Christians across denominations are invited to revisit and ponder deeply the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This important symbol of faith contains the essential tenets of what Christians profess and believe to be divinely revealed. But believers must keep in mind that the creed is not an abstract treatise devoid of spiritual, pastoral, and social significance.

Pope Leo XIV explains that the “Nicene Creed does not formulate a philosophical theory. It professes faith in the God who redeemed us through Jesus Christ.” Central to the Nicene Creed is the doctrine of incarnation: God becoming human. The Gospel of John marvelously captures God’s incarnation: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) God, by paradoxically revealing himself in smallness and vulnerability in Jesus Christ, “revolutionizes pagan and philosophical conceptions of God.”

Christmas is the season of the liturgical year wherein Christians fix their gaze on the newly born infant Jesus. Jesus Christ was born in a particular time and location. He was both male and Jewish. The particularity of the incarnation, as recorded with early Christian embellishments in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke, sheds light on God’s historical entrance to the world through his authentic humanity.

The Nicene Creed states “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” Leo takes note of the creed’s addition of the word “man” after “incarnate,” which clarifies that God really assumed and, in the process, saved the whole human being, body and soul. The Nicene Creed is also an antidote against the heretical doctrine called Docetism that considers Jesus Christ’s humanity as an illusion.

Reading closely the phrase “became man,” feminist theologians raised the question of the relationship between incarnation and Jesus’ maleness. Is Jesus’ maleness constitutive of God’s nature? In philosophical terms, since God became man, can we attribute a specific gender to God’s ontology? Is God only male? The German theologian and expert on liturgical studies Teresa Berger expresses her nuanced perspective on the phrase “became man.” In Latin, the phrase is translated as “et homo factus est.” The Latin word homo means human to distinguish it from vir, which means male. In a similar vein, the original Greek in the Nicene Creed for “became man” is enanthrōpēsanta that is rooted in the word anthrōpos which means human being. Therefore, Berger opts for the more inclusive translation “and became human” because God “took human form in the incarnation, rather than maleness only. The maleness of the Incarnate Word seems to be of no interest to the Nicene Creed.”

Jesus’ maleness is secondary to the theological truth of God’s incarnation. “The chromosomal particularity of the incarnation is a contingent reality, as was Jesus’ height, or the color of his eyes, or the size of his feet,” explains Berger. This is not to deny that Jesus walked on earth as a man, but to emphasize the all-inclusiveness of God’s salvific embrace of humanity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God.” (Ironically, the pronoun “he” is still standard use for God.) The danger of androcentric interpretation of the incarnation is the exclusion of women from the divine nature all humans share in God. The axiom of the Saint Gregory of Nazianzen applies in this case: “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”

One might ask what’s really the point of critically evaluating the statement “God became man”? Isn’t it already understood that God saves everyone? Well, theological language is not innocent. Despite the symbolic and poetic characteristics of theological and credal statements, such statements are not immune from distortion and abuse. According to the feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, “Of all the doctrines of the church, Christology is the one most used to oppress women.” Specifically, the maleness of Jesus Christ can be weaponized to promote the superiority of men over women. Moreover, the crucified Christ can be misinterpreted as a call to be passive – allowing oneself to be a victim.

The question of whether God could have become a human being as a woman is haughtily dismissed. Pushing the radicality of God’s incarnation forwar,d the answer is definitely Yes. “If women are genuinely human and if God is the deep mystery of holy love, then what is to prevent such an incarnation?” responds Johnson. Unfortunately, “Jesus’ maleness has been so interpreted that he has become the male revealer of a male God whose full representative can only be male. As a package, this Christology relegates women to the margins of significance,” further observes Johnson. The absurd claim that God favors men since God chose to be incarnated in a male body doesn’t hold water.

Weeks before Christmas, the Vatican on December 4 released the much-awaited report of the study commission on the female diaconate. The report states that “the purely historical perspective does not allow us to arrive at any definitive certainty” and “in the final analysis, the question must be decided on the doctrinal level” to the disappointment of supporters of admitting women into the diaconate. For now, the Vatican is saying no to the possibility of women deacons regardless of the historical evidence and sound theological arguments.

Interestingly, the report mentions a particular session wherein there was an even split in the vote for (five in favor, five against) this thesis: “The masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental, but is an integral part of sacramental identity, preserving the divine order of salvation in Christ. To alter this reality would not be a simple adjustment of the ministry but a rupture of the nuptial meaning of salvation.” This detail speaks volumes on how the implications of God’s incarnation is received differently.

Amid the barriers women experience in both the Church and society for their full flourishing, Christmas brings the glad tidings that “inequality between men and women is not part of God’s design” as stated the final document of the Synod on Synodality. Echoing Pope Leo XIV, the God incarnate we celebrate every Christmas revolutionizes our narrow conception of a patriarchal God. Every time we recite the Nicene Creed in the liturgy, we proclaim an inclusive God who sanctified humanity. Out of sheer love, our Creator God did not remain inaccessible, distant, and abstract; God became human embracing its complexity and fragility. Limiting this to men alone is a gross distortion of our God with a human face. – Rappler.com

Kevin Stephon Centeno is a Jesuit scholastic. Born in Oriental Mindoro, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and spent five years of seminary formation at Saint Augustine Seminary in Calapan City. His views do not represent the position of the entire Society of Jesus.