Is God Female?

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While everyone agrees that God transcends gender there are good theological reasons to refer to Him in the masculine. This in no way is meant to state or imply that women are inferior. We are all made in His image.

God created man and the universe. The Word is begotten from God. Each act indicates a different way of creating. God came from without our universe to create it. This is most closely paralleled in the male act of procreation. The Word was begotten from God the father. The Word came from outside the universe and became man himself. This is also most closely paralleled in the male act of procreation.

A woman can not impregnate herself naturally and this parrallels the universe lack of ability to create itself naturally.

The ancient Jewish use of the masculine was distinctive from all other religions which had both masculine and feminine gods. The Jewish God is based on an infinite First Cause coming from outside the universe.

Scripture gives God feminine qualities. God shows compassion, caring and a motherly comfort towards an infant. Despite these qualities Jews refused to call God a she because they are making a theological statement.

If you insist on call God a she you are implying you were begotten not made by God. This can only put you on the level, or even above the level, of the Word, since the word made flesh and insisted on calling God the Father.

Also, by calling God He, you are making a statement against paganism, pantheism, Wicca, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
 
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PiusXIII:
God could not be a woman. The Catholic church does not ordain women because the church knows there’s no possible way that God could be a woman.
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No one said or implied God was a woman. Boats are sometimes referred to as “she” and they are not women either. In many languages nouns have “gender” but it does not imply that the things actually are either gender, it is simply a characteristic of language.

God did choose a woman (gasp) as his mother. Hmmm. I think he holds them in high respect and would not be as quick as many here to take insult over the suggestion that the divine may be feminine.

However, I am with the folks who believe the divine is without gender. I think it is best to use gender neutral terms lest people get all hung up on words. It is not a bit harder to say “God” than it is to say “He”, or “She”, and we won’t have to quibble over whether or not it is accurate.

cheddar
 
While everyone agrees that God transcends gender there are good theological reasons to refer to Him in the masculine. This in no way is meant to state or imply that women are inferior. We are all made in His image.
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God created man and the universe. The Word is begotten from God. Each act indicates a different way of creating. God came from without our universe to create it. This is most closely paralleled in the male act of procreation.
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Good point. Also the male is actually a good metaphor for creator here because though females are often viewed as the creator of life, both the egg and the sperm are useless without each other. Having said that, a woman’s creative capacity is limited from puberty to menopause, but male creative energy lasts as long as he lives. But as I’ve said, God doesn’t have sex, so he doesn’t need a gender in a literal sense.
 
The way I understand it is this - it is our soul that is created in the image of God, not our bodies. Our bodies are material, animal. Our souls are immaterial, without parts, like God.

God is the Creator, and as such reveals Himself as the Father. Not male, not female, but the Father. Difficult to understand when we try to make everything relate to us. Instead, we must relate to God - He created us, He is, therefore, our Father. We must be like our Father in some way, and that was is our immortal souls.

Why would we want to refer to God as She? Only when we ignore the teaching of Jesus. If God is “She”, why did Jesus teach us to address Him as “Our Father”?
 
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Magnolia:
Good thoughts and the first thing that came to my mind was that Jesus taught us to pray Our Father. So how do I charitably approach this woman?
M
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I don’t know how charitable I would be. I would tell her that thanks to her feminine agenda, she is really confusing the young minds. If she can’t reflect church teaching in her comments, maybe she better volunteer for something else. It’s people like her that caused a lot of the confusing in the church today.
 
God is neither male or female. He is pure spirit and is beyond the limitation of gender.

Jesus Christ, however IS God and he most definitely is a male!

Ken
 
Bible Reader said
In fact, God has both maleness and femaleness in Him, otherwise these could not have come OUT of Him upon our creation. Does that make sense?
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I’m sorry but this is TOTALLY INCORRECT.:nope: If God had both maleness and femaleness in Him then we could refer to Him as He or She. The Church teaches that God is neither male nor female. He is a pure Spirit. Being “neither” is a big, big difference than being “both”.

