god having gender traits?

[Socrates]

[quote name='infinitelord1' date='Sep 16 2005, 01:55 AM']i have always imagined god having both the traits of a female and traits of a male. I also have thought that when he created male and female he distributed his traits amongst males and females. Thats what i thought was partially meant by "created in his image". Under this belief i came to the conclusion that when a male and a female make love they are combining the traits of god........furthermore to create life. What do you think? I have been told that there has been a thread like this before.....but i decided to do it again.
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Dittos to Don John, Aloysius and Apotheoun.

First of all, God is pure spirit, pure act, and does not contain a series of different characteristics or traits, which He "distributes" among his creatures. God has no seperate parts. God is not a "combination" of different qualities, but the different good qualites of His creatures all reflect God's infinite goodness. (I know this is all rather difficult to explain in a brief post.)

When God became incarnate as Man (Jesus Christ), he became truly Man. The only human body God has is male.
God as the pure creating Act, plays a masculine role in His relation to His creation. Human male fatherhood is analogous to (and only a pale shadow of) Divine Fatherhood. Thus Christ taught us to call God Our Father. That this is how God Himself taught us to refer to and relate to Him should be reason enough (as the nature of God is beyond human understanding).

While God as pure spirit, has no body and no sex in the physical sense, masculinity is a reflection of the Divine Fatherhood of God.
All are feminine compared with God the Father.

To think of God as some kind of divine hermaphrodite "combining male and female traits," is not how God revealed Himself to us, and not how He wants us to think of him.

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Sep 16 2005, 01:58 PM']WORDS have gender, PEOPLE have sex.



but that's true, it's the correct use of those terms, therefore it is incorrect to talk about a person's gender, you should talk about their sex.
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Thank you!!!! I was about to post the exact same thing.

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Sep 16 2005, 09:31 AM']Yeah, all those medieval saints are going straight to hell for such speculation and...horror of horrors...imaging God in the feminine...stupid heretical saints!
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Those saints amounted to about 2 and they were writing in highly mystical terminolgy, not dogmatic terminology.

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Sep 16 2005, 08:20 PM']Dittos to Don John, Aloysius  and Apotheoun.

First of all, God is pure spirit, pure act, and does not contain a series of different characteristics or traits, which He "distributes" among his creatures. God has no seperate parts. God is not a "combination" of different qualities, but the different good qualites of His creatures all reflect God's infinite goodness.  (I know this is all rather difficult to explain in a brief post.)

When God became incarnate as Man (Jesus Christ), he became truly Man.  The only human body God has is male.
God as the pure creating Act, plays a masculine role in His relation to His creation.  Human male fatherhood is analogous to (and only a pale shadow of) Divine Fatherhood.  Thus Christ taught us to call God Our Father.  That this is how God Himself taught us to refer to and relate to Him should be reason enough (as the nature of God is beyond human understanding).

While God as pure spirit, has no body and no sex in the physical sense, masculinity is a reflection of the Divine Fatherhood of God.
All are feminine compared with God the Father.

To think of God as some kind of divine hermaphrodite "combining male and female traits," is not how God revealed Himself to us, and not how He wants us to think of him.
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oh yea i totally agree that god has no physical features what so ever.

[infinitelord1]

socrates,

dont you think that hermaphrodite is a term used to define someone with 2 (opposite) sex organs? That is certainly a physical feature. We dont go around calling feminine males hermaphrodites.

[track2004]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Sep 16 2005, 12:58 PM']WORDS have gender, PEOPLE have sex.
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Was that about my post? I think it was. If it wasn't oh well...

Words do have genders, though not really in English so much. Yet, what is God? He isn't really a person so to say (yes He is in Jesus, but I'm talking about all 3 persons). Okay, we call God 3 persons in 1, right, but "persons" is somewhat of a misnomer in my mind. He is not a person like you and I are people. He is everything. So we're back to God just being a noun. Jesus was a he; He was a person; He did the 'human thing'. But God didn't He is an entity, a being, an indescribable noun.

And yes people have sex. That's how we all got here....

