Does God need gender?

[Unveiled Artist]

There is a verse in Isaiah where he refers to God as a Mother. And Jesus quoted the Tanakh when he referred to himself as a mother hen who wanted to gather the children of Israel under her wings, but you were not willing.

Not debating just learnt something new. What verses in scripture where god is refered to as a mother?

(That and off note, mainstream christianity says jesus is god and creator. Jesus is a male. Hence why the male pronoun.) As for historic and linguistic accuracy in relation to mainstream opinion, I honestly dont know.

If gender only existed after adam and eve were created, it would make sense that god just like the water and earth according to christianity would not have a gender until god created us...then We asigned a gender appropriate to our language and cultural linguistic influence.

 

[Politesse]

Wisdom, who is a personified theological concept in the Hebrew Scriptures, and to most Christians considered a prefigurement of Christ, is always referred to as female. In the 8th chapter of Proverbs, for instance, she is both spoken of as though a person, and spoken of as female.

 

[Brian Schuh]

Not debating just learnt something new. What verses in scripture where god is refered to as a mother?

(That and off note, mainstream christianity says jesus is god and creator. Jesus is a male. Hence why the male pronoun.) As for historic and linguistic accuracy in relation to mainstream opinion, I honestly dont know.

If gender only existed after adam and eve were created, it would make sense that god just like the water and earth according to christianity would not have a gender until god created us...then We asigned a gender appropriate to our language and cultural linguistic influence.

Mathew 23:37. Jesus compares himself to a mother hen. There is also a verse in Isaiah calling God a Mother, but I have no confidence I can find it without a concordance. Maybe I could use one of those online concordances. Give me time on that one.

Yeah Adam was both male and female until God separated his female aspects from his male aspects and created two persons out of him, one male and one female. Genesis 2:21-23. The Hebrew word for rib is better translated as side. Literally God cut Adam in half and turned each half into a person. But it isn't to be taken literally that God cut him in half. I'm sure it wasn't that simple of a procedure.

Give me a little time and I'll find that verse in Isaiah. I always had a problem finding stuff in Isaiah, his book to me seems very disorganized, and it's one of the longer books too. With one of the online concordances I should be able to find it.

 

[Brian Schuh]

In one of the versions of the New Testament, I want to say the Pe****ta, the Holy Spirit is referred to as a "she." The Pe****ta is the New Testament of the Eastern Orthodox and is written in Aramaic instead of Greek. If I'm not thinking of the Pe****ta, I do remember a New Testament that called the Holy Spirit a she.

 

[Brian Schuh]

Not debating just learnt something new. What verses in scripture where god is refered to as a mother?

(That and off note, mainstream christianity says jesus is god and creator. Jesus is a male. Hence why the male pronoun.) As for historic and linguistic accuracy in relation to mainstream opinion, I honestly dont know.

If gender only existed after adam and eve were created, it would make sense that god just like the water and earth according to christianity would not have a gender until god created us...then We asigned a gender appropriate to our language and cultural linguistic influence.

I found it, I didn't remember it exactly, but here it is-
"For thus says the LORD: . . . As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Isaiah 66:12,13.
Look at it closely, at first he is describing Jerusalem as a mother, which is typical. Jerusalem comforting her children and it describes exactly what these comforts are:
1. you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.
2. you shall nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. Isaiah 66:11, 12.
But suddenly in verse 13, Jerusalem isn't the mother, God himself is saying he will comfort his children "as a mother comforts her child."
So Jerusalem is described as a mother and suddenly God says he himself will comfort like a mother.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I found it, I didn't remember it exactly, but here it is-
"For thus says the LORD: . . . As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Isaiah 66:12,13.
Look at it closely, at first he is describing Jerusalem as a mother, which is typical. Jerusalem comforting her children and it describes exactly what these comforts are:
1. you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.
2. you shall nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. Isaiah 66:11, 12.
But suddenly in verse 13, Jerusalem isn't the mother, God himself is saying he will comfort his children "as a mother comforts her child."
So Jerusalem is described as a mother and suddenly God says he himself will comfort like a mother.

Its beautiful the way you see it. Its not morally wrong. In content rather than context, "as a mother" shows god is -comparing- himself to a mother and her child.

Its very poetic. As Jeruselum (mother) conforts child. Now god compares himself to Jeruselum saying he is "as a" mother comforting her child.

I dont feel it hurts to see god as a mother given, like father, the relationship still means parent to child. As for how the actual verses read, by content, its totally different. The "as a" is a big clue to its metaphoric nature.

 

[Shiranui117]

The traditional Abrahamic god is regarded as male though many Christian theologians seem to regard Him as both and neither. Many Pagans believe in a male God and female Goddess as a great cosmic duality (however the role of the God has diminished over time).

