God is not a man

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simpleas

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So why are there paintings and pictures that depicted God as a male human. E.G - the Trinity paintings with Jesus as son/male human, the spirit as a dove, and God as a human man?
 
Being a given that God is neither male nor female, I think it has to do with being portrayed with an emphasis on masculine qualities of fatherhood, protection, direction, strength, etc., that were and are generally accepted by society.
 
Well, we’re made in His image.

Jesus - the Son, God made flesh, was God incarnate in the form of a human man. So that’s easy.

The spirit is described as a dove, as fire, etc. at various points in scripture

And Jesus revealed the third person of the trinity to us as our Father in heaven, were told to pray “our father… etc.”

Given the language used I think the physical depiction of God in art is accurate as we can interpret it.
 
simpleas said:
So why are there paintings and pictures that depicted God as a male human. E.G - the Trinity paintings with Jesus as son/male human, the spirit as a dove, and God as a human man?
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It might have to do with masculine preference expressed in the religion.

Adam was created first “in God’s own image” and Eve was his “help-meet”,
The Fall occurred when Adam ate, despite Eve eating first,
Your sinful nature is inherited through your father,
Men were given headship over their houses,
God incarnated as a man,
God only selected male apostles,
Angelic manifestation are presented in the masculine, including Lucifer…

There are some pretty decent thematic reasons.
 
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The idea is that the Son is the image of the Father, so the Father is often portrayed as an older image of Jesus.

I wonder if this imaging leads some poorly catechized individuals to incorrectly think of God as some “old man wizard in the clouds”, but such art has not been rejected.
 
St. John Of Damascus, for example, argued for images of Jesus as appropriate, but he seemed clearly uncomfortable with images of the Father for this very reason, as you can’t draw any image of Him and He took no form. The lack of image could very well emphasize how incomprehensible and infinite He is.
 
simpleas said:
So why are there paintings and pictures that depicted God as a male human. E.G - the Trinity paintings with Jesus as son/male human, the spirit as a dove, and God as a human man?
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Because Jesus is a man and because Jesus taught us about God the Father. He didn’t say “God the Mother.”

Jesus taught that we have a Triune God in Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

It’s just that simple. I pray this is helpful.

God bless
 
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Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
 
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Just a coincidence? Probably not. G-d and His image reflected the patriarchal culture of the age.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Just a coincidence? Probably not. G-d and His image reflected the patriarchal culture of the age.
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Sure. Or the Patriarchal culture of their age reflected their God.

The dog can chase his tail on that one.
 
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I wonder what kind of religion Christianity would have been if Jesus were a woman? Or if Judaism was born into a matriarchal society? Perhaps even more emphasis on mercy than justice? Speaking of mercy and justice intertwined, this is off-topic, but I just submitted grades for one of my courses, and tried hard to connect the two. LOL This gives me a small inkling of what G-d must go through in His paperwork. (Not comparing myself to G-d, mind you.)
 
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Vonsalza said:
Your sinful nature is inherited through your father,
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The Church doesn’t teach this. It was Adam’s sin that caused the fall but it seems the Church thinks that it gets passed on from both parents in regeneration.

“How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.” CCC 404
 
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I think it limits understanding when we anthropomorphize God, be that male or female. I think people depict god as a wise old ethereal man in the sky because that’s something to relate to, something they can grasp. The problem is that is what God is not.

God is the first cause, being itself, existence itself, goodness itself, “contains within Himself the whole perfection of being”. But that’s not exactly right either. Every time we try to define God we limit Him. Just like the the pronoun I just used implying He is a male human-like being within the universe. Which is incorrect.

Whenever I try to understand more of what God is, I inevitably return to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Actus purus is something that I can almost grasp, but not quite. At times I think of God as a verb rather than a noun and think perhaps that’s closer to the truth, but then again I place a limiting definition on God.

To ground myself after these fits of curiosity I tend to focus on the simple idea that “God is goodness itself” and look to Jesus for guidance.
 
I agree, and this is why in Judaism, if we define G-d at all, we prefer to note what He is NOT rather than what He is. Even such apparent truisms as G-d is One, G-d is Love, and so on do not do G-d justice. As Moses613 pointed out in his thread, the Oneness of G-d is NOT regarded the same as the usual oneness when we speak of people, animals, objects. And to say that G-d is Love omits other attributes such as G-d is Truth, Beauty, Reason, Peace, etc. G-d is loving is a bit better but still too limiting.
 
As when Jesus came to be part of humanity, He came as a person who looked like us!
 
Some Christians do the same. It’s more common in Eastern Christianity. Even scholastics such as Saint Thomas Aquinas would agree with you, he is clear to stipulate that terms such as “exists”, “being”, “oneness”, “goodness”, and any such terms applied to God are incredibly limited, but that they are analgously related to what we mean.

If I say this food is healthy and that man is healthy, what I mean by healthy in both instances is not the same, but we are referring to some similar quality even so. Same idea with goodness or the terms we consider “transcendental”.
 
simpleas said:
So why are there paintings and pictures that depicted God as a male human. E.G - the Trinity paintings with Jesus as son/male human, the spirit as a dove, and God as a human man?
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From Genesis
Note: “us” plural imagery
“Then God said”
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;”

One could ask all kinds of questins
1. who is “us” & “our” in that passage? What’s the plural imagery all about?
2. Who else is there at this time, in that passage, in God’s creation process, in His words, “us” to create/make man in our image and our likeness ?

Jesus is God the Son, AND He has 2 natures, divine and He took on human nature
 
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