God As Gender Neutral...

[CatherineM]

Madame-You're right about it being Lord instead of God. I lost a lot of my Spanish after my head injury. Sometimes it comes out in the middle of a sentence for no reason. That will make people look at you funny.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='Galloglasses' post='1534897' date='May 20 2008, 02:35 PM']Ok, i'm going to bugger off this topic. For the record, i'm with the God-is-a-male crowd here, but this looks like a powder keg about to go off judging by the stark difference of opinion between Knightec, (whom I agree with) and Madam Venegir, (whom I disagree with).

By the by, this doesn't mean i'm backing down from a confrontation, just gonna wait till the ancillary discussions pass and the genuine debate begins. Then i'll come in with the tank brigade.[/quote]

Wait a minute. You said you are with the "God is a male crowd" and then you state that you disagree with me. This makes no sense. I only said that God is neither male nor female (and he isn't--God doesn't have a gender) and that he embodies the characteristics of both Mother and Father. This is Church teaching. How exactly can you say you disagree with me???

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1534911' date='May 20 2008, 02:50 PM']Wait a minute. You said you are with the "God is a male crowd" and then you state that you disagree with me. This makes no sense. I only said that God is neither male nor female (and he isn't--God doesn't have a gender) and that he embodies the characteristics of both Mother and Father. This is Church teaching. How exactly can you say you disagree with me???[/quote]

Post 9 may have confused him.

[Galloglasses]

God has a gender, in the sense that by His nature and actions He appears masculine and especially because Christ called Him Our Father. He just has no sex. In terrestial creations gender is uniquely equated with the sex. Not so in God's case because He is Spirit. I also think its reasonable to assume souls who go to Heaven retain their masculinity or feminity as well. I personally would be confused to no end if I went to Heaven or Hell and ended up having no gender.

And no, God does not inhabit characteristics of the mother, that, strangely enough, is Christ's job. The idea that God is both Mother and Father is, ironically, heresy. That can noly work if we're talking about the Trinity as a whole, but this topic is regarding God the Father. (Case in point, there were some cases were the celebrating Priest at Mass referred to God as "Father-Mother God", this constituted Liturgical abuse. As The person of God the Priest is addressing is God the Father, hence the abuse)

But I'll get out of this for now till I see where this topic leads.

Edited May 20, 2008 by Galloglasses

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1534885' date='May 20 2008, 02:20 PM']I've been ****-slapped for my distinction between gender and sex in another thread but I'll weigh in here, too. Gender is a linguistic construct that to some extent derives from physiological sex characteristics. In English we don't really worry about it too much because we use a gender-neutral definite article, "the." However, in other languages words have gender associations, e.g. "Das Radio" in German, which for whatever reason has a neuter definite article. However, once we get into pronouns, him, her, it, all bets are off. Jesus is easy, because clearly he was male from a physiological perspective. And since He referred to God as Father, there really isn't too much to get confused about there, either, although "God" referred to Himself as both father and mother in the OT. Jesus also referred to the Holy Spirit as "he," e.g. John 15:26. Problem sorted.[/quote]

It's not complicated. PEOPLE make it complicated.

God is neither male nor female.

We refer to him in the masculine because Jesus revealed him as Father.

He embodies attributes of both Mother and Father. Why? Because male and female natures were created in his image. That means mothers and fathers were created in God's image. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem and cried that he desired to love Jerusalem as a mother. (Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her young under her wings.) Jesus could express feminine and maternal love because he was God and a real Man.

The subject of the thread was not initiated to ask about Jesus' revelation of God as Father. It was about God as gender. Just because I said God is neither male nor female (he isn't) doesn't mean I was saying he isn't our Faither. Of course he's our Father. I think it's asinine for anyone to even have to point that out.

It's also asinine for people to read a person's comments and draw false conclusions.

[kujo]

I saw a surfer kid the other day with a shirt that said "God is a Dude."

'Nuff said.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='Galloglasses' post='1534921' date='May 20 2008, 02:57 PM']And no, God does not inhabit characteristics of the mother, that, strangely enough, is Christ's job. The idea that God is both Mother and Father is, ironically, heresy.[/quote]

*sigh*

People like YOU are such a drag. People like YOU are the reason Phatmass regularly starts off with decent exchanges of ideas between intelligent and respectful people and then spirals down into chaos. Because of RUDE, FALSE, and OFFENSIVE statements like you just made. Statements that make people like me very angry and want to lash out.

