The God of the Old Testament – was God angry, conquering, patriarchal and masculine?

Masculine / Feminine Side of Life

Of course God is neither male nor female, but as masculine and feminine come from him, he can use them to express aspects of his character and our relationship to himself. (As a disclaimer I am not setting forth a doctrine on this as I don’t think the Bible specifically tells us this, but I do think this is a helpful way to understand the subject.)

God perhaps demonstrates gender principles though his dealings with his people. One way to understand why God’s character in the Old testament appears to be different than the New is to view moral development as a process; firstly laying the foundations of justice, sanctity and self-improvement, but later, the more advanced layer of redemption of mercy, assistance and inspiration. Of course God has always been primarily merciful and gracious, (as he told Moses) but love must lay down boundaries and establish safe foundations and principles.  These can take a long time to develop in society. His masculine side inspires, encourages, leads, challenges, judges and requests loyalty. It establishes order and distinction. His feminine side provides restoration, acceptance, comfort and creativity. (Isaiah 61). This metaphor can also relate to Right wing and Left wing politics, the right being masculine. The one seeks to establish distinction and lead by rationality, the other seeks to nurture acceptance and unity, and leads with feeling. Realistically we cannot bring up children with only acceptance and serenity, we must first establish and orient order and self discipline before we can enjoy the fruit of it. The Old testament needs to come first. We cannot have mercy without justice, and we cannot only have the carrot, we need the stick to motivate. 

Additionally, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s model of six moral foundations: honor, loyalty, sanctity – compassion, fairness and liberty can be of use.  Jonathan divides it into left and right politically, I also divide it into masculine and feminine. We can see that God was demonstrating the masculine principle in the Old testament of Authority, loyalty and sanctity/disgust.

It was never only about keeping laws even in the Old testament, it was to demonstrate that God’s ways are higher than ours, and the use of physical symbolism to inspire sanctity and loyalty. God gave them instruction and moral principles, which they could never live up to entirely, but which helped them relate to himself by pointing them in the right direction. Laws tell us what not to do, but grace tells us to do as much good as we can, with God’s attitudes and with his ability. When we have grace and truth in our heart we no-longer depend on the law.

Is God Masculine?

People who think it fairer on women to call God mother are playing to the fashionable crowd. Why is God a masculine figure? firstly because Jesus regarded God as his father, and asked us to do the same. But also because God is using natural fatherhood as a symbol of his authority, strength and dependability. When we initially relate to God we must submit to God in humility and trust him to save us, and then later we encounter his more motherly qualities of abundant grace, patient intimacy and guidance. Once we come to God on the basis of faith in his character, and with humility in our heart, then all of the more fluid and gracious elements of God can also be received. Father first then mother, but all spiritual beings seem to be primarily masculine and secondarily feminine. (God’s angels all appear as masculine) Even after experiencing God’s intimacy on a daily basis, we must still primarily relate to God as a father, with reverence and submission, considering how strong, trustworthy and gracious he is.  Not that mothers cannot be responsible and strong leaders, but rather that they are generally inclined towards creativity, nurture, extroversion, agreeableness and empathy. In contrast a man who is irresponsible and cannot control himself or demonstrate courage is not naturally considered a full man, let alone a good man. This sense of masculinity is not only based on our physical size of men and their higher levels of testosterone, but also on their desperate need to find purpose and to achieve status. Men have an innate need to conquer and to defeat an enemy, it is better that their enemy is fear, lies and selfishness than other men. Even androgynous men will still generally possess a systematising brain and the need to prove themselves. 

God is primarily merciful, gracious and long-suffering, as he told Moses. But to be able to crate a safe space for these to operate without abuse God first needs to lay down justice, criteria for judgment, and to encourage sanctification and self-discipline. The masculine lays the foundation but the feminine is the purpose of life.

Is The Bible Patriarchal?