God chose to reveal Himself in the masculine form because when He created man (as in humans- I’m sorry but I cant stand inclusive language) He made the man as the source of life. God is the source of “all” creation. Woman carries the child and gives birth, but the source (sperm) comes from the man. So its only right to refer to God as He.

Nowhere in the bible is the pronoun “she” ever used to describe God. Yes, there are some metaphorical feminine references but also “eagle”, “bear” are used as metaphors for God. We surely would not refer to God as “bird” since an eagle is used to describe God.

Besides, the following is quoted from Pope Benedict XVI from his book “The Ratzinger Report”:
".many catechists no longer teach the Catholic
faith in its harmonic wholeness-where each truth presupposes and explains the other-rather they try to make some elements of the Christian patrimony humanly ‘interesting’ (according to the cultural orientations of the moment. (emphasis mine)
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and
“Christianity is not a philosophical speculation; it is not a construction of our mind. Christianity is not ‘our’ work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose. Consequently, we are **not **authorized to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible; it is based on the same Man-God relationship he came to reveal to us.”(emphasis mine)
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God had revealed Himself to us in a masculine form, so how DARE we use feminine pronouns to describe God. Do we know better than He? Do we know better than our Holy Father?
 
Cheddarsox wrote
I think it is best to use gender neutral terms lest people get all hung up on words. It is not a bit harder to say “God” than it is to say “He”, or “She”, and we won’t have to quibble over whether or not it is accurate.
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This brings to mind some years ago when my son was in the first grade. We taught him to refer to God as He. My son came home one day very disturbed because his teacher (a Holy Spirit Sister) would refer to God as she. My son said that sister told them that the Bible referred to God as she. I confronted her and told her what the Catechism teaches and what the Bible teaches and she then said for me to teach my son the way it wanted to. I went throught his whole book and scratched out all inclusive language references.
To say that it is not a bit harder to say “God” instead of "he or “she” and that we wont have to quibble over whether it is accurate or not is totally false. In my son’s religion book it said **“God wants us to love God”. ** Now, tell me if that is not confusing to a young mind. What other god is God telling us to love?
We have to be “accurate” because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in a masculine form. So we are telling God: “I know your Word teaches that you are our Father, but I would rather refer to you as simply God.”

Take out all the masculine references about God in the Bible and just use “God” and see where it gets you
“Our God who art in heaven, hollowed by thy name”
John 8:54,55 “If I were to see my own glory that would be no glory at all; my glory is conferred by the “God”, by the one of whom you say, “‘God’ is our God”, althought you do not know God, but I know **God,**and if I were to say” I do not know God, I should be a liar, as you are liars yourselves. But I do know **God **and I faithfully keep **God’s **word."

See how ridiculous this would be?
 
“In the name of the Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit”? Ha. I don’t think so. And besides that would be bad for marys sinlessness. ha. But, interesting thought tho.
 
TobyLue I was hoping to find some direct reference from Church teaching that says we are not to teach God is she. Thank you and Cardinal Ratzinger - Pope Benedict!!!
It was when my girls were in Faith Formation and they were being taught some rather interesting things about God and our Church that I decided I needed to be their main catechist. God works in mysterious ways - I, for the first time in my life, learned my glorious Catholic faith. It has been the greatest gift. I thank God for EWTN, CA, Saint Joesph Communications, etc.and His Church.

I think when this volunteer said God is she it brought me back to the confusion taught in the 60’s when I was being taught “All you need is Love” and making collages while singing Kumbaya. Unfortunately I was never taught the Truth. So as much as I dislike confrontation and feel so inadequate I know I must not let this go.

The replies have helped me formulate my approach, figure out where she might be coming from and how to explain some things.

You, my cyber friends, are a wonderful source of information and encouragement. Now I could use a few prayers too!

M
 
God is pure spirit, neither male nor female (except for the 2nd person of the Trinity, which is obviously male). The same is true for angels.

