2A The Nature of God

Is God male? The issue of male language about God; the pastoral benefits and challenges of the model of Father; Sallie McFague and God as Mother. EDUQAS Can God suffer? The impassibility of God; the modern view of a suffering God illustrated by Jurgen Moltmann (The Crucified God).

The Holy Trinity + Biblical evidence of God's Gender

The Trinity conveys the idea that God is male because:
1. One part of God is the Father, immediately creating a masculine identity
-In Hebrew and Greek (NTest og langs) God was consistently referred to as male, Eg in Genesis 'he'-Jesus taught his disciples to refer to God as Father (Lord's Prayer): 'Our Father' (if he was wrong how can we trust JC)
-Likened to a human father (provides for his children, disciplines and loves them)

He plays the role of a parent when punishing (let the Assyrians conquer Israel and Judah) and forgiving

God as the Creator of the world (John 1:3): 'through him all things were made', Father of the universe

2. The second part is the Son who is Jesus.
-God in human form is a man + Son is a masculine term.
-Some Christians believe that before God the Son was Jesus he was 'with God and was God' (John 1:1)- no gender

3. The Holy Spirit

-traditionally spoken of as a 'he' but a 'spirit' is not a person so cannot be gendered in the same way.

-Alludes to Gods gender as male with some ambiguous elements (Holy Spirit + Word)
BUT formalised by men 325 AD Nicene Creed

-There is a modern new version of the Trinity (gender neutral) which is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

The context of a male God

-The Bible was written under a patriarchal society

-The canonised texts were by men (women’s voices were not prioritised)

-This impacted the languages

-Link between masc power and divinity to discourage questioning of men

BUT

-Argument that this is not the cause of male language as God chooses to reveal himself in masc terms (the bible is ‘God breathed’) GOD IS NOT BOUND BY CULTURE

2 Timothy ‘all scripture is God-breathed’ how god chose to reveal himself

-The Bible is a source of wisdom Sola Scriptira

The issues of male language to describe God + Solutions

Cultural issues

-Link between masc power and divinity established due to patriarchal contexts

>Discourages questioning of men

>Makes male supremacy appear to be a universal truth

Mary Daly “to say God is male is to say male is God”

Ecclesiastical issues

-Influences the issue of the ordination of women > Catholics claim that women should not have a role where they represent Christ (cannot perform certain priestly duties)

>Catholic Tory Widdecombe said it is as unreasonable as expecting a man to perform as the Virgin Mary

Pastoral issues

-Women might not feel included in a male-centric religion (less likely to seek pastoral care or to feel fulfilled)

-Women being saved by men is problematic

SO

-Mary Daly emphasises that masc language is a tool to understand god not a fact

-Encourages God as a verb- no inherent gender

-The World Mission Society Church of God encourages fem lang by preaching the plurality of God

-The doctrine of the Trinity is argued by some to be patriarchal, because the terms Father and Son are male language (not inclusive towards females)

-There is a modern new version of the Trinity (gender neutral) which is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

Female God

-Many feminist scholars argue the cultural context influenced the link between men and divinity to maintain the patriarchy (Mary Daly “To say God is male is to say male is God”)

-McFague argues God is ineffable so we use metaphors (he is beyond language)

We risk worshipping these metaphors as idols

The value of metaphors is not how it’s accurate but it’s usefulness

can use fem equivalents to support equality + eco

-Some passages use feminine/maternal images for God

-e.g. God is the giver of life (Isaiah 42:14 God “Like a woman in childbirth”, Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you”)

-(Some argue this isn't communicating God as female but feminine imagery that reveals truths about God)

-The metaphor for God as mother makes God more intimately connected with world (ex nihilo>distant God) encourages us to preserve environment (ecofeminism) + gives fem value

(Doesn’t believe any of this literally)

<Hampson early church viewed world as God’s body

>new trinity: mother (doctrine of creation, agape)

Lover (JC, doctrine of salvation, healing, Eros)

Friend (HS, doctrine of Escathology, companionship, Philip)

-RRR argues it is important to understand God as fem to encourage understandings of God as immanent and encompassing (but believes God to simultaneously by genderless)

-Paul Tillich argues that God is not a being (implicitly genderless)