My question is does the concept of a genderless god exist in any tradition? And if it did, would our language need to impose gender on it, since in English personhood is always gendered?

In Christian theology, we only refer to God as "Him" because Jesus was incarnate as a human male, and He called His Father exactly that--His Father.

Not to say that God has a set of male genitalia or is morphologically male, but in a patriarchal society where men were the kings, priests and warriors, it was only natural to fit God into these things--males were the leaders, and God is the Lord of All. God is, of course, beyond all concepts of gender, or even existence as we understand it in the material universe. But in many cases, it is natural to refer to Him as male, even in an Indo-European context; YHWH fits nicely into the "Sky Father" archetype, seeing as His is the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

[Brian Schuh]

Its beautiful the way you see it. Its not morally wrong. In content rather than context, "as a mother" shows god is -comparing- himself to a mother and her child.

Its very poetic. As Jeruselum (mother) conforts child. Now god compares himself to Jeruselum saying he is "as a" mother comforting her child.

I dont feel it hurts to see god as a mother given, like father, the relationship still means parent to child. As for how the actual verses read, by content, its totally different. The "as a" is a big clue to its metaphoric nature.

The later rabbis said that all anthropomorphic references to God are not literal. When the scripture says God's right hand, or God's face or any reference to God having any human anatomy, and all the references to God taking a human role, whether father, mother, king etc., any anthropomorphic representation of God is not to be taken literally. The writers of the Bible never conceived of God as human in any kind of way. The reason that they anthropomorphized God was to help us understand an entity who otherwise is beyond understanding.

 

[Brian Schuh]

God doesn't need gender. We need him to have gender. God doesn't need to be a father, a mother, a king, a savior-- God doesn't need anything, or need to be anything. God doesn't want anything. God is absolutely fulfilled unto himself. We need him to be a father or mother, a king and a savior.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It seems that a Supreme Being would encompass and yet be beyond all dualities. However, since the human mind needs to anthropomorphize the Divine to an extent to begin to understand it, I would say it makes far more sense to conceptualize the Supreme Being in feminine terms. Shaktism has the only concept of a Supreme Being, out of all the religions I know of, that seems to have much truth in it (truth as I have found). Abraxas (at least as Jung defined it), as well.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Folks. Im ending my involvement in this thread.

Later

 

[syo]

Jesus was male and orthodoxy uses male for God.

 

[RoseKnows]

The traditional Abrahamic god is regarded as male though many Christian theologians seem to regard Him as both and neither. Many Pagans believe in a male God and female Goddess as a great cosmic duality (however the role of the God has diminished over time).

My question is does the concept of a genderless god exist in any tradition? And if it did, would our language need to impose gender on it, since in English personhood is always gendered?

God is without the concepts humans have created and live by, be it a gender, a concrete form, or a single true name. To put our human ways of thought onto god is like a bacteria assuming that we as humans think the same as they do.

 

[outlawState]

By analogy with human gender, God would have to be rendered male, because otherwise he would not be God at all. A female implies submission to a male. Although in these days of forced or coerced equaliy, one can lose sight of this very important fact, the matter clearly remains that in any war between the sexes, the female would be instantaneously destroyed.

The female is and continues to be reliant on the male, and so any god defined or conceptualized as female could not be a monotheistic God but would have to be part of a pantheon.

Language also plays a part. The neuter gender is inappropriate for God as it implies inanimation, so male gender is entirely apposite for a montheistic God, by way of analogy, but not by way of similitude.

The Arabian or Islamic notion of refusing to consign God a gender, even by way of analogy, is a sure sign of a deist God, i.e. one lacking any animation, or life, which is another reason for disbelief in Islam as a credible religion.

 

[Avoice1C]

Why Did Jesus refer to God as his "Father In Heaven"?

Because He was in a male dominant society.IMO

 

[Avoice1C]

Joh_4:24 God is spirit; and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly."

 

[Cougarbear]

Mm.. no.. Most Christians agree God isn't male or female.

Cougarbear- They do? No, most Christians believe in a Father in Heaven.

 

[Cougarbear]

Joh_4:24 God is spirit; and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly."

Cougarbear- Christ has a physical body now. So, the term spirit should be God is spiritual when read in context.

 

[Cougarbear]

Because He was in a male dominant society.IMO

Cougarbear- Father in Heaven isn’t a female statement. Why can’t people accept that he’s male like your father on earth?

 

[Cougarbear]

If God is male, wouldn't that imply he has male reproductive organs? If so what is the point of having them?
If God is female, the same as above.

A masculine/feminine character, however, seems to be the main point to identifying gender of God. Pantheistically speaking, God's character is both and more

Cougarbear- Father in Heaven had at least one son. How did that happen if he wasn’t male and didn’t have a wife? Why do people think God having a wife the ability to have sex is somehow evil?