God a Female?

[TheQuestioner]

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

 

[Brain]

Justr tell them that God is spirit ergo no gender (unless you count jesus as being male). God revealed himself as a father, and so we say he. if he has revealed himself as somthing else we would call him that. he is beyond definition and so we had to be given a way to reconcile some inadequate definition so we could even comprehend how to speak of him.

 

[hawkeye]

TheQuestioner:

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

Sorry but this is a load of Baloney, don’t listen to such garbage, bye.

 

[martino]

TheQuestioner:

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

Ask them why they would have a perspective of the Father that differs from Jesus’.

 

[RomanRyan1088]

God the father is a pure spirit, which means he has no body or sex. We can’t then describe what he “looks like” because that phrase assumes God the father has a body like ours that we could “look at”. Because it is hard for us to think of a being without a body, God has givin is images or descriptionsof himself which can help us picture what he is like. For example, we think of god as a loving father who cares for and cherishes his children.

The best picture we have of God is Jesus. He said “Whoever has seen me, has seen the FATHER”.(John 14:9). As God the son, Jesus showed us what God the father looks like. He also showed us the fathers perfect love by teaching the people.

 

[AmandaPS]

TheQuestioner:

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

Tell your religion teacher friend that it’s not “Jesus’ perspective.” Jesus is the Word and Jesus is Truth. Him calling God Father is not from his perspective, but Truth itself. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Paul called Jesus “the image of the invisible God.”

 

[George789]

Tanken from Catechism of the Catholic Church 2nd edition:

Catechism #239 states:

By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immance, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are falliable and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is niether man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is father.

I hope this helps clear up the air.

 

[Fidelis]

TheQuestioner:

I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true…

Provided you can get them to answer questions (some teachers are notorious for not allowing students to question their pet theories), ask them what they mean by this. Are they saying that because Jesus was God’s Son, that God was (a male) Father to Jesus, but not necessarily to anyone else? That is a nonsense statement, because even if God had gender as we know it (which as a pure spirit he doesn’t, as stated above), it wouldn’t change depending on a persons perspective.

Are they saying perhaps that Jesus was in error when he called God Father? That would rule out him being omniescent, and in fact, prone to going around making erroneous statements. In that case, they are talking about a Jesus of their own making, not the one the Catholic Church places her faith in.

Most likely they are falling for the old chestnut that “since Jesus was a man of his time and patriarchal culture,” he would only call God Father because he was unable or unwilling to break out of that culture. Again, this is silliness. As the Son of God, Jesus could and did defy many of the social conventions of his time (eating with sinners, talking with Samaritan women, etc.). These people need to be led to think more deeply about what they say they believe.

 

[montanaman]

I once had it explained to me this way, and I’m sure I’m going to mess it up…

God is neither male nor female. If anything, God is “masculine.” God has, of course, revealed himself as “Father,” but he’s not “a dude.”

The radical feminists think by using gender-neutral language or by re-writing it altogether, they’re “leveling the playing field,” or something. They mistakenly assume most men think of themselves as greater because God is a “man.”

But, their politics eclipse their reason when they do so.

 

[eikke]

ask them whether or not their god gets monthly visits from aunt ruby.

 

[davidv]

Please see Fr. Serpa’s post on the topic on the Ask an Apologist threads.

 

[misericordie]

TheQuestioner:

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

I too am a religion teacher with a degree in THEOLOGY from Fordham University in New Yoork (the Jesuits). However, I don’t pay mind when the feminazis (feminists) make god a woman(personal agenda, that way they can be priests etc.). Sounds like Wiccans are the ones who would make those arguments.

 

[snuffy]

I read Fr. Serpa’s explaination
It should be more of a concern with our children.
When my son first started kindergarten, he had a female teacher,who I was told a few years later, gave one of the older children in Grade 6 about God being a “woman”. She left our school a year later.
However, I did ask our Priest about this and he said that yes he had heard this and said he had a long talk with this principal.
I don’t think as parents we should keep this to ourselves, you should speak to your priest about it…
I also found out that the boy she had given the book to, burned it.
Jeanette

 

[VociMike]

So God is a female human? Not likely!

I believe God created male and female to teach us something about Himself and our relationship with Him. Only then did He design biology around that distinction. God pursues us, we yield to His pursuit (or not). In that sense, God is masculine and we are all feminine. But I’ve also heard that feminine attributes have been ascribed to the Holy Spirit (which is not to say the Holy Spirit is female). It makes sense that God is everything contained in both male and female, but He has chosen to reveal Himself as male. It’s a very interesting subject.