Genderless God

-Language used in the Bible shows that God can identify with the needs of all people as he made us all in his image (‘made in the image of God’ ‘male and female he created them’)

-God values both men and women equally but there is concern surrounding the consistent use of male language (‘there is no longer male and female, for you are all one under Christ’)

-Hebrew Bible called God ‘Yahew’ > ‘no name’, father was a Christian invention

-Tillich: God cannot be referred to in human terms- God is the 'Ground of Being-Itself'

-Mary Daly: abandon Christianity all together-patriarchy is too engrained

-Reuther: 'God/ess' idea (own coined term)- we do not have a good enough name for the divine at this moment, but names will appear when we move away from the names given based on the patriarchy.

-Using the BRS dataset Whitehead found that individuals who believed that God is male were more likely to hold homophobic and trad values

Paul Tillich on God

-'The Ground of Being: Neglected Essays by Paul Tillich'
-Did not agree with the view of God as a type of being/presence

-If God were a being, God could not properly be called the source of all being
-Open to question what created God?

-Should be understood as 'the ground of Being-Itself'
-We shouldn't understand god in human terms, including gender

Rosemary Radford Ruether Genderless God

-Rejects the patriarchal God that is transcendent and removed from the world

-Thinks that God is immanent and all around us, believes masc lang of removed + transcendent contradicts this

-Suggests faults in the term ‘God’ (inherently masc) by coining ‘God/ess’

"great womb within which all things... are generated […] not ‘up there’ as abstracted ego, but beneath and around us as encompassing source of life"

-Just like Tillich doesn't believe God exists as a being as we understand it, neither does Reuther.

-Suggests God being understood as fem as well as masc is important, but also as nothing

EVID

-Hebrew Bible called God ‘Yahew’ > ‘no name’, father was a Christian invention

Mary Daly

-Mary Daly: "If God is male, then the male is God"
-The link between masculinity and divinity can make male supremacy seem like a fact of the universe (it is just how we organised) > male power being unchallengeable

-God as a male is a tool, not fact but many sexist teachings (eg Paul) > sexism being ingrained in Christianity
-She encourages reconsidering God, not only in fem terms but as a verb (be-ing not being) as verbs are beyond gender

The World Mission Society Church of God

-A heretical group spoke in response to God as a mother

"When God created human beings, He said "Let us" “ > God is more than one.

“God created males and females as a reflection of the male and female images of God: God the Father and God the Mother"

-Encourages fem references to God by claiming God is multiple

-This is supported by the original Hebrew texts, God was referred to as ‘Elohim’ meaning ‘Gods’

-God the mother and father have been working together to help our salvation, and God the mother will be revealed in the final days

Sally McFague

-Metaphors can be outdated- doesn't reflect his nature, human construction,, cannot continue to worship metaphors > idols

Metaphors are about use, not accuracy. God is unknowable. So, the value of a metaphor is how useful the metaphor is for life.

-God as the father is overused, useful to men, people forget it is a metaphor

(Daly tool not fact, cultural context of patriarchy, Tillich, Reuther encompassing nature)

-Metaphor as mother- moving away from male lang, female not feminine terms (not sentimentalised or based on social constructions), focus on birthing feeding (bio)

-Proposes a new trinity- Metaphor of God as mother lover friend

-God should be viewed as female, not feminine, (rejects sentimentalised metaphors tied to social constructs, should use it for metaphors on feeding, birthing and protecting)

-Ecofeminist- believes pantheism will lead to greater environmental consciousness (God as male ruled over world > domination of women+world, God as female > world is part of God)

-Maternal images highlights humans reliance on God

Critic of Sally McFague

-Trevor Hart, (Barthian theologians sola scriptura), claimed that McFague is “cutting herself loose from the moorings of Scripture and tradition” appealing only to experience and credibility as her guides

-If Human constructions determine how she describes God, then she is anthropologizing.

ΒUT scripture and tradition themselves fail to take the mystery of God seriously by describing God as father, which is impossible to do so literally because God is unknowable.

