God is a female?

[CMB]

Can you please tell me how to respond to someone who tells me that my faith is not strong if I do not agree that God can be female? THat person says there are references in the bible that refer to God as “she”

 

[kleary]

God is not female. God is not male either. God is pure Spirit.

HOWEVER… he has chosen to be revealed as “Father” to us so that is why He is referred to in the masculine gender. God can choose any form to manifest Himself in, male female or other (burning bush for example).

No one has any right to say anything about your faith if you choose to refer to God the Father as Father. They would only be seeking liberal feminist agenda if they want to change the way God has desired Himselfe to be revealed to us.

Ken

 

[LilyM]

AMEN!!!

God has NO gender, and our faith in Christ is so strong that we follow his example with the most implicit assurance. He referred time and time again to God as “Father”, so I’m sure God has no objections to being addressed as such.

 

[EBSSTF4]

Can you please tell me how to respond to someone who tells me that my faith is not strong if I do not agree that God can be female? THat person says there are references in the bible that refer to God as “she”

I am curious, where are the passages is she referencing?

That is the question I would ask.

I agree God could be represented as male or female, those are more human traits, but he generally presents himself as male (Father). Sounds like you’re friend has a bit of an agenda.

Peter 1:17

For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

John 3:1

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

John 5:1

Faith in the Son of God ] Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

John 1:3

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

John 1:9

Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

Jude 1:1

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:

 

[Ghosty]

God in terms of the Divine Nature is utterly sexless and genderless, even though the terms Father and Son have been revealed to us.

What we CAN’T deny is that the only way in which God took on sex and gender, He became a male. This is a fact of history from a Christian perspective: Jesus was a guy. End of discussion.

So the Divine Essence is without gender and sex, in fact genders and sexes are merely divided expressions of the unified Truth that is in God. Since Jesus was fully God, however, and He was certainly a male, if we are to assert anything we must say that God is a male just as we say that God became (hu)man.

So where on Earth is “female” coming into the equation? It simply doesn’t apply to God in neither the Divine Nature nor His assumed Human Nature.

Peace and God bless!

 

[three-sixteen]

in the image of God did He make them…male and female did He make them. this means God is both male and female, either/or, and neither. But “He” is more fearful, meaning we will respect God more perhaps. But i have seen and felt the female aspects of God. either way: GOD RULES!!!

ps i do hate it when people change the words of the Mass prayers and change “He” to “God” SUPER ANNOYING!

 

[Eileen_T]

Can you please tell me how to respond to someone who tells me that my faith is not strong if I do not agree that God can be female? THat person says there are references in the bible that refer to God as “she”

Does this person also believe that God can be a chicken? There are references in the Bible to God gathering His people under His wings as a hen covers her brood.

Previous posters have said it.

Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, was born a man. He referred to the first Person of the Trinity as “Father”. The Blessed Virgin Mary was overshadowed by the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, whereupon she conceived.

Male, male, male!

Who are we to disregard how God has chosen to reveal Himself to us?

 

[drforjc]

Who are we to disregard how God has chosen to reveal Himself to us?

Precisely! This is the crux of the issue versus those who want to use “vertical” inclusive language.

 

[three-sixteen]

in the image of God did He make them…male and female did He make them. this means God is both male and female, either/or, and neither. But “He” is more fearful, meaning we will respect God more perhaps. But i have seen and felt the female aspects of God. either way: GOD RULES!!!

ps i do hate it when people change the words of the Mass prayers and change “He” to “God” SUPER ANNOYING!

 

[FCEGM]

Can you please tell me how to respond to someone who tells me that my faith is not strong if I do not agree that God can be female? THat person says there are references in the bible that refer to God as “she”

No. God is neither male nor female, but Scripture most suitably employs male metaphors for Him, while on occasion employing female similies for Him. There is a basic distinction between the two, with “simile/comparing (mother) and metaphor/naming (father), and the meanings they convey. . .Whereas similies compare, metaphors predicate or NAME [emphasis mine], “ Language for God and Feminist Language, a Literary and Rhetorical Analysis,” Roland Mushat Frye, Interpretation, A Journal of Bible and Theology.

“The Church cannot and it must not accede to feminist demands that language about God be changed to feminine, for then the church will have lost that God in whom it truly lives and moves and has its being.” Elizabeth Achtemeier, "Female Language for God: Should the Church Adopt it? in The Hermeneutical Quest.

 

[mjolnir]

Females holds the gift of life within them.

God holds the gift of life within.

Males don’t hold the gift of life within them.

God is more like a Female than a Male.

God can be considered Female but not Male because Males lack the Gift of Life.

 

[godsent]

God is male…a father is a male…a son is a male.

I think the bible states that god is a male.

 

[FCEGM]

Females holds the gift of life within them.

God holds the gift of life within.

Males don’t hold the gift of life within them.

God is more like a Female than a Male.

God can be considered Female but not Male because Males lack the Gift of Life.

Ummm, it does take two to tango, in case you haven’t noticed.

