God no longer 'Father' for United Church of Christ

[Scott_Lafrance]

eyes, lungs, belly buttons, legs, all of these help us to survive in our environment. If God needs nothing to survive (no need for a digestive tract, cardiovascular system, skin) then are we really made in his image physically? Or perhaps our only likeness with him is our soul

I don’t have a chassis, engine, doors, steering wheel, or tires, but an engineer “created” a car "in his image (imagination). Do we really need to physically need to resemble God to be created “in his image”? That sounds like Mormon talk.

The primary definition of image is “a picture formed in the mind of a painter, sculptor, etc… and reproduced physically”.

 

[Birdpreacher]

I don’t have a chassis, engine, doors, steering wheel, or tires, but an engineer “created” a car "in his image (imagination). Do we really need to physically need to resemble God to be created “in his image”? That sounds like Mormon talk.

THen why do we say that we are the only beings created in his image when animals were also born from his imagination?

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

THen why do we say that we are the only beings created in his image when animals were also born from his imagination?

Because God is a rational God, the laws of logic and reason are outflows and extensions of God’s nature and mankind is the only animal that has the capacity for logic and reason.

 

[Darryl1958]

eyes, lungs, belly buttons, legs, all of these help us to survive in our environment. If God needs nothing to survive (no need for a digestive tract, cardiovascular system, skin) then are we really made in his image physically? Or perhaps our only likeness with him is our soul

Inasmuch as Jesus is God, God is a corporeal being with all the functional organs necessary for corporeal life.
But the breath of life itself is from the Spirit. Jesus looks to the Father for all that he has, and the Father gives all that he is to the Son.

 

[Darryl1958]

THen why do we say that we are the only beings created in his image when animals were also born from his imagination?

I don’t believe that animals have any real propensity to make moral choices. Their choices are all according to their natural instincts. They have no capacity to feel shame for merely following their nature.

For humans, it is not enough that we follow our animal nature, but that we choose hat is right and good. Following our desires like the serpent does is all well and good for the animal kingdom, but for Eve and Adam, the Word of God is the higher calling.
the image of God means to live in a world of good and evil, and be able to choose what is right and what is good over what is merely something that our survival instincts desire for us.

 

[Darryl1958]

The person-hood of God not only ought not be denied, but we are required to affirm it as well.
The words Father and Son affirm who God really is. He is a person.

Just as the feminine Eve was embodied in the original being of the created Adam, the feminine of God is not lacking in Father and Son either. There is no slight to women here by recognizing God as Father and Son and Spirit too.

Adam and Eve, like all of humanity, are of the same flesh. This is most fully expressed and affirmed in the sacrament of marriage. The person-hood of God as Father and Son does not deny the feminine in the Godhead, but recognizes that man and woman are ultimately of the same flesh. We complete each other, and together are the image of God.

The language of the United Church does no service to the person-hood of women by this underemphasis on the person-hood of God. Christ made known to the world just how intensely and intimately personal God is. The United Church is quite simply wrong to go about depersonalizing God through such language. This is not the spirit of Christ speaking through such language. It is the spirit of this world, which has lost its way.