A Genderless God
The Christian, feminist philosopher Mary Daly has argued before about the inherent oppression tied into our view of God as a man. Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This image of people being created in the image of God leads to disparities among women in Christianity. God is seen as foreign to the creation of women yet similar and familiar to the creation of man. This dichotomy presents issues for women of religion, especially women in the hierarchy of the church. Having God be ascribed one gender over another inherently grants the gender similar to God's an aspect of holiness and righteousness. The argument is laid out below:
1. If God is made in the image of man, then God is not female.
2. If God is not female, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
3. If God is made in the image of man, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
As a point of clarification, this argument is not seeking to feminize God but rather to view God as a genderless being. This means that people of any gender identity or expression can have the ability to see themselves in God, truly allowing everyone to be made in the image of God. The inherent view of God as male contributes to patriarchal roles because it causes women in the church to be ‘othered,' or cast out for their differences and deviation from the norm. Since women are viewed as different from their Creator and men are viewed to be similar, a disparity arises in the importance granted to genders within the church. Many people already have a perspective of God being a separate entity from us, working for the greater good through omnipotence while being physically separated from Earth. If God is already viewed as a physically separate entity, working spiritually within all, then why would they need a gender? God should be viewed as an omnipotent entity in our universe and the ascribing of gender roles to God creates a hierarchy within the church that undermines the presence of women. Although the gendered image of God has become the norm for Christianity, viewing God through a genderless perspective aligns with the view of God as a separate entity and also allows for every person to truly be created in the image of God.
1. If God is made in the image of man, then God is not female.
2. If God is not female, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
3. If God is made in the image of man, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
As a point of clarification, this argument is not seeking to feminize God but rather to view God as a genderless being. This means that people of any gender identity or expression can have the ability to see themselves in God, truly allowing everyone to be made in the image of God. The inherent view of God as male contributes to patriarchal roles because it causes women in the church to be ‘othered,' or cast out for their differences and deviation from the norm. Since women are viewed as different from their Creator and men are viewed to be similar, a disparity arises in the importance granted to genders within the church. Many people already have a perspective of God being a separate entity from us, working for the greater good through omnipotence while being physically separated from Earth. If God is already viewed as a physically separate entity, working spiritually within all, then why would they need a gender? God should be viewed as an omnipotent entity in our universe and the ascribing of gender roles to God creates a hierarchy within the church that undermines the presence of women. Although the gendered image of God has become the norm for Christianity, viewing God through a genderless perspective aligns with the view of God as a separate entity and also allows for every person to truly be created in the image of God.
Comments (54)
I'm not sure to what extent anyone interested in a discussion like this around these parts will disagree with you. I wonder if the discussion would be more lively on a religion forum.
That being said, Jewish mysticism has a tradition of viewing God as male and female. Two of the 10 sefirots, Binah and Malkut are female, and they correspond to the Shekhinah Glory, or "divine presence".
Myself, I think that gender is over-emphasized in general, whether from a conservative Christian perspective, or a secular feminist one.
I don't agree with this.
Or is the fact that the Virgin Mary, a symbol of purity and virtue, is female also oppressive to men?
Not really. It can be interpreted metaphorically that Father's are traditionally the protectors of the family, and historically the bread-winners. God is proclaiming Himself as our protector and supplier.
In the NT there are passages that state God is not a man, but rather a Spirit. (1 John 4:12 say, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." In Exodus 33:20 God says, "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.")
However, in the Bible we see masculine pronouns and responsibilities in order to reveal Himself to us. By using the male titles, God supposedly made it easier for us to understand Him [Jesus]. But there again, there are translation issues, lost gospels, early church politics, and other information that could have shed better light on that... .
The so-called "philosopher's god" was typically viewed as an abstraction with no physical features. But the gods of traditional religions typically reflected the stratified social conditions of ancient times. Tribal gods would tend to be more egalitarian, but the gods of urbanized people were modeled on their kings, who were almost always militaristic males. They wouldn't have viewed their gods as oppressive to women, since they didn't see their wives as oppressed, but merely playing different roles in society, a step above children and slaves.
Women in our modern cultures, who have jobs outside the home, and mechanical slaves to do much of the scut work, live in a different world. But they are still dominated by men, simply because the male gender characteristics (e.g. aggressiveness) haven't evolved to suit the more integrated organization of society. But women can now imagine a deity who is more female friendly than those arrogant ancient tyrants.
In my personal worldview, there is still a role for a First Cause deity. However, that role is defined not to reflect modern, slightly more democratic & equitable social conditions, but to suit the logical requirements of an immaterial world creator outside of space & time. My G*D is an abstract metaphysical entity, with mental properties similar to those of humans, but no material physical body. That means no hormones or emotions, and no genitals or gender. Not even a hermaphrodite.