Does God value women and why are we supposed to call God father? The ‘complementarian’ view is that men and women are different in their roles due to their innate natural differences and spiritual roles, but equal in worth due to both sexes having been made in God’s image and equally able to serve him. It may help us to understand this issue if we realise that mental gender is more flexible than biological sex, and if we educate women to be like men from birth, and vice versa, then there will be little difference between the sexes in their interests, although their temperaments retain some biological bias. So women can lead and men can become carers without too much difficulty, but that does not mean most men want to become carers, or that most women want to lead. The patriarchy is the result of natural differences having been systematised into culture, and often men have abused their roles. But that does not negate the reality that patriarchy was equally favoured by both men and women for thousands of years as it allowed women to pour unconditional love into their children, and men to find purpose by providing for their family.  

 

Worship is so Uncool

I speculate that in our Western independence culture many find the idea of Worshiping God ridiculous and awkward. We do not object to worshiping famous people or nature but the worship of God carries a sense of submission, admiration and moral inadequacy that leaves us uncomfortable. We are hell bent on getting honor for ourselves and proving that our way is best; we are naturally unwilling to give up our values  in exchange for God’s. God’s value system produces a climate in which we all honor each other; we honor God, he in turn honors us. We react with encouragement towards difficult people rather than with defense, although often this needs to be mixed with discipline. God does not want us to always be grovelling on the ground in guilt all of the time, (however there are exceptional times for this). Humility is not about putting ourselves down, it is about exalting everyone else, and acknowledging God’s rightful place. Worship is surprisingly beneficial for us internally.

When we observe a feeling we stop feeling it, as CS Lewis observed in ‘Surprised By Joy’. So when Atheists observe their spiritual feelings with uneasy shame they are able to intellectualise about them thus successfully ignore them. As Nietzsche discovered it is dangerous to abstract the intellect from the rest of Humanity and only use the ‘will’ to decide on ethics. Human experience does not arise from rational thought, it arises from biological instruction, unconscious spiritual perception, the morality of the heart, and our need for love and significance. The intellect acts as a filter for truth rather than a generator of truth. Even feelings follow a belief in something we value, either positively or negatively, they do not generate belief. For humans belief is the essence of their soul and the soul is divided into intellect and desire and reason, although the soul is informed by the intuitions. Intellect protects feelings and desires from evil, and points it in the right direction, like a husband protecting his wife so that she can beautify her environment. 

In the Old Testament God treated his people as a father treats his young child, even they did not understand much their job was to trust that their father knew what he was doing. Faith is possibly the most important and profound activity and ability we possess, more important than knowledge, although knowledge is necessary for discernment of truth. It is more important to live life fully than to understand it.

To understand the God of the old testament we need to realise that we all have an innate sense of spirituality and conscience. That God has the right to punish and the moral responsibility to do so because he is the ultimate father figure, and that we enter a contract at birth because we live in his world. Even if you lived on the moon you would still go to the same afterlife where you will experience the spiritual effects of the causes you followed in this life. There are some things we just don’t get to choose. God’s contract with Israel was even more dramatic, he richly blessed them for exercising faith and obedience, and punished them severely for idolatry and unbelief. 

Faith inspires us and causes us to emulate what we believe in. “Though he slay me yet will I trust Him.” This is the quality of trust that both Job and Abraham possessed through their connection with God. The currency is love and trust, not intellect and intelligence. In the light of this we can see how God might ask Abraham to demonstrate these qualities by being prepared to sacrifice his only son, especially considering he is the son that God had promised him would have millions of offspring. (All Jewish people.)

Atheists find the idea of one supreme human sacrifice to pay for everyone’s sin an abhorrent idea, but this is not the same kind of sacrifice that the pagans performed. Jesus was not forced, he was willing to lay down his life. As all ancient cultures, as well as innate natural justice tells us, all sin needs to be punished somehow. Because Jesus Christ dealt with the need for punishment and the separation from God, in the New Testament God was able to demonstrate his maternal side, the mercy he always wanted to show and to personally give us his perfect attitudes and motivation. The law is no longer useful, we now demonstrate as much charity as possible while trusting God to meet our needs.