-If instead we view‘father’ not as a description but as a socially constructed metaphor, we see that it causes many issues

-David Fergusson criticised the lack of a transcendence claiming that deficit made her theology “fixed on a post-Christian trajectory” (non-Christian theology)

BUT McFague defends her work by claiming it is a “turn of the eyes of theologians away from heaven and towards the earth”, which she thinks is needed in our time.

-Aquinas supported analogy (cannot know what God is, but thought we could make claims about what God is ‘like’, via attribution and proportion)

-So by saying that God is a father, we mean that God has the attribute of fatherliness in a way that is analogous to and proportionally greater than human fatherliness.

-IT ISNT A METAPHOR (metaphor is using language which is totally different) and so McFague is wrong to think we must resort to metaphor when describing God.

BUT she can still be right about its neg impacts

Sally McFague's reimagined trinity

-The three metaphors are similar to the 3 parts of the Holy Trinity, they correspond with Christian doctrines, ethical elements and types of love

Mother: used to move away from the consistent use of God in masculine terms.

Linked to the doctrine of creation, the ethical element of justice, and agape love (selfless love, God has for the world)

(Corresponds with the father, creator, judges, cares unconditionally)

Lover: corresponds to JC

Links to the doctrine of salvation, the ethical element of healing and to eros (desire) because of the way God's love works through the world

(Corresponds with son, JC brought salvation, healing our rel)

Friend: this corresponds with the HS

Sense of companionship

Links to the doctrine of eschatology, the ethical element of companionship and the love philia and the way in which humans should interact in the world

(Corresponds with HS, our companion to the end, is immanent)

Panentheism

-God and nature are one and the same
-Daphne Hampson argues that the early church suggested the world is God's body
McFague (we have viewed God as separate, ex nihilo, which encourges destructive action, God as mother is useful for our time where climate action is significant)+Moltmann

Sola Scriptura

"Scripture alone." It is the belief that all man needs for salvation is the Bible. This is a tenet for most Protestants.
You must believe what the Bible says

Theonomous Ethics

The identification of the moral law with the Divine will
Using the Bible only

Autonomous Ethics

Must follow JC and love

Quotes relating to God as a woman

Isaiah 42:14

‘For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor;

I will gasp and pant.’

Isaiah 49:15

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.’

Isaiah 66:13

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you;

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

Hosea 13:8

I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs; I will tear open their breast,

and there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild beast would rip them open.

Is it valid to refer to God as mother?

Use of Masc terms is an outdated metaphor (McFague)
BUT
Bible is the direct revelation of God, uses Male lang

There is scriptural support creating maternal images
BUT
More refs for a male God

Societal constructs influenced it (Daly)
BUT
Context irrelevant

God as impassible

-Some (trad teachings) argue he is impassible due to his immutable nature (emotions are fleeting)

(Aquinas teaches perfection requires this as a perfect being that changes moves away from perfection towards imperfection, emotions involve a change) > cant suffer

-Aristotle's teachings in the first mover (perfect, unchanged) contributes to the idea in early church

-Aristotle > Aquinas > early church (God transcends FLEETING human emotions > cant suffer)

-The emotions he displays (eg anger = 10 plagues) could be argued to be a product of his immutable nature (provoked due to his unconditional states eg mercy, compassion)

-Jesus is passible because of his human nature, but his divine nature is still trad thought of as impassable (his heavenly self/body doesn’t have human limitations) (contradicts substantial presence?)

-Passibility could be viewed as inherently human (emotions are fleeting>mutable>imperfect) so there could be an inherent contradiction between this and his divinity

Is it logical for God to suffer?
(Past paper)

-God cant suffer as nothing in God's state can change
-Orthodoxy would view passible God as heretical

-A passible god is playing into Panentheism (part of the natural world effected by evil) LINK TO GENDER
-God loses his transcendence by suffering > unable to free humankind from sin and death
BUT
-To limit God to transcendent prevents him entering meaningful rels + ignores his immanence > impersonal God eg Aristotle's first mover

-Suffering contradicts immutability + divine perfection
BUT
-Biblical evidence of him feeling (JC crying) + changing (Hezekiah)
BUT
-Could be writers anthropomorphising God
BUT
-How God revealed himself

-JC crying could be viewed as his human nature, his divine nature unaffected
BUT
-Moltmann argues an omniscient God must understand the experience of suffering + the father and son suffered at the crucifixion but differently (Son pain of death, Father pain of losing son)
BUT
-Suggests a divisible trinity

