I am one of the many alcoholics in A.A. who has a strong visceral reaction to calling God "Father." Whenever I hear read in a meeting the part in Chapter Five where it says "He is the Father; we are His children," or whenever we close the meeting with the Lord's Prayer, my gut instinctively revolts at the comparison of my Higher Power to a father.
Perhaps this is partly because there are so many bad fathers in the world, but even if I consider the ideal of fatherhood, I don't want to have a "Father God."
For one thing, having a Higher Power who is like a father would keep me in a state of perpetual childhood, and isn't one of the struggles of the alcoholic/codependent (among many other people) to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves and our feelings as adult human beings? I don't need a God who wants me to surrender my needs, my desires, my feelings, and my thoughts because I don't have the capacity to think and feel rightly for myself. The Higher Power I seek has already given me the capacity for right thoughts, right feelings, and right actions ("right" to me meaning realistic and loving), and I need only draw from that well of rightness that the Universal Spirit has implanted in all of us as mature beings.
The other thing I can't tolerate in a Higher Power is the fatherly characteristic of punishment. I used to think that people who saw the Judeo-Christian God as a punishing God just didn't understand the Bible correctly. But as my sister rightly pointed out yesterday, when she wonders where she got the idea that God is a punishing God, she realizes it is from reading the Bible. No matter how modern Protestants try to camouflage it, the God of the Bible is, prima facie, cruel, vindictive, vengeful, and angry.
What kind of a God demands the blood of an innocent creature to assuage His wrath? What kind of Father demands that men sacrifice their own children in order to prove their devotion to Him? Abraham was at least provided with a ram at the last minute, so that he could kill an innocent animal for no other reason than to satisfy God's bloodthirst, but the moral of the story is that he was willing to kill his own son to make God happy. Jesus Christ!
And that brings up the final horror: what parent among us would demand a blood sacrifice (not just a few drops, like the evil spirits in Pirates of the Caribbean, but blood to the last drop of life) before He would forgive His children, and then actually require and accept the death of His own son in fulfillment of those demands? If a human father did that, we would declare him insane or deserving of execution.
I know all the Christian arguments on this, but once the scales fell from my eyes, I began to see things as they really are. And I don't want any part of a God who thinks He is my father.
Just for today, I will seek a Higher Power of my understanding.
5 comments:
Well, perhaps becoming married to the word "Father" shouldn't be done; as everyone attaches different connotations to the word, many of them negative.
Would it help to instead call God the Mother? Uncle? Aunt? In my own primitive understanding I prefer the idea of God as someone who is always able to help me. I don't EVER want to be equal to God, because I know that I'm flawed. There is way too much stuff in the world with which I know I cannot deal.
(As has already been proven to me in my short existence with the warping of my fragile mind under intense stress.)
I am your son. Grown, yes. Entirely responsible for my own actions. However; I will always be your child. So it is with God; even though free will has been granted us and we have the ability to make our own decisions and take responsibility for them, we will always be related to God in this sense.
What is the difference between punishment, justice, and revenge? Who determines what is cruel?
Does the Bible ever say that God takes pleasure in the death of Jesus? I do not pretend to understand why God did not create another method of extending grace to us, but in an attempt to understand what God did use I believe the intent was that it would help us understand the depth of God's love.
God was willing to forsake God for our sake. Who can grasp this?! It is indeed insane by the standards of the world!
And that is where my view primarily differs from yours, I think Mom; I don't believe God should be measured by human standards.
Then again, I'm already certifiably crazy, so... *shrugs* y'know. XD
I dreamt last night that you and I were standing in the closing circle of an AA meeting, and that, before we began the Lord's Prayer, I told you that I like to use the word "Creator" instead of "Father". I'm guilty of incorporating all sorts of inclusive language when I read the steps or How it Works. I don't do it all the time, but every once in a while just to shake things up. I think I started doing that after having gone to a sister program that only uses inclusive language in its steps and its literature. I thought it was kind of dorky at first, but then it began to feel really freeing, and now It's so nice to not have to go through all the mental gymnastics that are required when I hear God referred to as Father or even just as a masculine figure.
I'm surprised to hear that the Lord's Prayer is used at all in meetings in LA - I thought most groups there close with the serenity prayer. Is that not the case anymore?
My experience in meetings is that most people become "trapped" in some stage of development, pre-teen, teen, young adult etc. And that many of our ideas, opinions of the world, people, even god, become trapped as well. Going through the process of-
coming, coming to, and coming to believe (step 2)
is healing the intervening stages and letting our ideas about god and the world mature with our newfound spiritual growth. The hardest part is realizing that you have been stuck, that you hate being stuck, and your aren't going to stay stuck one moment longer than is necessary.
Naturally, a person's relationship to God is not *exactly* like the parent-child relationship. No Christian thinks that it is. When a human parent dies, their children go on living. Whereas, humans do not and cannot even exist apart from God (according to traditional Christian teaching). Sons and daughters can grow to be just as wise as their parents, can know things their parents do not, etc.
But God we do remain dependent on God for both physical sustenance and spiritual nurture throughout our lives. It is fitting to humbly use a title of respect and affection for the One who cares for us from our first to last breath--as well as before, and after. Being like a child is not the same as being childish.
Sorry for this hasty response, but if I waited until I had time to write something better, I wouldn't write anything at all.
For my part, I don't think I have ever thought of the Father as being equivalent to the word "father;" it has a capital letter! The words may sound the same, like wholly, holy, and holey, but they denote entirely different (perhaps opposite) things, and are not even spelled the same. I never found myself confused as to whether God or Papa was my father. One was a biological relation, the other was an antiquated title of respect from a patriarchal society.
It is not the word that gives meaning to an idea. It is an idea that gives meaning to a word. Whatever you call God, be it "Creator," "Father," "Mother," "Brother," "Sister," "Goatonapole," "Universe," "Luck," "Fate," "Everything," or "Ben Way," it's all the same idea behind it.
However, I think I like Doug's musing that we should call Him "Uncle God." You know, the kind that gives you candy and tells you not to tell your parents, etc. Except He'd be able to give you Anything (note the capital "A")instead of just candy!
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