If God is omnipotent how can He be only male?

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fulbert4605

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I have internally searched myself and have looked externally without success, but can anyone please explain to me how God can be male and still be omnipotent? I have read St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of how God can be purely good and know good but not know evil. Since He knows good, he knows the absence of good perfectly. Got it. How does God know darkness? Because He knows light perfectly, He knows also the nature of its opposite. Got it. But how can God know what it is truly like to be female? I know that God is actually only considered a male because of His nature as Creator, proactive, gender role allows us to deduce He is male. Also He came to Earth as in the form of a male. I know the Book of Wisdom tries to explain this as God being male in the beginning and Wisdom being the actual female representative. Still, I cannot corroborate God being male yet still being omnipotent. Any (name removed by moderator)ut or references are appreciated as this is one question out of all of the ones I have thought of and researched that continues to boggle my mind.
 
Perhaps, the creator has nothing so mundane as a gender…I believe this to be true…not fact.
 
fulbert4605 said:
I If God is omnipotent how can He be only male?.
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That is what is known as anthropomorphic language. Perhaps your approach to this would be better by loosing the connotations superimposed by the English language. Perhaps the best way to understand many of these things is to do thoroughgoing study and scholarship in the ancient languages.
 
fulbert4605 said:
I have internally searched myself and have looked externally without success, but can anyone please explain to me how God can be male and still be omnipotent? I have read St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of how God can be purely good and know good but not know evil. Since He knows good, he knows the absence of good perfectly. Got it. How does God know darkness? Because He knows light perfectly, He knows also the nature of its opposite. Got it. But how can God know what it is truly like to be female? I know that God is actually only considered a male because of His nature as Creator, proactive, gender role allows us to deduce He is male. Also He came to Earth as in the form of a male. I know the Book of Wisdom tries to explain this as God being male in the beginning and Wisdom being the actual female representative. Still, I cannot corroborate God being male yet still being omnipotent. Any (name removed by moderator)ut or references are appreciated as this is one question out of all of the ones I have thought of and researched that continues to boggle my mind.
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Who says G-d is only male? G-d is beyond gender. It is only a matter of convention that we refer to G-d as Father. In Judaism, there is also the Shekinah, which is thought of as the divine feminine aspect of G-d.
 
I heard a bishop give an excellent explanation regarding this in a Homily once.

I will attempt to paraphrase quickly (I hope I do it justice)

God is not male nor female.

The sacrificial love of a mother for her child is most similar to the love of the Trinity: the love The Father has for The Son and The Son has for the Father; hence sacrificial love God has for us.

But God is a Father because we humans were not created of God, but by an act of God. For example: human children are born of the mother, meaning we are born inside our Mother’s womb and are have a symbiotic relationship with out mothers while inside the womb and right after birth. We are not born of our fathers, but we are born due to their actions and their seed.

The role God played in the creation of Adam & Eve was more akin to that of father than mother. Because Adam & Eve were created outside of God, by His will and actions. They were not created inside God.

Furthermore, Christ revealed God as His Father. Christ’s father was/is God and He had a human Mother, Mary. So following natural law, God can’t be Mother because Christ could not have been born of two mothers.

However, the love God has for us is the purest love and is like that of a mother for her child, AND like a father for his child too.

I hope this is helpful and I did His Excellency justice.

God Bless!
 
We are inhibited in our thought processes, bound by time and space and language. God is not so bound, nor easily identifiable by our human standards. We believe in one God, the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Of course, we cannot perfectly understand God as we are His creatures, created as He said “In our own image and likeness”. Through faith, we are able to believe all that He has taught and revealed to us. Pray for faith.
 
Most of the OT was written by a bunch of guys and according to their culture it became a “guy thing.” You know how guys are. Get a few together and what do you get? A “He” deity" and a “she” temptatation. LOL! Got it? 😃
 
oldcelt said:
Perhaps, the creator has nothing so mundane as a gender…I believe this to be true…not fact.
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Agreed - the creator of the universe is not just some guy on a throne in the clouds. That’s a childish view that we have hopefully outgrown.
 