Unfortunately, I suspect that such a vaguely defined deity would not appeal to most people, including theistic feminists. It would be suitable only for those who are philosophically inclined, and who have less need for the community of the various religious tribes who still try to maintain a tenuous connection to those ancient personalized gods & goddesses.
Philosopher's god : "The God of the ancient philosophers is an abstract object; he has all the reality of the square root of 16. This so-called God is not alive. He is beyond time and change, not the Ancient of Days but the Eternal One. The God of the philosophers is passionless, incapable of being moved to hot anger and tears by the human condition. He is serene and untroubled. . . . "
http://home.nwciowa.edu/wacome/gbgp.htm
If God is the powerful rulers and also a man, then it suggests that men are powerful rulers--over whom? Women usually. Ergo, women become oppressed.
The Virgin Mary symbolism would simply absolve men of, but impose on women, the need to be pure (ie, chaste) and obviously, that's exactly how it's played out socially.
That's all projection.
When positive qualities are attributed to one sex, it doesn't follow that the opposite sex is devoid of such qualities. That's the unconscious, false step people make all the time, but that step is being made in no other place than their own heads. Likewise for the idea that the presence of a positive quality in the opposite sex would confer some form of superiority.
Quoting Artemis
This is nonsense. Chasteness is taught as a Christian virtue to both men and women. Or does 'no sex out of wedlock' apply just to women?
Projection, projection, projection!
Are you hoping if you just repeat yourself, you'll magically be right without paying any attention to the way Christianity has actually affected society and the way people behave/what they believe?
Of course it's projection. But not mine; it's how the majority of Christians follow the teachings of the Bible.
Of course it's not!
Don't mean to double-team, but indeed you've hit a nerve there:
"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . .. They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres." (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p. 214)
Some atheists should take a chill-pill and use a little common sense. I think one can safely infer that God is spirit, and not 'a man'. But I suppose that would be Metaphysical LOL.
I think it would, however, be mistaken to blame the oppression of women on the rise of christianity (or any specific religion). Women were essentially considered property in ancient and pre-modern China as well. Almost all societies around the globe, with some exceptions, were patrilineal, which means that women could not inherit property and had to integrate into their husband's family without having any initial status.
Christianity might actually have been beneficial to women in the long term, less because of it's content and more because it destroyed traditional kinship structures in western Europe, leading to different marriage patterns and a higher rate of women owning property.
I would say, Christianity didn't invent it, but it was founded on it, benefited from it, and endorsed it.
Quoting Echarmion
Maybe in some ways, and not so much in other ways. It's holding the US back at the moment.
As does every other. The traditional sense of gender is as extro- ambi- and introversion; rather than the mockup that's taken its place.
Quoting Artemis
I don't see how it would benefit from it, considering women are the prominent benefactor of Christianity.
And if it endorses such behaviour, then why did Jesus defend the woman caught in adultery, against the Jewish law?
There are few choice that fit human experience: Either God is male, female, or neuter. Most gods are male or female.
You should known that "mankind" and "man" when it is a general reference, is a gendered Anglo-Saxon term that applies to all humans, male and female.
In additoin to that, there are 3,407 versions of bible translation in English. Some say "He created him in his own image", some say "He created Adam in his own image", some say "He created man in his own image," etc. etc.
You can't cherry pick which version to use. Or maybe you can, and you should, because if you read enough bible, you'll see that it contradicts its own self more ways than you can pronounce the name of god.
Beat me to it.
Better evidence of his maleness is that he's referred to as the Father. If He were a She, He couldn't have banged Mary and given us Jesus I suppose. But, as noted, there's plenty of room within most religions to treat God as genderless and even without any human form at all.
At any rate, if one is looking for sexism within religion, one needn't look far, so I think the the OP's point might be conceded that women might feel unwelcome in certain churches (but not others).
Can, for instance, someone who is immaterial have a gender? That is, can there be non-physical minds that have genders, or is gender something that belongs to physical bodies?
If God were male, then God would be involved in sexual reproduction. Why else do two sexes exist? That means that God would be meant to have a wife and children. The Quran strictly rejects that view. The Quran insists that God has absolutely NO wife and NO children:
Quran 6:100. Allah is the creator of the heavens and the earth. How could He have a son when He does not have a wife? He created all things and He is all-knowing.
Therefore, in Islam, the concept of gender simply does not apply to God. Hence, in Islam god is indeed viewed as being genderless.
Some women might feel unwelcome in certain churches... because most churches have large numbers of women as members.
Our most elevated conceptions about god (God) are beyond gender.
Awesome questions! It reminds me of that movie (can't remember the name but it had Gene Wilder in it with a bunch of brains in a jar lab talking to one another).
