According to dictionary.com, the definition of the word “father” includes the following: as a noun, it is “any male ancestor, the founder of a race, a person that has originated or established something, a precursor, prototype…” and as a verb, “to be the creator, founder, or author of.”
For years, people have been questioning the reasoning behind God, the Father. Many people have posed the question as to why—first, and foremost—God is given a gender and is seen in an anthropomorphic manner, and if so, why the gender is male.
Some religious scholars have surmised that by referring to God in a patriarchal sense, it confirms the idea that men are in direct link to him and to Christ, and that women are linked to God and Christ only in a mediatory capacity.
This idea makes sense if the nature of the majority of societies is examined. In most every culture and civilization, women are seen as second class citizens, even before the Biblical story of Eve and the Garden of Eden, there was the Greek myth of Pandora, who opened the box and unleashed all the woes of humanity. Faced with these stories, it makes sense that God would be seen as male rather than female; according to these stories, to be female is to be untrustworthy, and God cannot be untrustworthy.
The question of whether or not calling God the father makes the suppression of women easier can also be posed. Why not just refer to God as God, the mother? Or as Godess? But by feeling the need to change the ideals of using God, the father instead of Goddess, the mother or even God, the mother, it becomes reverse subordination: to use one gender over the other automatically lessens the power and raises the level of subordination of the gender not being used.
When you really think about it, just like God has no race—though people are trying to make designations about that as well—God should have no gender. If God is the Lord, the creator, and in fact is everything, then it stands to reason that God is both male and female. And in keeping that thought in mind, then the evaluation of God’s actions fall in line with this belief. In the Bible, God is written as having created the world, and nurturing all human beings. These characteristics are mostly female in nature.
On the same note, when God is portrayed as exuding strength, as punishing, and judging, these actions seem a though they are ones that fall in line with males. Much like the duality of these actions, nurture and punishment, male and female ought to exist in God simultaneously, or at least they seem capable to.
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While I tend to agree with much of what you say, I am a little disturbed by the tendency of late to seem to push beyond the level of equality of the sexes. I guess one might justify this because of the centuries of female subjugation, however, subjugating others for whatever reason is not right nor good.
Finally, I believe it a very slippery slope indeed to ascribe some human characteristics to female and others to male. That is every bit as inappropriate as ascribing sex to God. Many men are incredibly nurturing and many women are incredibly judgemental and punitive (check out the actions of many women in power positions in corporate America). The point is that we should all interact with each other with compassion, courtesy and tolerance. These are human characteristics that could go a long way toward easing some of the problems in our world and nation.