fulbert4605 said:
I have internally searched myself and have looked externally without success, but can anyone please explain to me how God can be male and still be omnipotent? I have read St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of how God can be purely good and know good but not know evil. Since He knows good, he knows the absence of good perfectly. Got it. How does God know darkness? Because He knows light perfectly, He knows also the nature of its opposite. Got it. But how can God know what it is truly like to be female? I know that God is actually only considered a male because of His nature as Creator, proactive, gender role allows us to deduce He is male. Also He came to Earth as in the form of a male. I know the Book of Wisdom tries to explain this as God being male in the beginning and Wisdom being the actual female representative. Still, I cannot corroborate God being male yet still being omnipotent. Any (name removed by moderator)ut or references are appreciated as this is one question out of all of the ones I have thought of and researched that continues to boggle my mind.
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According to Peter Kreeft, masculinity or femininity are more than being merely male or female. Maleness is a subset of masculinity. Masculinity is not a synonym of maleness. God’s role in relation to humanity is masculine, hence the Our Father and with Jesus portrayed as the Bridegroom with the Bride who is the Church.

God is God and is neither male nor female. As I said before, God takes on a masculine role in relation to creation itself.

Now when we talk of the triune God, the second person of the trinity, Jesus who took on human form, is male.
 
God is spirit, which does not possess gender, since gender is an attribute that comes with matter (Angels, though created, likewise do not possess a gender, because they are spirit). Our gender is determined by our body: in our reproductive organs, endocrine system, and neural pathways/brain structure, which are unique for men and women.

God possesses the fullness of all knowledge, so he can understand the limits imposed on incomplete knowledge. Thus he can understand angel, male, female, dog, or bee.

The male gender is the gender of Adam, and subsequently, of Jesus Christ. It is the gender that reflects divine authority. Therefore, God is identified in the masculine. Female is the gender of Eve, and subsequently, of Mary. It is the gender the reflects creation’s submission and receptiveness to God. i.e. We do not go into God, but God enters into us. This is why God used a woman as the instrument of the Incarnation, and not a man. Likewise, this is why with the Eucharist - the pinnacle of the sacraments - Jesus Christ enters into us, rather than us entering into Jesus. Our role in the celebration is feminine by nature.
 
I am guessing that most of us here are native English speakers. Other languages, such as Latin and its daughter languages do have gendered words. In Spanish for example, mountains, Las montanas (I cannot find the squigle to put above the second n) is feminine but everyone knows mountains are not female. Likewise for the sun, el sol, which is masculine, but everyone knows the sun is not male.
 
fulbert4605 said:
I have internally searched myself and have looked externally without success, but can anyone please explain to me how God can be male and still be omnipotent? I have read St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of how God can be purely good and know good but not know evil. Since He knows good, he knows the absence of good perfectly. Got it. How does God know darkness? Because He knows light perfectly, He knows also the nature of its opposite. Got it. But how can God know what it is truly like to be female? I know that God is actually only considered a male because of His nature as Creator, proactive, gender role allows us to deduce He is male. Also He came to Earth as in the form of a male. I know the Book of Wisdom tries to explain this as God being male in the beginning and Wisdom being the actual female representative. Still, I cannot corroborate God being male yet still being omnipotent. Any (name removed by moderator)ut or references are appreciated as this is one question out of all of the ones I have thought of and researched that continues to boggle my mind.
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You are asking : “But how can God know what it is truly like to be female?”

I can’t believe you are asking this question…:eek:

He is God…all knowing etc. besides He created, woman…He should know what He made! No surprise. 🤷:rolleyes:
 
Thank you for all of your responses, even the snark one by truetofaith. I am willing to accept God is all-knowing, but am I not allowed to ask for a little proof? I know God never reveals Himself 100% and leaves a little room for faith. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be faith; it would be knowledge. No, God does not know the full nature of what He creates 100% of the time. “God does not know evil” for example, yet didn’t He create it? Ah, but it is only because He knows lack of good that He knows the nature of evil. He only knows it circumstantially. He knows it objectively - able to deduce what the lack of good would be like. He does not know it subjectively, however, because He does not feel within Himself the lack of good. There are different levels of knowledge, see?

I have already taken into consideration that many problems/misunderstandings in philosophy are with language.

I know the spirit is technically genderless.

I will need some time to mull over these responses. I am already thinking about some of them as I type this, and pairing your responses with the internal light of my own knowledge, I may be able to satisfy the answer to my question eventually using your help, the Holy Spirit, and my own free will. (Knowledge is imparted from the Holy Spirit, but I use my free will to help piece the puzzle together; the Holy Spirit gives you the puzzle pieces; you have to put them together; and sometimes I need help from other people, outside sources, who can help me assemble my puzzle faster). Already from your responses, I can tell a few more puzzle pieces have been pieced together for me concerning my OP question.

Further (name removed by moderator)ut appreciated!
 
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