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Does God have a gender?

Jaron

By Jaron
in The Tailgate

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Jaron

Jaron

Posted
Posted

So, I know in the bible that it refers to God as a male, but thats something that obviously can't be "proven."

I was just curious as to what some of our resident christians' opinions were on this subject..

Male? Female? An asexual being?

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Zguy28

Zguy28

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Posted

The Father is not flesh, that He should be called male or female. He is spirit.

Jesus, when speaking to a Samaritan women said:

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

Emphasis mine.

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techboy

techboy

Posted
Posted

God transcends gender, but He presented Himself to the world as male. This is a pretty good write-up of the basic concept:

Question: "Is God male or female?"

Answer: In examining Scripture, two facts become clear: First, that God is a Spirit, and does not possess human characteristics or limitations; second, that all the evidence contained in Scripture agrees that God revealed Himself to mankind in a male form. First of all, God’s true nature needs to be understood. God is a person, obviously, because God exhibits all the characteristics of personhood: God has a mind, a will, an intellect, and emotions. God communicates, has relationships, and God’s personal actions are evidenced throughout Scripture.

As John 4:24 states, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Since God is a spiritual being, God does not possess physical human characteristics. However, sometimes figurative language used in Scripture assigns human characteristics to God in order to make it possible for man to understand God. This assignment of human characteristics to describe God is called “anthropomorphism.” Anthropomorphism is simply a means for God (a spiritual being) to communicate truth about His nature to mankind, a physical being. Since man is a physical being, man is limited in his understanding of those things beyond the physical realm, and anthropomorphism in Scripture helps man to understand who God is.

Some of the difficulty comes in examining the fact that man is created in God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27 says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His [own] image, in the image of God created he Him; male and female created He them.”

What this means is that both man and woman are created in the image of God, in that they are greater than all the other creations as they, like God, have a mind, will, intellect, emotions, and moral capacity. Animals do not possess a moral capacity, and do not possess an immaterial component like mankind does. Genesis tells us that when man was created by God, God created man in His own image. The image of God is the spiritual component that man alone possesses. God created man to have a relationship with Him; man is the only creation designed for that purpose.

That said, man and woman are only patterned after the image of God—they are not tiny “carbon copies” of God, and the fact that there are men and women does not require that God have male and female features. Remember, being made in the image of God has nothing to do with physical characteristics.

We know that God is a spiritual being, and does not possess physical characteristics. This does not limit, however, how God may choose to reveal Himself to mankind. Scripture contains all the revelation God gave to man about Himself, and so is the only really objective source of information about God. In looking at what Scripture tells us, there are several observations of evidence about the form in which God revealed Himself to mankind:

To begin with, Scripture contains almost 170 references to God as the “Father.” By necessity, one cannot be a father unless he is male. If God had chosen to be revealed to man in a female form, then the word “mother” would have occurred in these places, not “father.” In the Old and New Testament both, masculine pronouns are used over and over again in reference to God.

Jesus Christ referred to God as the Father several times, and in other cases used masculine pronouns in reference to God. In the Gospels alone, Christ uses the term “Father” in direct reference to God nearly 160 times. Of particular interest is Christ’s statement in John 10:30. He says here, “I and [my] Father are one.” Obviously, Jesus Christ came in the form of a human man to die on the cross as payment for the sins of the world, and, like God the Father, was revealed to mankind in a male form. Scripture records numerous other instances where Christ utilized masculine nouns and pronouns in reference to God.

The New Testament Epistles (from Acts to Revelation) also contain nearly 900 verses where the word “theos”—a masculine noun in the Greek—is used in direct reference to God. In most cases, this is rendered “God” in English versions.

In countless references to God in Scripture, there is clearly a consistent pattern of His being referred to with masculine titles, nouns, and pronouns. While God is not a man, but is a Spirit, He chose a masculine form in order to reveal Himself to mankind. Likewise, Jesus Christ, who is constantly referred to with masculine titles, nouns, and pronouns, took a male form while He walked on the earth. The prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament refer to both God and Jesus Christ with masculine names and titles. God chose to be revealed in this form in order for man to more easily grasp who God is. To assert that God chose a female form to be revealed to man is not consistent with the pattern established by Scripture. Again, had God chosen a feminine form, there would be more evidence in Scripture of that. That evidence simply does not exist. While God makes allowances in order to help mankind understand Him, it is important to not try to “force God into a box,” so to speak, by placing limitations on Him that are not appropriate to the nature of who He is.

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rincewind

rincewind

Posted
Posted
The Father is not flesh, that He should be called male or female. He is spirit.

Jesus, when speaking to a Samaritan women said:

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

Emphasis mine.

Then shouldn't He be It?

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alexey

alexey

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Posted

How much useful information can one get based on Bible refering to God as a male? hmmmm it seems we have to take into consideration that the Bible came out of a patriarchical society. Any powerful being would automatically be assumed to be a male, and written about as such.

Crude Example:

What happened: God performed a miracle.

Bible's account: "God, he performed a miracle."

The same thing could have happened with Jesus talking about God as a "Father." He could have just as easily been saying "Parent" back then... heck, he wasn't even speaking English, right? :) Does anybody even know if the language Jesus spoke contains separate words for "Father" and "Mother"?? ;)

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TMK9973

TMK9973

Posted
Posted

Anyone who has lived with their Pregnet wife or girlfriend, Seen what they go through, been with them during the birth, and watched what happens to their body, the pain, the sickness, and the after effect can clearly see that there is no way God is a woman.....

:)

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techboy

techboy

Posted
Posted

The same thing could have happened with Jesus talking about God as a "Father." He could have just as easily been saying "Parent" back then... heck, he wasn't even speaking English, right? :)

Who knows? It's all Greek to me!

Seriously, uh, no. Greek has a word for father, and a word for mother. Jesus used the word for father, not parent. Further, Greek has masculine and feminine words, something we're not really used to in English, but which occurs in many other languages.

Read the article.

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Predicto

Predicto

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Posted

I view this as a three step philosophical question.

1) premise: God is perfect

2) What is the most perfect thing we humans can visualise?

a smoking hot woman, of course.

3) Conclusion: since God is perfect, ergo God clearly is a woman.

This logic cannot be refuted by mortal man.

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alexey

alexey

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Who knows? It's all Greek to me!

Seriously, uh, no. Greek has a word for father, and a word for mother. Jesus used the word for father, not parent. Further, Greek has masculine and feminine words, something we're not really used to in English, but which occurs in many other languages.

I was under the impression Jesus spoke Aramaic...

So we take "Abwoon d'bwashmaya" or whatever,translate that as "Our Father"... and then claim that Jesus spoke about God as a male, used the word for Father and not for Parent, etc?? What happens if we translate that as "O Birther, Father-Mother of the Cosmos, You create all that moves in light"???

There are many ways to translate words. Surely it would be nonsense to argue that different words from different languages have identical meaning (a word only makes sense in context of its language, and the very concept of "identical meaning" requires identical contexts). Surely it would be shortsighted to set limits on meaning of the original word based on the translation.

As you can probably tell I am somewhat allergic to (and very sceptical of) arguments that attempt to limit the meaning of sacred texts written in ancient languages to a particular translation/interpretation.

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