Learn your catechism before you make such statement ever again!!!!!!!


[b]Catechism, #370. It says: "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infininte perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband."[/b]

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='Galloglasses' post='1534921' date='May 20 2008, 02:57 PM']But I'll get out of this for now till I see where this topic leads.[/quote]

Thanks to me and not to YOU, it led straight to the Catechism.

[kujo]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1534940' date='May 20 2008, 05:07 PM']*sigh*

People like YOU are such a drag. People like YOU are the reason Phatmass regularly starts off with decent exchanges of ideas between intelligent and respectful people and then spirals down into chaos. Because of RUDE, FALSE, and OFFENSIVE statements like you just made. Statements that make people like me very angry and want to lash out.

Learn your catechism before you make such statement ever again!!!!!!!
[b]Catechism, #370. It says: "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infininte perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband."[/b][/quote]

Haha...you laid it down there, Madame.

[Apotheoun]

Christ reveals the Triune God in masculine terms in the New Testament, and the Church is not free to alter that revealed teaching.

Thus, the first person of the Trinity is Father, the sole source of divinity, and He is called Father because He generates the Son and processes the Holy Spirit. While the second person of the Trinity is the Logos and Son of God, who is eternally begotten of the Father alone, and who becomes man through the incarnation. And finally, the third person of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, the sole source of the Church's sanctity, and of all holiness.

Now, of the three persons of the Trinity only the Son can be thought of as "Mother," for He is the Head of His body, which is the Church, the new mother of all the living, and the union between Christ and His body is so intimate that they form one living Man stretching throughout time.

Ultimately, the Christian tradition identifies God with the masculine gender, and the Church, i.e., the people of God, with the feminine.

The union between God and mankind is -- in the final analysis -- spousal.

[Deb]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1534940' date='May 20 2008, 04:07 PM']*sigh*

People like YOU are such a drag. People like YOU are the reason Phatmass regularly starts off with decent exchanges of ideas between intelligent and respectful people and then spirals down into chaos. Because of RUDE, FALSE, and OFFENSIVE statements like you just made. Statements that make people like me very angry and want to lash out.

Learn your catechism before you make such statement ever again!!!!!!!


[b]Catechism, #370. It says: "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infininte perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband."[/b][/quote]

While that part of the Catechism is true, and we can all agree that God is pure spirit, when it comes to referring to God, he will always be male and the father.
In 239 it states that.."He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, althought he is their original standard: no one is father as God is Father.

240 goes on to say Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."


[sup][size=3]Everyone can debate the semantics of God being genderless or trying to make him female but, he is and always be referred to as Father. The term Father denotes male so that is the way most people are going to think of him. [/size][/sup]

[Apotheoun]

One must be careful when quoting CCC #370 that he does not take it in isolation, because through the incarnation God truly, and not in mere appearance, became man (i.e., a concretely existing male individual).

[Deb]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1534978' date='May 20 2008, 04:34 PM']One must be careful when quoting CCC #370 that he does not take it in isolation, because through the incarnation God truly, and not in mere appearance, became man (i.e., a concretely existing male individual).[/quote]

I agree completely. There is always something more to be considered.

[Galloglasses]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1534940' date='May 20 2008, 03:07 PM']*sigh*

People like YOU are such a drag. People like YOU are the reason Phatmass regularly starts off with decent exchanges of ideas between intelligent and respectful people and then spirals down into chaos. Because of RUDE, FALSE, and OFFENSIVE statements like you just made. Statements that make people like me very angry and want to lash out.[/quote]

You're one to talk Miss. I wasn't aiming to make people lash out. Thanks for the personal commentary. I appreciate it

Edited May 20, 2008 by Galloglasses

[CatherineM]

I've never had trouble viewing God as father and as nurturer because my dad was the main nurturer in our house. My problem comes with inclusive language texts that bend over so backward to not offend anyone that they gut the meanings of the text. I still like the idea that the apostles were "fishers of men" rather than they would "fish for people." That kind of creeps me out like "Soyulent Green is people" did.