God: Male or Female? EZ to Understand Edition

God: Male or Female? EZ to Understand Edition

It is agreed that God cannot be characterized as either male or female. Pope Benedict XVI answers this question early in his interview with author Peter Seewald in his "Salt of the Earth" series of books. Pope Benedict does not go into detail (I can't quote here because my books are in storage) but I remember the question is quite early in the first book, and the Holy Father explains that God cannot be thought of in gender terms. I think Benedict also points out both paternal and maternal qualities of God in his answer.

Having said that, it is obvious that God chooses to interact with humankind as "God the Father", a male. When God appeared to Abraham he appeared in human male form, along with two other angels, also "males." (You can read that section in the 1st of my 3 posts in my "What Does God Look Like?" series.) So people do not have to argue about what Genesis 1:27 means where "God created man in his image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them." Those who have a social axe to grind can argue about that, but there is no mistaking that whenever God appears to humankind in human form, he is a male, and he expects to be treated as "God the Father." Jesus Christ constantly refers to God as "His Father." Therefore the Abrahamic faiths (Jewish, Christian, Islam) all acknowledge God in his interaction with humankind as a MALE and FATHER, but in God's substance, mysterious and undefinable beyond gender.

Further, throughout the Old Testament and the New, the relationship between the Church/temple and God/Jesus Christ are described as a marriage between a woman (the Church/temple) and a man (God/Jesus Christ.) God repeatedly presents himself as the Father, the husband, the groom in his interactions with the bride Church, and thus the people. And so it should be no shock to anyone that Jesus Christ as God's Son was a heterosexual (albeit virgin) male, and that the Virgin Mary was a heterosexual (albeit virgin) female. I can't believe that I have to type this out for people, but reading what I've been reading in some circles these past years, someone has got to say it. As I chant to myself, "There is no such thing as a dumb question except the one unasked." What irritates me is not the asking, but the heretical harpies who actually quote sound bytes from the Bible to promote a gender agenda without actually oh, you know, reading the Bible and comprehending that when God appears as a man, he's sending a message folks, that he is God the Father, as Jesus the Son states so clearly.

The Holy Spirit is often referred to in the feminine. Read Wisdom 1:3-5: For perverse counsels separate a man from God, and his power, put to the proof, rebukes the foolhardy.; because into a soul that plots evil wisdom enters not, nor dwells SHE in a body under debt of sin. for the holy spirit of discipline flees deceit and withdraws from senseless counsels; and when wickedness occurs it is rebuked. And in (6): For wisdom is a kindly spirit, yet SHE acquits not the blasphemer of his guilty lips; because God is the witness of his inmost self... And in (7): For the spirit of the Lord fills the world, is all-embracing, and knows man's utterance...