Monday, May 6, 2019

Why "God the Father"? PragerU Perspective

This recent PragerU video gives a strong argument for the practical value of referring to God as a "He."  Mr. Prager's perspective is characteristically kept on the applied, social-political level of human experience, and everything he proposes here is valid and well supported:

PragerU "why God is a He"


I just wanted to add that there are other layers of additional reasons, as well.  For example, theologically speaking, the Catholic answer to this question also includes the notion that God's primary identification in scripture is as masculine because God is "outside" of our experience (outside space/time/material existence) and comes "into" us to create life.  If you think about that for just a moment you'll see how that is inherently better described by masculine rather than feminine identification.

Note also that while the Bible does consistently refer to God as "He," sometimes in the Bible God uses feminine imagery to describe "Himself."  For example, the image of God as a mother bird, longing to enfold Israel under her wings to keep the nation safe.  And finally, of course, it is important to remember that when God made humans "in God's image," the Bible is very specific that this includes "male and female" humans, so--as Mr. Prager properly points out--God transcends our limited notion of male and female, all people are made in God's image, whether male or female, masculine or feminine, but still, just as all human beings have a human father who "gave us life" (whether currently present in their lives or absent), so too we all have an eternal Father who created our very lives, and Who is ever-present.

In this current culture with so many fathers absent from their children's lives, Mr. Prager is right to point out that the existence of this Father, and the hope of relationship with Him, is an essential hope to cling to--for the sake of our civilization's continued survival.

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