Both men and women are made in the image of God.

There are both masculine and feminine images of God in the Bible.
Joan M:
Why would we want to refer to God as She? Only when we ignore the teaching of Jesus. If God is “She”, why did Jesus teach us to address Him as “Our Father”?
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From a book I recently read, which I found very interesting, and would be a good book for the Book Club:
First of all we have to say that the Bible does indeed, when addressing God in prayer, use the image of him as Father, and not as Mother, but that in images used in talking about God it always equally attributes feminine characteristics to him. When, for instance, it is talking about God’s sympathy, the Old Testement does not refer to that with the abstract word “sympathy”, but uses a term with a corporal reference, rachamin, the “motherly body” of God, which represents sympathy. This term demonstrates the motherly characterisitcs of God, albeit in the spiritual dimension. . . Why is this strictly limited to calling God Father? And the next question, which puts the matter more pointedly, is: Why did God come to us as “Son”? Why did God become incarnate as a man? And why did this Son of God, in his turn, teach us to join with him in saying Father to God, so that this business of saying Father did not remain just an image, which might have become obsolete in the sourse of the history of out faith, but is now the very word that is put into our mouths by the Son? . . . At the moment we are in a new phase of reflection on this question, but I think that in the end we cannot provide an answer. What we can say is perhaps two things. First: in the religions that existed in the world all around Israel there were god-couples, with a god and a goddess. Monotheism, in contrast to that, excluded the idea of a god-couple and, instead of that, regarded mankind, or alternatively Israel, as the chosen partner, the bride, in relation to God. . . In that way, the female image is given forever to Israel, and likewise to the Church . . .The second point is that wherever images of the mother-goddess have been used in worship, they have so altered people’s thinking about creation that creation had been transformed into an emanation and birth, and thus, almost of necessity, pantheistic models of divinity have been developed. The God who is portrayed in the image of the Father, on the contrary, makes things by means of the Word–and that is the point at which the specific distinction between the act of creation and creature becomes quite clear.
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Magnolia
TobyLue I was hoping to find some direct reference from Church teaching that says we are not to teach God is she.
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Magnolia, as far as finding something that tells us not to call God a she, I’m afraid you will not find it, even in scripture. However, the CCC teaches us to invoke God as Father (CCC 239).
See, it’s like this. I don’t know if you like to bake or not but I do. When I look at a recipe for, lets say, Strawberry cake, it gives me what I should put in the cake. It will say to use ¾ cup of frozen strawberries but it will NOT tell what NOT to put in it. It is not going to go down a list saying, “do not put bacon in it, do not put velvetta, do not put crabmeat, do not put jalapenos. If I want strawberry cake I have to do exactly as the recipe says. Now, God in His word is not telling us, “Do NOT call me this, do not call me that? The CCC is also very specific (CCC 239)

What does scripture reveal about God. In Genesis 1:27 it says *“God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”(JB emphasis mine). *As I told a high school religion teacher (via e-mail) who would also use feminine pronouns when talking about God “We walk on dangerous ground when we go against what the CCC teaches and even in more dangerous ground when we go against what Jesus Himself taught us. He consistently used the image of God as “Father”. He used the word “Abba” Hebrew for daddy or father (MK 14:36). The Gospel of John has many references of Jesus using the pronoun “he” when talking about God the Father. Never does he refer to God as “she” or gender neutral terms. Why do we dare go against what Jesus has taught us?

Many say that scripture talks about God being “like” a mother. So? It still uses the pronoun “He”. When my son was born, many people would tease me and tell me that I was a “good mother” because I would change him, feed him, rock him to sleep, cuddle him, sing to him, etc.; things associated with a mother, but my friends would never call me a “she”.

Here is a good website that deals with this issue. As Mark Brumley says “. God, in other words, calls the theological shots. If He wants to be understood primarily in masculine terms, then that is how we should speak of Him. To do otherwise, is tantamount to idolatry—fashioning God in our image, rather than receiving from Him His self-disclosure as the Father."

