| Original Message |
Kate (Login kateothelamp)
Posted Jan 20, 2012 4:58 PM
Gender is determined by the physical body....the, um, standard equipment you were born with...hormones, and chromosomes. These are all part of our physical bodies. God does not have a physical body, God is not a human being, God is spirit.
Jesus was fully God, but also fully human. He had many qualities and experiences as a human being that Father and the Holy Spirit, as spiritual beings do not posess. Jesus was born an infant, matured and grew. Jesus went through puberty. Jesus felt hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and pain. Jesus died. These things are all part of the human experience. Since Jesus was God, we can say that God experienced all those things - birth, growth, hunger, thirst, weariness, and even death. But God, as a spiritual being, the part of God revealed to us as Father and Holy Spirit, has not experienced any of that. God doesn't get tired or hungry, God cannot die. Even though Jesus did.
I don't think that's human logic, because it doesn't make sense in the natural world. Try to explain that to an atheist or agnostic and they will scratch their head.
Again, I think God revealed himself as Father for our sake, to try to make it easier for mere humans to comprehend. But both male and female reflect God's image, and God has characteristics that we think of as both masculine and feminine.
But we do disagree on the absolute authority of scripture. I believe there are many things in the Bible that contradict known science, contradict other scriptures, and contradict what we know to be true about the nature of God. If I read in the Bible that God condoned or commanded an act of evil, that contradicts what I know and believe to be true about the nature of God. In those instances, I believe the scripture was a record of what men did, and they used God to excuse their evil actions. Since I don't accept all scripture we have today as being inspired, this unfortunately may not be the best place for me to post.
One thing I am curious about, however - as a Catholic, do you believe the Apochrypha is also inspired scripture? Does it cause an issue when discussing with a Protestant who does not?
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