Posted on 12/21/2012 2:56:23 PM PST by SeekAndFind
BERLIN (Reuters) - A minister in Angela Merkel's government has sparked a pre-Christmas row among Germany's ruling parties by suggesting God be referred to with the neutral article "das" instead of the masculine "der".
Family Minister Kristina Schroeder made the comments when asked in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit how she explained to her young daughter the use of the masculine form for God.
"The article is not important," she responded, adding that it was fine to use "das" instead of the traditional "der" when referring to God.
The remarks were immediately denounced by members of Schroeder's own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
"This intellectualized nonsense leaves me speechless," Christine Haderthauer, Bavarian social minister, told top-selling daily Bild.
Stefan Mueller, a CSU lawmaker, said he was "bewildered" by Schroeder's "inappropriate" comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Why do mentally ill (leftists not to be redundant) always feel the need to share their brainfarts with the world?
I don’t see why it matters. Assigning a sex to God is stupid right out of the box. Since there seems to be no Creator of the opposite sex, it would make sense that the Creator would be both, or neither.
RE: I don’t see why it matters.
It only matters if you are a Bible Believing Christian who believes that we do not decide how we approach God. we approach God ON HIS TERMS, not ours.
Since God reveals Himself in the masculine form and His full revelation of Himself is as THE SON OF GOD and THE SON OF MAN, we simply BY FAITH, accept this revelation and approach Him the way He revealed Himself.
Now if feminism and gender are more important to someone than Biblical revelation, there’s nothing we can do about it. The person will have to take it up with God when they meet someday.
“Himself is as THE SON OF GOD and THE SON OF MAN, we simply BY FAITH, accept this revelation and approach Him the way He revealed Himself.”
No... The son of God could be the Son of a woman or a man or neither. Indeed God didn’t reveal his sex. Jesus referred to God as Father, but Jesus was Jewish after all... Jesus often spoke in parables. What would you expect him to say to the Jews of that time?
Good question!!! Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, Chris Matthews et al seem to fart their garbled brains all over the airwaves all the time.
RE: No... The son of God could be the Son of a woman or a man or neither
True, But Jesus STILL referred to Himself as the SON OF MAN SCORES OF TIMES.
The Hebrew expression “son of man” (i.e. ben-’adam) appears one hundred and seven times in the Hebrew Bible.
He was also born MALE ( when He could have been born Female ). There is no way we can refer to Him other than what He tells us to do.
The names for Christ—Iesus and Christos—are masculine. And Jesus is presented in the male roles of a shepherd (Matthew 25:32; John 10:11-18), a prophet (Luke 13:33), a priest (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 7:24-28), a bridegroom (Matthew 22:1-4), and a son (Mark 1:11; John 3:16 [John mentions the father-son relationship more than 60 times in his Gospel]; Hebrews 1:2-3).
Why God chose to use the male gender as opposed to the female gender is something you and I will have to find out beyond the grave, but the majority of evidence from scripture indicates He wants us to know and understand Him as our FATHER (not Mother) in heaven.
Furthermore, male metaphors frequently are applied to God.
In fact, Male names/terms are applied to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture. The names for God—Yahweh, Elohim, Shaddai, Sebbaoth, Adonai, Kurios, and Theos—are all masculine gender.
Don’t ask me why, I didn’t make the revelation, I just accept it.
In the Bible, the words used to refer to God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit are always MASCULINE in form.
What you’re trying to say is that it is merely convention which led to the identification of the Father as MASCULINE. That is not so. He (yes, HE) inspired MEN (yes, MEN) to write of Him as MASCULINE always. It is not mere convention. It is what God wanted.
http://www.confessionallutherans.org/papers/malegod.htm
” It is what God wanted.”
And you know what God wanted... There’s an awful lot that goes on down here that God obviously didn’t want. I would guess that God didn’t “want” Peter to deny him 3 times, but he did.
I say your full of bologna. It’s almost blasphemy for you to try to tell us what God wanted.
RE: And you know what God wanted... There’s an awful lot that goes on down here that God obviously didn’t want. I would guess that God didn’t “want” Peter to deny him 3 times, but he did.
1) What God PERMITS and what He wants are two different things. God PERMITTED Peter to deny Jesus 3 times, that does not mean that denial of Christ is what He wants.
2) We can however, Know what God wants based on What HE REVEALS about Himself.
So yes, I would say that He WANTS us to refer to Him as Father, not mother. Jesus taught that, we obey.
Having said that, there are other important factors to be considered as well:
1. God is referred to hundreds of times with masculine names and with masculine pronouns such as “he,” “him,” and “his.”
ALL IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW LANGUAGE In the Old Testament.
2. God is NEVER given a feminine name, or referred to with feminine pronouns such as “she,” her,” and “hers.”
3. This does not mean that God is male. The masculine pronouns have always had the second, generic sense, referring to both male and female, just as “Man” has been used for centuries to refer to both men and women.
So, if your point is that God is spirit and has no gender, I can take the point.
But still the question must be asked, Why, then, if God has no gender, do the Scriptures refer to Him via masculine names and metaphors? And must we refer to Him via masculine names and metaphors?
The answer to the question is another question -— The question has nothing to do with what we would like to do, but rather with what GOD HAS TOLD US TO DO.
Scripture makes it clear: “O Jehovah, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.... Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it, ‘He made me not’; or the thing formed say of him that formed it, ‘He hath no understanding’?” (Isaiah 64:8; 29:16). Since when does the clay have the right to dictate to the potter or override his decisions?
It is not man’s (or woman’s!) place to question God’s sovereign authority or divine will; neither falls under mankind’s jurisdiction.
In other words, WE APPROACH HIM ON HIS TERMS, NOT OURS.
Since you don't believe the Bible is the word of God, there's a new 'translation' that sounds like it might be up your alley. The Queen James Version. Cuts out the parts some folks don't like. And it sounds like there are some parts of the word of God that you don't like.
“Since you don’t believe the Bible is the word of God, there’s a new ‘translation’ that sounds like it might be up your alley. “\
I’ll stick with the Catholic Bible, thank you...
“The answer to the question is another question -— The question has nothing to do with what we would like to do, but rather with what GOD HAS TOLD US TO DO.”
Well, for starters, he didn’t refer to himself as “God”.
Elohim is the Name given for God as the Creator of the universe (Gen 1:1-2:4a) and implies strength, power, and justice. YHVH, on the other hand, expresses the idea of God’s closeness to humans. For example, YHVH “breathed into his (Adam’s) nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7).
RE: Well, for starters, he didn’t refer to himself as “God”.
For starters,the word Elohim is a masculine noun
Secondly , Jesus refers to God as FATHER.
And even when Jesus refers to God as Spirit, he still uses the MASCULINE gender.
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship HIM must worship HIM in spirit and in truth.”
Other names God uses for Himself are MASCULINE.
Since the titles for God in the Hebrew Bible (Elohim, El, Adonai) are masculine nouns, God is called “He”.
My point still is this — Since God reveals Himself to us in MASCULINE form, we MUST, out of obedience to His personal revelation of Himself, follow what He reveals.
RE: I’ll stick with the Catholic Bible, thank you...
The Catholic Bible uses the MASCULINE form of pronouns for God. It shouldn’t be surprising that it does, it was translated from both the original Hebrew and Greek.
El Shaddai, a Hebrew name for God meaning “many breasted one”.. Men don’t have breasts. God made Adam and Eve in his image. The feminine Eve reflects just as much of God’s nature as the masculine Adam
Makin sumpin outa nuttin.
German language gender does NOT mean a word-object, is literally the gender.
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