[scardella]

I think what's important is that God is the Model, and we are the (imperfect and finite) image. As a result, our masculinity and feminity reflects something of God and not vice versa. Thus, to ascribe masculinity or feminity to God would be somehow limiting Him.

Yeah, what those A guys said...

Just saying the same thing over and over in different ways. (You spin me round and round...)

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='scardella' date='Sep 16 2005, 11:26 PM']I think what's important is that God is the Model, and we are the (imperfect and finite) image.  As a result, our masculinity and feminity reflects something of God and not vice versa.  Thus, to ascribe masculinity or feminity to God would be somehow limiting Him. 

Yeah, what those A guys said...

Just saying the same thing over and over in different ways. (You spin me round and round...)
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yes i totally agree

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Sep 16 2005, 09:33 AM']God is Authority, and therefore addressed as a male.  however, He certainly is not a human, though we are in His image.  So, it is easier for me to say, "God is omnipotent and can do whatever He wills" than to assign human characteristics to Him.
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Actually, God's authority is not the reason He is addressed as male.

God penetrates us, He is the first actor.
We are the ones penetrated by His presence, we are always the recipient.
He is always life-giving (fertile), we are often infertile due to our concupiscence.

THAT'S why every divine Person is addressed as He.

JP II even talks about how the Word of Scripture needs to "penetrate us" in order to bring forth Christ in our hearts - it's in Catechesi Tradendae somewhere.

You'll also note that Mary almost always has a book of Scripture on her knee in medieval and Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation - the same idea is at work.

I've got a books on both of these subjects: Sex and the Sacred City for the theology of the body part, and Artfully Teaching the Faith for a study of art masterpieces.

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='track2004' date='Sep 16 2005, 11:55 PM']Was that about my post?  I think it was.  If it wasn't oh well...

Words do have genders, though not really in English so much.  Yet, what is God?  He isn't really a person so to say (yes He is in Jesus, but I'm talking about all 3 persons).  Okay, we call God 3 persons in 1, right, but "persons" is somewhat of a misnomer in my mind.  He is not a person like you and I are people.  He is everything.  So we're back to God just being a noun.  Jesus was a he; He was a person; He did the 'human thing'.  But God didn't He is an entity, a being, an indescribable noun.

And yes people have sex.  That's how we all got here.... 
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There are lots of paradoxes when talking about God.

There are several ways to define "person."

One way is to say "a person is that which possesses an intellect and a will."

Now, there is one divine intellect and one divine will = divine nature = God.
Each Divine Person possesses the one divine intellect and the one divine will to Himself - there is no sharing of the will and the intellect.

Strictly speaking, God is not a noun - He calls Himself the "I Am."
God is a verb. He is also the unmoved Mover.

The CCC says that in God there is neither male nor female, but our understanding of both mother and father, man and woman, etc., all reflect qualities of the Godhead.

Again, I discuss this at much greater length in Sex and the Sacred City. Nearly everyone who has read it has told me it helped them understand who God is in Himself. I wrote it after teaching RCIA for several years. The first chapter is the toughest, just wade through it and the rest is commentary on the first chapter.

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='skellmeyer' date='Sep 17 2005, 12:03 AM']There are lots of paradoxes when talking about God.

There are several ways to define "person."

One way is to say "a person is that which possesses an intellect and a will."

Now, there is one divine intellect and one divine will = divine nature = God.
Each Divine Person possesses the one divine intellect and the one divine will to Himself - there is no sharing of the will and the intellect.

Strictly speaking, God is not a noun - He calls Himself the "I Am."
God is a verb. He is also the unmoved Mover.

The CCC says that in God there is neither male nor female, but our understanding of both mother and father, man and woman, etc., all reflect qualities of the Godhead.

Again, I discuss this at much greater length in Sex and the Sacred City. Nearly everyone who has read it has told me it helped them understand who God is in Himself. I wrote it after teaching RCIA for several years. The first chapter is the toughest, just wade through it and the rest is commentary on the first chapter.
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or should we say that god reflected his qualities of mother amongst females and father amongst males? Is that what you are saying?