Because I think that God is Spirit only, my instinct is telling me that he is both male and female. Which of course is consistent with the paradox of self-reference, thus defying logic.
Of course the closest we come to that 'physically' is the phenomenon known as 'ambiguous genitalia babies'.
They aren't.
Quoting Shamshir
There are countless examples the in the Bible that suggest adultery is a crime, especially female adultery.
Plain wrong.
Quoting Artemis
Yes, and the one I noted doesn't state otherwise - but it shows that Christianity doesn't endorse oppressing women, but treats them fairly.
1 Timothy 2:12 New International Version (NIV)
12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.
Okiedokie.
My shtick is that our best take on god puts IT (not him, her) beyond gender. Jesus had a body and gender. God did not. Apparently the Archangel Michael or Gabriel, which ever one was responsible for fucking Mary and leaving her a virgin, was embodied enough to get the job done, but let's not get into angelology.
It just depends on how you look at god(s). Indian gods like Shiva or Vishnu are embodied and gendered -- they actually exist in their temple forms (or so I have read). That's fine, nothing wrong with that. It just depends on what culture you are operating from.
You do know that Christianity, primarily, kept women from voting for centuries. in the West, right?
Why would you think Christians thought women equal when in reality they were thought too inferior to vote?
Regards
DL
Are you an angry Atheist?
Christianity has worked hard to take the feminine out of god right from the time they usurped the Jewish god and made him theirs, even though Yahweh was seen by the Jews to be androgynous, just like most of the Eastern gods.
We created them in our image and called them adam. adam, not capitalized means society or the tribe.
Note how in this version, women are called adam.
I also have a link that shows that the grammatical breakdown of Elohim, Yahweh to me, shows god as androgynous.
Start at th3 9.3 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TndLzFZI9A
Regards
DL
What is your definition of a 'moral man'? Was Jesus a 'moral man' too?
So, again, can minds have genders or is that only something that physical bodies can have?
I am inclined to think minds by themselves lack genders - there is no such thing as a female or male mind anymore than there are, say, blue or green minds. Not sure though.
Yes, but even the Kabbalists demeaned women in every way possible. Shekhinah becomes an evil being when she is imbalanced by the lack of the masculine qualities. Isaac Luria is hopelessly spermatocentric...
Ay-vey.
(Yah' miche borum gom chalichban meshugene...)
Doesn't that make perfect sense? Just like how a being with only masculine qualities is horribly unbalanced and will undoubtedly turn away from the Good?
I concur. "Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss!" - The Who, We Won't Get Fooled Again
I guess we see this all the time and everywhere - protectors morphing into oppressors - and the reason is simple: To be able to protect one needs power, mental and physical, and power has a tendency to become corrupted. In fact, quite paradoxically so, power combines with the human weakenesses of greed and narcissism, transforming into oppression.
I guess we could say the problem lies in two truths:
1. All fathers are men
2. Not all men are fathers
That's why God is Father and not Man.
How is the need for gender balance demeaning to either gender?
Quoting Shamshir
Every other what?
The feminine becomes evil when lacking the masculine, but the opposite is never true. At least in Lurianic mysticism, the masculine principle is always the dominant one.
Keyword - in the west.
Meaning only Catholic schmuckery and barbarism.
Tradition.
Ummmm . . .
" I guess we could say the problem lies in two truths:
1. All fathers are men
2. Not all men are fathers
That's why God is Father and not Man. "
Sure, that's a great analogy! Furthers the notion that the Father is metaphorical in the Bible... .
That's a very encouraging analysis and am grateful that you shared that. In a general sense, its comments like those that will help Christianity further its benevolence.
Idealistically, as much as I would have liked to have conceived a 'half woman half man' figure, as absurd as that sounds, I suppose it wouldn't be relatable at all.
1. If God is made in the image of man, then God is not female.
2. If God is not female, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
3. If God is made in the image of man, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
There is a problem in the P1 that the consequent does not follow from the antecedent. It seems like you are saying the same as if someone A, who you don’t know, behaves and dresses up like a man, then he or she is not female. Whether God is made in the image of man or not cannot indicate God’s genuine gender if it has. The image is just how we perceive and consider God which shapes by the Bible or other religious work, and our surrounding environment, etc. What A dresses up and behaves like cannot make any difference on his or her genuine gender. Gender is an intrinsic quality which is settled the moment one was born.
Moreover, the conclusion fails to entail the view of a genderless God. Even if the argument is valid and sound, in fact it’s not, the conclusion can only prove that God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society. If the argument’s goal is to prove that God is genderless so that “people of any gender identity can have the ability to see themselves in God,” then I will say this argument is far from its end.
