ABSTRACT

Ideas of transcending the body have generally been rejected by feminists, including feminist theologians, because they are seen to originate from philosophies and/or religions that devalue the body (especially women's bodies) and bodily experience. For example, Naomi Goldenberg describes the notion of transcendence in traditional theology as “a wish for something beyond body, beyond time, and beyond specific relationships to life” and “a notion of perfect safety … probably motivated by a characteristically (but not exclusively) male fear of being merged with matter” (Goldenberg 1990, 211).