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The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

 Genesis 19 is the first example of when God intervenes directly to destroy a people group who were beyond hope and were bringing down mortality in the Middle East. The other groups like the Canaanites, Amorites, Moabites, and the Amalekites God destroyed through the Jewish nation. This seems draconian to us, but back then destruction had been prophesied since Enoch on people that were evil, and all people groups in the Middle East at that time were aware of the God of Adam, Noah and Enoch. (Jude 14-15)

It is interesting that God did not want to look at their behaviour and needed to check to see it the reports from angels were as bad as they said. This suggests that while God is omniscient he has a kind of selective knowledge; he knows everything he wants to know. The important point to make is that Lott was not perfect he was just more moral than the rest. It was not a good thing that he offered his daughters to the mob, but in his eyes it was better than handing over the holy visitors. The angels wanted to stay in the town square over night anyway, so he created this scenario by insisting they stay.

 

Slavery in the Old testament

In my view slavery was tolerated by God but was not what God wanted. However we do see that hierarchy is something that God created especially for males, and employs it in order to increase performance and health. There is even hierarchy within the Godhead; the Father being the authority and source and the Son and spirit being agents. On the one hand God cares very much for the less fortunate but on the other wants to honor those who do good, and one kind of honor is to have authority over people, and privilege. Often in the Old Testament the laws were to make the best of a bad situation, as in the rape laws. The Bible contains raw stories of rape in order for us to warn us about the dangers of Human nature and to teach us how God deals with people. 

If an Israelite had a Jewish slave they were to be set free after 7 years and they also treated them justly. People became slaves because they owed money they could not pay, as we can see through Jesus’ parables, or if they were criminals  or as the spoils of war. See more info here http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/slavery-in-judaism

It could be said that slavery was the old answer to the welfare system and the prison system, as if the poor and the destitute were not slaves they would have lived on their own or starved. (They would have gleaned from fields but that is not a great source of food.) A slave would have a roof over their head and enough food. They had a community to live in and a purpose. The only downside is that they had to work hard and were not free to organise their own lives. This is maybe better than prison life in the West, but we tolerate this kind of mental torture.

 

War and genocide

There are a couple of things to bear in mind. Israel was told to eradicate people groups only once it had become a nation, with laws and rulers given to it by God. Nations need to protect themselves from other countries, especially in that kind of harsh middle eastern culture. The Jews did not personally want to kill anyone, they were carrying out God’s judgement.

Judgement in the Old Testament was swift and strong. God had a right to punish win because probably everyone at that time know about the creator Yhwh who was known for punishing sin and rewarding righteousness. God was demonstrating his fatherly side, in which he leads strongly and inspires trust. Mothers care and comfort and remove distinction, God does this more in the New Testament.

This is how Fathers deal with their children to reinforce a lesson and to be a deterrent. When the child grows up the father can be less authoritarian because the child obeys out of respect and self discipline.

An ‘eye for an eyes’ is adequate judgement, but mercy and rehabilitation is much better.

There is also the idea that God wanted to wipe out the giants in that part of the world, even though by that time they had spread through the world. The flood wiped out the Nephalim who the hybrid human-demons, but it seems this kind of cross breeding may have taken place again after the flood producing giants with extra teeth and six digits on hand and toes. Some examples include, Og king of Bashan, Goliath and the former inhabitants of Canaan.  The ancient Sumerians have stories of the god-like Anukai who taught them technology and the Greeks had demi-gods, while the Indians had Krishna, but this is getting off topic.

 

Why God allows suffering

Many people have written on this topic, but here are just a few thoughts I’m toying with.

God allows suffering and God overcomes suffering.

God did not stop the Satan from rebelling against him or trying to receive power and glory from humanity. He did not prevent him from deceiving and enticing humanity to fall. Even Satan had free will. God created the possibility of suffering, however God did not cause the fall to happen. Suffering and pleasure are two sides of the same coin here on earth. The darkness exists in order to shine light into it.  Morality is unknown without imperfection, and  there is no morality without love.

God is love and the source of morality. Love produces wisdom and justice. Love produces joy and peace. This World exists to demonstrate his morality in the face of opposition and selfishness. The quality of morality is measured by the attitude and intention behind it, rather than purely the action.