Nothing prevents a man from representing all mankind; in fact it is common for a man to represent a whole people. But man can also represent God as Creator and Absolute Origin of life. And this a woman can not represent. Why? For the simple reason that she is not the absolute origin in human generation but the collaborating and contributing cause, as it is the man who impregnates. Thus it is most fitting that God in becoming a human being became a male rather than a female.

Moreover, there is a different sort of love than the man’s love toward his offspring which a mother has towards the new life conceived within her by male impregnation. The necessary physical intimacy with the newly conceived person is absent for the man during the pregnancy and after. Related to this, the normal mother has an almost instinctive love for the child conceived within her, so that the newborn is “automatically” loved by her and nourished by her own body (until the contemporary era) and this is a psychic as well as physical necessity practically speaking.

That means that the mother’s love has the symbolism of necessary love. With the father this is not at all so certain. There is more an element of a choice about his loving his child, and the sort of love he has manifests the freedom of choice more than the mother’s love does. So there is a second symbolism, that of free choice, in the fittingness of God becoming a definite male revealing God the Creator’s love as non-necessitated love but one of pure free choice in His decision to create us. He did not have to create us.

bringyou.to/apologetics/a49.htm

 

[mjolnir]

God is male…a father is a male…a son is a male.

I think the bible states that god is a male.

Your argument rests on a reference to outside authority (i.e. the bible). Mine rests on observation with no reference to outside authority. Mine appears to be a surer primise than simple appeals to outside authority. You have ‘no’ evidence that the bible is the word of god outside circlular affirmation of it’s authors. You’re more than welcome to take them at their word but outside of that there is really no reason to assume that it’s accurate.

The observation still stands that Females have the Gift of Life and Males don’t. With that said it makes more sense to assume that god shares more with Females than Males since god is the bearer of all Life.

Life-Bearing (i.e. to bear life) is a female trait and so it stands to assume that if a primary trait of god is Life-Bearing then god is actually shares more in common with females and not Males.

This is the line of reasons cultures throughout the world first encountered the divine Life-Bearing Force and up until the Axial Age was worshipped and praised as a goddess.

Axial Age religions cast off this reasoning to craft a god in their own image, one of authority and not life-bearing. This has caused a great deal of conjecture about the divine but can’t make it’s claims without appeals to authority because their claims don’t reflect true reference to nature which is the print of the goddess.

 

[mjolnir]

Ummm, it does take two to tango, in case you haven’t noticed.

single sex organisms appear to create a contradiction in your premise.

 

[corvidae]

single sex organisms appear to create a contradiction in your premise.

single sex organism are not female, they are nueter.
That seems to throw a contradiction in your premise as well.

A lone Raven

 

[contemplative]

Perhaps we have difficulty with language when we speak of God as “Father.” Words are so limited. How can finite words describe the Infinite? For us humans, a “father” is a man. But is God masculine? Of course not! God is God, Creator of heaven and earth, God created human beings; man and woman, God created them. God transcends any motion of feminine or masculine. God is neither one nor the other. God is the source of all life and of all that is masculine and feminine. Over the centuries, however, some men with power and influence have equated God with manhood and have tried to make women feel inferior, as if women could not live a relationship with God. Each of us can, in one way or another, use or manipulate religion to exert power and make other feel inferior. If Jesus speaks of God as “Father,” it is because the Son flows from God. God is the source of all life. God is the Source of the Word or Wisdom that flows from God, is born of God. So when Jesus speaks of his “Father,” he is speaking of the Infinite Source of Life, God, from whom the very person of Jesus flows. That is why John speaks of the womb or innerness (in Greek, kolpos) of the Father in which Jesus lives and abides. The Father is Source of Life from whom the Son flows; through the Son flows all life and all creation. Through the Son we are drown into God and become children of God; we receive the very life of God within us.

From Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John by Jean Vanier

Chapter one To Lead Us Into Love John 1:1-18

 

[mjolnir]

single sex organism are not female, they are nueter.
That seems to throw a contradiction in your premise as well.

A lone Raven

Not really because I’m not trying to prove god is female. All I’m saying is that god being the ‘life-bearer’ shares ‘more’ in common with females and those organism which can actually ‘create life’ than male human beings.

To say that god is male is to be ignoring this fact.

 

[corvidae]

But you are neglecting what many here are saying. That God as God is sexless. However, when God manifested Himself in human form, He took the form of a Male. And that very same Jesus Christ called God “Father”. What God has done, who are we to say it is wrong.

A lone Raven

 

[st_lucy]

Not really because I’m not trying to prove god is female. All I’m saying is that god being the ‘life-bearer’ shares ‘more’ in common with females and those organism which can actually ‘create life’ than male human beings.

To say that god is male is to be ignoring this fact.

But to say that God is female would be calling Our Lord Jesus a liar. To put God in our human terms is so beneth Him. Jesus is God and so He know whether He wants us to call God female or male. He said Father not Mother. So I guess this ends all agruements.