Who is God? Part 2
So God exists but not in the way that you and I do (see Catholic Questions 1). God is ‘existence’. This means that God is not bound by the sorts of considerations that impact on creation. For example, time, place, and change have no impact on God. Everything is ‘present’ for God. Everywhere is ‘here’ for God. God is a ‘constant’, and for God, nothing ever changes.
But an assertion of the existence of God is not the only thought raised by the first line of the Apostles Creed. To 'believe in' something starts with agreeing it exists, but it is much more dynamic than that. For example, if I were to say 'I believe in you', I wouldn't just be saying that I agree you exist. I would be saying I have confidence in you, that I trust you and, possibly, that I love you. The same applies to the words 'I believe in God'. By claiming these words as true, the Christian makes an act of trust and love in the One whose very existence is the source of our own.
But what of the next line: 'the Father almighty'? It is here that the limitations of language in the contemporary context begin to bite. For a start, it makes no sense to say the God is either male or female. God is both genders and none. However, there are various reasons why the image of 'father' is placed on God, and they are worth considering. First among them is that Jesus, whom we will discuss further down the track, described God in this way. He had his reasons for doing so. One of them was cultural. The culture into which he was born had a long, but not consistent, history of thinking of God in the masculine. Some argue they did this to distinguish God from the female fertility goddesses of the time. Whatever the reason, this had become the habit of thought Jesus was to inherit.
But there is more to it than that. While acknowledging that God is undoubtedly beyond gender, the image of 'father' may depict an essential truth about the relationship between God and creation. While a child cannot exist without the genetic material provided by the father, the child's existence is independent of the father in a much more obvious way than is the case with the mother. For the period of its gestation and years beyond, the child and the mother are deeply interwoven. Therefore, it can be argued that the image of God as 'father' more accurately reflects the reality of creation's relationship with God: one of deep dependence but also profound independence.
However, that is not to undermine the importance of the feminine in God. There is an authentic strand within the Judeo-Christian tradition that highlights the feminine attributes of God, and celebrates the 'motherhood' of God (see Psalms 17:8; 57:1; 91:4). Also, it needs to be taken into account that some find thinking about God as 'father' much too difficult, especially given their experience of their own fathers. In a society in which we are called to address the dark side of masculinity, this needs to be taken seriously. But a word of caution: it is not our men who define what fatherhood means in reference to God. It is God who defines what fatherhood should mean for our men. We look to God to show us what 'fatherhood' should be, not the other way around. That being said, because of the complexities to do with masculine imagery, you will find that any reference to God on this website will avoid gendered imagery where possible. The obvious exceptions will be quotations and any situation where the constant use of 'God' becomes too ungainly.
More in Part 3