God as passible

-Moltmann states that (through the doctrine of incarnation) we see God has the capacity for anger + compassion> not immutable> can suffer

-Herschel, we are created in God’s image and our passible, surely he must be

-An impassible God is impersonal+unattractive

-Some claim he is philosophically impassible but not biblically (idea of impassibility is a construct unlike biblically supported transcendence) eg Isaiah 14:1 "the lord will have compassion on Jacob"

-BUT Aquinas claimed God given reason proved necessity of immutability for perfection

-Catechism states he is impassible

-The influence of prayer shows he is mutable, willing to change plan

-BUT Aquinas "we do not pray to change divine creed, ut only to obtain what God has decided will be obtained" (prayer brings comfort+closeness to God)

-BUT Hezekiah 20:6 sick king Hezekiah “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, and I will add fifteen years to your life”

- Post WW2 shift in belief towards an empathic (struggle to maintain faith)

Hezekiah 20:6

‘In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death.‘

“This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

‘Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord’

“ have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. […] I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’”

Impassibility

not being subject to the passions or suffering.

Moltmann and the crucified God

-To consolidate his faith post WW2 + 9/11 wrote of a crucified God and panentheism

-Responded to POE and why JC on the cross cried “my God, why have you forsaken me”

-God is present with us when we suffer ('he is hanging there in the gallows') he did not abandon us

-Claims it is impossible to believe in God without believing this

-An impassible God > apathetic > irrelevant church

-BUT JC experienced death (both his human and divine elements) > important to him < relatable to humans, JC identified himself with those who suffer and feel abandoned

-Crucifixion nec for res

"God is not in control of everything. He is bearing / carrying everything. THIS is His real power. [..] This for me is the omnipotence of God: His ALL- PATIENCE!"

-He redefines omnipotence to understand God's passibility, links to doctrine of hope (God is moving us towards a new future)

-Influenced by Herschel (we are reflections of God, made in his image, we would be impassible)

-An omniscient God must understand the experience of suffering + the father and son suffered at the crucifixion but differently (Son pain of death, Father pain of losing son)

GOD IS PASSIBLE

Arguments against Moltmann

-Surely to suffer is a weakness?

-To suffer is to be affected by evil > no longer omnibenevolent?

BUT

-Moltmann responds with reframing God’s omnipotence as all patience

-Prof Gerald Bray claims Moltmann’s understanding is compatible with the transcendent impassible God > God doesn’t suffer in the same way as humans (doesn’t contradict catechism ’God transcends all creatures’)

Quotes on God suffering

Isaiah 14:1 "the lord will have compassion on Jacob"

Psalm 38:3 "Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;

there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin"

What gave Moltmann belief in God

-JC was able to suffer and still believe in God

-"My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?" Relatable to us who suffer inexplicably and so does the omniscient JC (doctrine of incarnation)

-The crucifixion is symbolic of suffering

-Moltmann believes that in the crucifixion God linked himself to those who suffer and are abandoned by God (you cannot have hope for the resurrection without suffering through crucifixion)

Doctrine of Incarnation

-JC being both fully human and fully divine

Can God suffer summary

CANT SUFFER
1. Aristotle+Aquinas- if God is a perfect being he must be immutable and thus should not be able to change or emote
2. The passable God of Moltmann and Heschel makes sense and appeals but is difficult to accept in trad Christianity
Catechism in the Catholic Church clearly states he is impassible
3. Tillich- we cannot put God in human terms

CAN SUFFER
1. The God that AA describe is distant and impersonal> not attractive to Christian worship
2. Moltmann- God can suffer, redefines God's omnipotence (all patience) influenced by Heschel to present God of the Bible as transcendent and immanent
3. Prof Gerald Bray- trying to support Moltmann- suffering of God is not the same as human suffering (God doesn't have a body) he maintains his omnipotence and transcendence

What are the implications of a passable God

-He becomes more relatable (through JC) Moltmann (and allows us to more strongly
-Bray would suggest his suffering is different +Tillich
-Goes against the immutability of God (suggests he is not fully perfect) Aquinas+Aristotle