God is Father and Mother

Article of Sanda Medvid published on his personal blog on March 22, 2019.

Lately I have reflected on a theological thought on why God is not depicted in any form as a woman. I understand that much of this comes from the patriarchal structure of the post-Renaissance Church in which the degradation of women has taken root in many Christian churches, but what evidence there are that God does not have a female side, or even parts that could be considered a " mother".

If men and women were both created in the likeness of God, then there must be a feminist value for the character of God himself. Because women do not come from men, but man comes from the woman. Being a Christian myself, I wonder why the God of my churches is not female in any way. One of the reasons why the churches dissuade me is due to the lack of female presence within the elderly and other important positions for the Church. If I, as a woman, were created in the image of God,

There are many times in the Bible in which God is personified as a woman, or at least the female tendencies of God have been personified as a woman. An example is in 1:20 proverbs in which God's wisdom is personified like a woman: “Wisdom is like a woman who screams on the street; She raises her voice in the squares of the city. " Much of the book of proverbs looks like a mother who gives advice to her children rather than a father; In our reality of thought, it is the female advice that men usually do not participate, like warnings against adultery and rash choices.

In chapter 8 of the proverbs, Sapienza also states that "I, wisdom, I was with the Lord when he began his work, long before he did something else" (Proverbs 8:22). Although wisdom is also personified later like Jesus, there is still the fact that it has a connected female character; This could mean that perhaps wisdom and God the Father gave birth to Jesus in one way, bringing to him the personification of wisdom.

There is also the question about how God alone, as a father, could create all life itself, when in reality life comes from the mother with the help of the father. And, of course, if women were created in the image of God, then there must be a female part of God because it would be impossible to create something in your image if it were nothing like you.

In Deuteronomy 32:18 says: "You left God who is the rock, you Father, and you forgot the God who made you born", where there seem to be two sides of God; The one who is the Father and the one who gave birth to humanity. rather than saying that the Father is the rock and the one who gave birth, is the Father the rock and God who gave birth to two separate identities of the same God.

Of course, there are all the times in the Bible in which God has shown kindness to women and mothers. Where God has granted women the ability to give birth to children they wanted, or saved or blessed their children. Jesus Christ himself came from a woman without a relationship with an earthly man. There are books in the Bible specifically on women, and some of the most common characters are women, such as Mary Maddalena and Mary the mother of Jesus.

If God were only a male form, why would there be such preference for women? If God were only the Father, there would be no need of the mother because if God the Father had given birth to this world and his son despite being a male, then why would he not have created man in the same way without women?

The love of God for humanity is also presented in a similar way to maternal love. God's love is love "agape", which means self-seacrifying and unconditional. The only comparison that we humans have with this form of love is the love that a mother nourishes for her children. A mother gives everything herself to her son from the first moment of conception, which raises a bond of love that is indissoluble, the same type of unjustible love that God has for humanity.

In Isaiah 66: 12-13, God says: “Like children, you will be breastfed and kept in my arms and bounced on my knees. I will console you as a mother comforts her baby, "if this does not present a female side of God, I don't know what it will do so.

Examples like these continue throughout the ancient and the New Testament, and the topic of God's femininity has occurred since the Middle Ages, when people have seen this femininity together with the masculinity of God. I discovered that the male side of God It is the proud father of man or the jealous God similar to war, which is strongly represented in the Old Testament. But there are also the female sides of God that I noticed, like the wisdom and unconditional love that I mentioned before.

For me personally, I think it is impossible to have only the male form of God, but it is so rooted in the religious aspect of the Christian faith due to hundreds of years of patriarchal power that it would be difficult to throw light on the female God who must also exist. In line I found this quote that I think embodies this: “Of course, God is so far from us, that he is certainly not a man or a woman. Even if we are made in his image and we reflect some of who God is, we as human beings certainly do not represent all that God is. Even if an artist painted a self -portrait, the artist himself is much more than his art. "