God as Mother.

Thatgirloncfforums

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As Adam is not our Father, Neither is Eve our "Mother". There is no Mother, i guess unless you are Catholic...then It's Mary, but I think she's just Jesus' mother.
Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. So she is our mother. Zion too, is our mother per Paul. All women are mothers in potentia

My point is, that, since God is existence, the great I AM, then all that exists must have their source in him. Woman exist, therefore, Woman must have her source in God.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. So she is our mother. Zion too, is our mother per Paul. All women are mothers in potentia

My point is, that, since God is existence, the great I AM, then all that exists must have their source in him. Woman exist, therefore, Woman must have her source in God.

The following is from the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar from his short work Credo: Reflections on the Apostles' Creed,

"'I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.' Three statements about God: he is Father, Almighty, and Creator.

That he is Father we know in utmost fullness from Jesus Christ, who constantly makes loving, thankful, and reverent reference to him as his Origin. It is because he bears fruit out of himself and requires no fructifying that he is called Father, and not in the sexual sense, for he will be the Creator of man and woman, and thus contains the primal qualities of woman in himself in the same simultaneously transcending way as those of man. (The Greek gennad can imply both siring and bearing, as can the word for to come into being: ginomai.)
" - Balthasar, Credo, Part I, (emphasis in bold, mine).

Since we don't have a "divine masculine" there is no need for a supposed "divine feminine". Man and woman, male and female, bear the Divine Image. All human beings, regardless of sex, gender, anatomy, or any other thing, bear the Divine Image. The Image marred by sin and the Fall, restored in Christ for us.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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jamiec

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In what ways is God our actual Mother?
In what ways is God a Rock, or Fire, or Warrior ?

I think the answer is, in substance at least, the same. Except that those three ways of speaking of God have Biblical warrant, whereas the first of those does not. Maybe that has something to do with the widespread worship among Israel’s neighbours of goddesses and mother-goddesses.

The notion that there is sexual differentiation within the Godhead is, of course, patently false.

God is better & greater than any mother, just as God is better than any rock, or fire, or warrior, or anything else within creation. God is better and greater than creatures, and is not to be numbered among them. God can in certain respects be compared with creatures - but God is not truly Comparable with any of them: For they are God’s handiwork, not He theirs.
 
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jamiec

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The following is from the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar from his short work Credo: Reflections on the Apostles' Creed,

"'I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.' Three statements about God: he is Father, Almighty, and Creator.

That he is Father we know in utmost fullness from Jesus Christ, who constantly makes loving, thankful, and reverent reference to him as his Origin. It is because he bears fruit out of himself and requires no fructifying that he is called Father, and not in the sexual sense, for he will be the Creator of man and woman, and thus contains the primal qualities of woman in himself in the same simultaneously transcending way as those of man. (The Greek gennad can imply both siring and bearing, as can the word for to come into being: ginomai.)
" - Balthasar, Credo, Part I, (emphasis in bold, mine).

Since we don't have a "divine masculine" there is no need for a supposed "divine feminine". Man and woman, male and female, bear the Divine Image. All human beings, regardless of sex, gender, anatomy, or any other thing, bear the Divine Image. The Image marred by sin and the Fall, restored in Christ for us.

-CryptoLutheran
I thought the very last paragraph was the best part of that. von Balthasar is too woffly for my liking. Though his point about transcendence was well-made.
 
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jamiec

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:scratch:
She is a distinct being but she had a unique role to play. God created her especially for her purpose and His plan.
She's still a distinct being, right or is she just a distinct mode of being?
She's still a distinct being, right or is she just a distinct mode of being?
There is no sense whatever in which the BVM is more than a creature. A very greatly graced & very blessed creature, to be sure, but nothing more than a creature. There is an infinite “distance between” the Infinite All-Glorious God, the Holy One, “Whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain”, and the most favoured and divinised of creatures.

As for Lady Wisdom & all that: Wisdom in Prov 8.22 is what is known as an hypostasis – that is, a personified attribute of the God of Israel (or, outside Israel, of other major gods).

A famous example outside Israel of personified attributes is the divine pair Mesharu (“Justice”) & Kettu (“Uprightness”), who are found in the religion of Babylonia as attendants of the god Shamash, who as the all-seeing Sun is the god of justice. It is Shamash who on the Hammurabi stele hands to Hammurabi the laws of which the text is written on the stele.

A 9th-century tablet showing Shamash in his temple, attended by Kettu & Mesharu, with his Sun-emblem on a table: Tablet of Shamash - Wikipedia

Other, suspected, hypostases in Israel are found in Psalm 89:14 Psalm 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; loving devotion and faithfulness go before You.

- and in Psalm 85:10, 13: Psalm 85 BSB
 
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