If asked, most Fundamentalist Christians would tell you that God is a male. Indeed, most of them would probably answer the question without any pause or consideration of their answer. After all, the Bible is full of male pronouns referring to God (from Genesis to Revelation). So the answer to the question is obvious - Right?
We read: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." Genesis 1:27 Doesn't that imply that both the man and the woman were created in God's image? The Hebrew word translated into English as image implies a shadow of the original and is used throughout the Old Testament to refer to idols.
Moreover, if men are from Mars and women are from Venus (in other words, if there really are differences in the way that the two sexes think), doesn't that suggest that God divided to them different aspects of the Divine character/personality? Could that be part of the reason why the union of the two makes them one in God's sight? Put another way, does the union of a man and a woman reunite those traits of the Almighty on a human plane?
According to the Gospels, Jesus Christ said that people will not marry in the resurrection - the clear implication being that there won't be any males or females when we are reborn. Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25 and Luke 20:35 Paul told the saints of Galatia: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
What about Jesus Christ referring to Almighty God as his Father? Didn't God impregnate Christ's mother Mary? If you are a Christian, the answer to both questions is YES. So what does that prove? It proves that Almighty God certainly has the capacity to act in the role of a father. However, it does not exclude God from having the capacity to act in the role of a mother. "But He did impregnate Mary," my Fundamentalist friends will insist. Are you saying then that there is a female deity? Is Mary truly the Queen of Heaven? We must be careful in what we extrapolate from the information given to us in Scripture!
Aren't we trying to contain God when we limit God to the male gender? Doesn't Almighty God encompass the traits of both genders?
Here's another biological question: Did Jesus get half of his DNA from Mary? If yes, is God (via the Holy Trinity) now contaminated with human DNA? What are the implications?
ReplyDeleteIn responding to your questions, I'm assuming that you are asking them in good faith or are attempting to raise a legitimate question about the logic of the gospel accounts of Christ's parentage. Frankly, I think that the gospel accounts reveal very little definitive information about Christ's parentage and birth (scholars would say that's because the authors didn't know very much about the actual events and constructed their accounts based on Old Testament prophecies).
DeleteI, along with many Christian theologians, believe that Jesus was fully human during his sojourn on this earth. And, if that's the case, he would have had the full compliment of human DNA (paternal and maternal). Did God use Joseph's DNA to impregnate Mary? We don't know, but it's certainly within God's power to do so (and I don't think that would contradict anything in the gospel accounts).
When Christ was resurrected, the New Testament indicates that he was a Spirit - no longer human (hence, no DNA). Likewise, Scripture informs us that, when Christians are resurrected or changed, we too will be Spirits (no longer composed of flesh and blood and DNA). Hence, according to Scripture at least, it appears that contamination would not be a problem.