Another point worth mentioning is that if people of any gender identity are able to know the fact that the masculine God is just a manufactured image made to personify God so that they can understand God easily, gender will not be a problem that disables them to see themselves in God. In this way, they can think of God as female and attempt to understand God from different perspectives other than masculine and genderless. By this I mean, if people know that A being behave and dress up like man aims to self-express and help others to know him or her better, they will not have hard time imagine A as woman. Without the limit of a masculine image, people can freely see themselves in God.
I am entirely in agreement with you in terms of God not needing a gender, as They are beyond this Universe and those conceptual identities of gender. However, what can be said of the value of using gendered pronouns when discussing God.
For example, when we read that humans are made in Imago Dei, the "image of God," then we are immediately connected to God in a way that is inalienable and provides a palatable way to begin one's conceptions of God. If we referred to God without any gendered pronouns would we lose some of the connectivity that was probably intended by the writer(s) of Genesis?
It seems as a concurrent theme throughout the Christian Bible that God is a God who relates to his creation, namely humans. Would it truly be better aligned with the notion of God as a separate entity? In the Gospels we see a portrait of Jesus, who is not wholly God and wholly man. Yes, God is above Creation but God is also fully a part of Creation. Without gender we may lose the foundational understanding that God is both God and Man.
1. If God is made in the image of man, then God is not female.
2. If God is not female, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
3. If God is made in the image of man, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society."
Okay, new point.
So if we are to reverse this to say
1. If God is made in the image of woman, then God is not male ...
3. If God is made in the image of woman, then God contributes to matriarchal in our society.
If the above statement I've copied from Ms. Eagles is true, how would this change the culture of modern Christianity. Would the same disparities in gender occur, however, this time in favor of women?
It seems as if this would follow if the statement is true.
Is it possible that the discrepancies in the church only mimic those of modern society? If God was popularly regarded as a female wouldn't there still be gendered discrimination perhaps in favor for men given the state of society? Churches and religious culture do not operate in a vacuum from secular culture.
Even if we granted that man is made in the image of God, would that mean man is inherently more holy and righteous?
I think this is a well-formed argument, as your conclusion clearly follows from the premises you gave. However, I think you misinterpret the Genesis 1:27 verse for which you base your argument. This misinterpretation is specifically apparent in premise 1.
It seems that the antecedent "if God is made in the image of man" in premise 1 is conveying something very different than the verse that states "So God created mankind in his own image," and I think this difference is coming from the equivocation of the terms "man" and "mankind." By using "man," it is clear that you are using this term to refer to male gender, which is distinctly different from female gender.
However, it seems more likely that when the term "mankind" is used in Genesis 1:27 it is rather referring to all humans in a general sense, instead of a specific gender of humans like the male gender. This is where I think premise 1 is an incorrect representation, since it is obviously interpreting the verse to mean that supposedly God is made in the image of the male gender, which is something different from what the verse is conveying. There may be other ways to craft a similar argument like this one based off different evidence given by the Bible, but I think this one to be an unsound misinterpretation of the verse given, especially since the latter part of the verse says "male and female he created them."
Apart from this objection, I definitely agree that God should be viewed as a genderless being, because there are numerous problematic implications that arise from exclusively referring God as one gender or another. I appreciate your addressing of the issue, as I think it is one not many think about but also one that all Christians can benefit from!
I understand that you have explicitly laid out your argument for not assigning a gender to God as such:
1. If God is made in the image of man, then God is not female.
2. If God is not female, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
3. If God is made in the image of man, then God contributes to patriarchal roles in our society.
I take issue with this argument and both of its premises. The issue I have with Premise 1 of your argument has to do with the wording and the fact that it does not match up with the portion of text you used from Genesis as support. The portion of text you cited from Genesis states:
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (1:27)
The thing I would like to stress about this excerpt from Genesis is that it does not state that God was created in MAN’s image as you claimed in Premise 1, but rather that God created men AND women in his OWN image. With this consideration in mind, your first premise does not make sense. Although I understand that it is off-putting that the pronouns “he” and “his” are used in describing God’s actions in the Bible, this is less a reflection of God having an actual gender and more so a reflection of the writers of the Bible attempting ease of convention in describing God’s actions. Since the Bible states the opposite of your first premise, I reject it as holding any weight in your argument.
The issue I have with Premise 2 of your argument is that if God is not female, which we will assume despite my disproval of your first premise for sake of my objection to this one, God could still go against patriarchal roles in our society. In fact, God does go against patriarchal roles in our society as evidenced by the various influential women in the Bible and the fact that the first thing declared “not good” in the world is the absence of woman in Genesis 2:18.
It is for these reasons that I have a problem with your argument. I agree with you that God should be considered a genderless being, but I don’t think that is what this argument accomplishes. I think you would be better off proving that claim another way.