Also seefrom St. Michael Apologetic website
 
**BibleReader: **In fact, God has both maleness and femaleness in Him, otherwise these could not have come OUT of Him upon our creation. Does that make sense?

**TobyLue: **I’m sorry but this is TOTALLY INCORRECT.:nope: If God had both maleness and femaleness in Him then we could refer to Him as He or She. The Church teaches that God is neither male nor female. He is a pure Spirit. Being “neither” is a big, big difference than being “both”.

**BibleReader: **In essence, TobyLue, it is you who is wrong.

Everything which comes out of God has to be *in *Him already. That is one of those “ineluctably true” facts. You can write “TOTALLY INCORRECT” as many times as you like, and repeat “:nope:” as many times as you like, but it’s still ineluctably true. You’re stuck. In fact God can, technically, be correctly referred to as “she” just as God can technically be referred to as a “He.”

I know what the Catechism says. And I know that your answer in part tracks what the Catechism says, so that you can point to a paragraph and say, “LOOK! LOOK! The Catechism agreees with me WORD-FOR-WORD! You HAVE TO agree with me.” But the Magisterium is simply NOT going to disagree with the proposition that in a critical sense something has to be “in” God first for it to then come “out” of God. The Magisterium is not going to say otherwise.

That something has to be IN God for it to come OUT of Him suffuses the rest of theology. It is fundamental to the “processions” of the Dvine Persons. In other words, it’s not a coincidence that Jesus “proceeds out of” the Father, AND that Jesus says, “I and the Father are ONE.” Not only ARE both things true, but the logic which is “in and of” God REQUIRES that both be true. We can be good only because grace-causing goodness and goodness are “in and of” God FIRST. We say that evil is the absence of good BECAUSE evil is an exception to the rule that good is “in and of” God already. Grace in some critical sense has to be IN God to come OUT of God.

Now, in fact everything God creates is like a statute carved out of a greater block of marble. The oneness of God requires that every created thing have the quality of being less than what God is. Our maleness is less than what it in God. Our femaleness is less than what is in God.

So, in that limited sense – but ONLY STRICTLY in that limited sense – JUST maleness and JUST femaleness are not IN God, and God “is” “neither” male nor female.

But, insofar as God made maleness – and He did – maleness HAD to be “IN God,” in SOME sense – critically so – for it to come out of Him. And, insofar as God made femaleness – and He did – femaleness HAD to be “IN God,” in SOME sense – critically so – for it to come out of Him. God, for all eternity, has had you AND YOUR GENDER specifically in mind. He “never didn’t” have these things in mind. The concept of gender-filled you has been in God’s mind forever, and even the existence and “forever-ness” of that concept in God is “in and of” God.

I.e., you, too – gender-filled you – could not have come out of God if in some critical sense you weren’t already “in him.” Otherwise, there would be “things” – “essences” if you will – outside of God, so to speak, waiting to be conceived-of by God.

Also, note well – MALE-GENDER CHRIST came “out of” God, didn’t He? Vis-a-vis the humanity of the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, Jesus’ human maleness and human non-femaleness was always “in” God in some sense.

The Church just isn’t going to deny such.

Respectfully, friend, you are wrong.

It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not.

It’s just difficult to understand, in a sense BECAUSE it is so utterly “simple.”
 
Biblereader
Everything which comes out of God has to be *in *Him already.
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So in other words since creation came out of God, then we can refer to Him as a daffodil, a pine tree, an earthworm, a maggot, etc. This my friend is pantheism. So by your logic, any man can be referred to as a" she" since man has the X and Y chromosomes.

Show me one passage of scripture that we can “technically” be correct in referring to God as she. This new type of theology is what is ruining some of our seminaries. God created everything thing out of **nothing….**It is something new and never taught but the early church.
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It sounds like a contradiction because it is

It’s difficult to understand because it is totally wrong and you can’t escape that fact.
 