 

[metal1633]

TheQuestioner:

I have a friend and also a religion teacher who is Catholic, and they actually think God may be a woman!!! I explained to them that God created man in his image and that if God was female than God would have created Eve first instead of Adam. I also told them that Jesus called God Father, not mother, but my Catholic religion teacher said it was from Jesus’ perspective, and it may not be true.
What kind of people actually believe that God is a female. Can anyone give me any advice on how to bring sense to these people.

Tell your religion Teacher that he or she is an idiot. GOD is neither male nor female. Those are BIOLOGICAL designations. Does GOD have a womb or testiceles?

What he or she may be refering to is GENDER. Gender has NOTHING TO DO WITH BIOLOGY. With that in mind God is ALSO not masculine or feminine. God is the SOURCE and CREATOR of those things. We say HE as a convention and also because God has revealed Himself in Masculine terms. But Gods Nature, in His own Being is NOT gender based.

 

[iguana27]

It is appropriate to use female images of God, as seen in the following passages:

Jesus speaks in the gospels, refering to Himself with a feminine simile.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Mt 23:37; Lk 13:33-35).

This is the 1st reading on July 4th of this year:

Isaiah 66:10-14c

Thus says the LORD:
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her,
all you who love her;
exult, exult with her,
all you who were mourning over her!
Oh, that you may suck fully
of the milk of her comfort,
that you may nurse with delight
at her abundant breasts!
For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms,
and fondled in her lap;
as a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

When you see this, your heart shall rejoice
and your bodies flourish like the grass;
the LORD’s power shall be known to his servants.

Jerusalem, prosperity, and the Lord are all refered to in this passage with feminine images.

God can be for us the God who comforts us as a mother comforts her child.

It is wrong to define God as a male or female, however it is not wrong to refer to Him with male or female imagery, as seen in Scripture.

God Bless,
Iguana

 

[nucatholic]

“Our FATHER who art in heaven” Isn’t this the perfect prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ prayed? Shouldn’t we follow his example when we think about God and pray to God? I think so. I don’t have a problem with mild feminism but when it comes to changing aspects of the faith…be ready to fight (verbally of course).

 

[misericordie]

metal1633:

Tell your religion Teacher that he or she is an idiot. GOD is neither male nor female. Those are BIOLOGICAL designations. Does GOD have a womb or testiceles?

What he or she may be refering to is GENDER. Gender has NOTHING TO DO WITH BIOLOGY. With that in mind God is ALSO not masculine or feminine. God is the SOURCE and CREATOR of those things. We say HE as a convention and also because God has revealed Himself in Masculine terms. But Gods Nature, in His own Being is NOT gender based.

You said it the BEST here. Without using the the same wordings, John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop (a great Holy Man: I wish he was STILL Bishop here in the Archdiocese of New York) said the same thing, I publically from the Cathedral pulpit on a Sunday morning about 4 years ago.:clapping: You see, these feminists are partly to blame for the sad curent state of affairs in many US Dioceses and parishes. They are concerned with this, instaed of being concerned about defending OFFICIAL Church teachings, and stop thinking about THEMSELVES.
I would never tire of saying this, until GREAT changes happen for the best: “some, just don’t get it.”

 

[meep]

iguana27:

It is wrong to define God as a male or female, however it is not wrong to refer to Him with male or female imagery, as seen in Scripture.

I think you’re right that maternal analogies can be properly applied to God’s relationship with humanity (as in the Gospel passage you cited). However, if you read the passage from Isaiah careful, I think it only refers to Jerusalem (not God) in the feminine or with feminine analogies–at least, that’s how I read it.

 

[iguana27]

meep:

I think you’re right that maternal analogies can be properly applied to God’s relationship with humanity (as in the Gospel passage you cited). However, if you read the passage from Isaiah careful, I think it only refers to Jerusalem (not God) in the feminine or with feminine analogies–at least, that’s how I read it.

For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her [Jerusalem’s] arms,
and fondled in her lap;
as a mother comforts her child,
so will I [the Lord]comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

The Lord is speaking in the first person in this passage. “I” refers to God.

Like I said above, Jerusalem, prosperity, and the Lord are all described using feminine images.

God bless,
Iguana