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TobyLue:
Biblereader So in other words since creation came out of God, then we can refer to Him as a daffodil, a pine tree, an earthworm, a maggot, etc. This my friend is pantheism. So by your logic, any man can be referred to as a" she" since man has the X and Y chromosomes.

Show me one passage of scripture that we can “technically” be correct in referring to God as she. This new type of theology is what is ruining some of our seminaries. God created everything thing out of **nothing….**It is something new and never taught but the early church.

It sounds like a contradiction because it is

It’s difficult to understand because it is totally wrong and you can’t escape that fact.
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Ah, you’re avoiding the important parts of the discussion, TobyLue.

Please answer this question: In fact, wasn’t the male-gendered Incarnation somehow “in” the Godhead for all eternity?

Doesn’t God the Father’s “father-ness” and God the Son’s “son-ness” teach us something special that is in God – or, COULD God have picked one as the way we should address Him, as well as the other?
 
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TobyLue:
Biblereader So in other words since creation came out of God, then we can refer to Him as a daffodil, a pine tree, an earthworm, a maggot, etc. This my friend is pantheism. So by your logic, any man can be referred to as a" she" since man has the X and Y chromosomes.

Show me one passage of scripture that we can “technically” be correct in referring to God as she. This new type of theology is what is ruining some of our seminaries. God created everything thing out of **nothing….**It is something new and never taught but the early church.

It sounds like a contradiction because it is

It’s difficult to understand because it is totally wrong and you can’t escape that fact.
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We have to be careful when using ordinary language to discuss God, and so we have to be careful about saying or inferring things like, “God created everything thing out of **nothing **(and so, you’re wrong, BibleReader).”

The reason why the Catechism is readable, but Aquinas’ Summa is somewhat not readable, is because Aquinas did something the Catechism can’t do without making itself unreadable: He realized that very few human words strictly apply to God. (That’s probably the reason why true “tongues” is not comprehensible.) As a consequence, Aquinas redefined many terms and as a consequence used many terms in a fashion not in conformity with common parlance, where his re-definitions are partially rooted in the mystical.

A Catechism addressed to the people can’t do that.

In truth God makes things out of “nothing” SHORT OF TOTAL “CREATIVITY.” Possibilities outside of the mind of God do not exist. God’s mind doesn’t “get-to” not-previously-thought-of ideas. That would violate “God-ness,” so to speak. Otherwise, there would, to that extent, be “things” out there, independent of God’s being and Will, having the existential quality of “being possible.” Such a situation would probably violate God’s One-ness. There’s a bit more to God than the Baltimore Catechism or the CCC let on.

So, I suggest caution even in saying basic things like, “God created everything out of nothing.”

God reveals Himself to us, but the revelation is not total. Even the Beatific Vision will not be total.
 
By the way, TobyLue, in your Post #27, Ratzinger saying, “we are **not **authorized to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible” is him functionallysaying what I said, when I wrote, “However, note that not only is Christ male, but angels in the Bible, where gender is apparent, are invariably male. That’s because the Man Type stands for “God” and “representative of God” (or, in the case of non-spiritual beings, “empowered by God”). Calling God a “she” is at war with the type.”

Types are symbols.
 
Biblereader
Please answer this question: In fact, wasn’t the male-gendered Incarnation somehow “in” the Godhead for all eternity?
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Well, you seem to have answered your own question. The “father-ness” of God and the “son-ness” of God have been in the Godhead for all eternity, so why are some changing it now to “mother-ness”… Again because the X and Y chromosomes exist in man can we refer to man as “she” or “he-she”?
There’s a bit more to God than the Baltimore Catechism or the CCC let on.
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So let’s just make up some new theology and start calling God “she”, Right?
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      We should be cautious, very cautious when we go against what Jesus taught us.
I’ll stand by what the CCC and what the Pope teaches rather then some new fanciful stuff new theologians (as if they know better than the Church) want to invent.
 
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