God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream Trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the First Person of the Trinity, followed by the Second Person, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Third Person, the Holy Spirit. Since the second century, Christian creeds included affirmation of belief in "God the Father (Almighty)", primarily in his capacity as "Father and creator of the universe". The title carries two senses that Christian teaching holds apart: God as creator and father of all people, and God as father of Jesus in a unique and eternal sense. Although "Father" is grammatically masculine, God is generally held to be spirit without biological sex; the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that God is neither man nor woman.
The fatherhood of God appears in the Old Testament, though not as a major theme, chiefly as a metaphor for God's roles as life-giver, law-giver and protector, and for his covenantal relationship with Israel. It becomes a focus in the New Testament, where Jesus refers to it frequently and addresses God as Abba, the ordinary Aramaic word used within a family. Believers are in turn described as adopted children drawn into the relationship of Father and Son.
Clement of Rome had linked the Father to creation by the end of the first century, and around 213 Tertullian set out a formal account of one divine substance in three Persons. The Nicene Creed of 325 describes the Son as born of the Father before all ages, placing the relationship outside time.
Christians take the concept of God as the father of Jesus Christ metaphysically further than the concept of God as the creator and father of all people, as indicated in the Apostles' Creed where the expression of belief in the "Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth" is immediately, but separately, followed by "and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord", thus expressing both senses of fatherhood.
For Trinitarians the Father is co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial with Son and Spirit, not a separate God; Eastern Orthodox theology further treats him as the arche, the origin of both. Nontrinitarian groups generally hold the Father supreme over the Son, among them Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which understands the Godhead as three distinct beings, and Oneness Pentecostalism, for which Son and Spirit are titles of one person.
Paternal language for God is not confined to Christianity. Judaism uses "Father" as one metaphorical title among many, as in the prayer Avinu Malkeinu; Hinduism and Sikhism likewise address the divine in paternal terms. Islam does not apply the title and rejects any father–son relationship between God and Jesus.
In Western art, the Father went unrepresented in human form for roughly a thousand years, indicated at most by a hand; full anthropomorphic depictions emerged around the tenth century, drawing on the Ancient of Days, and became common by the Renaissance, while remaining rare in Eastern Orthodox art.
Christianity
Overview In much of modern Christianity, God is addressed as the Father, in part because of his active interest in human affairs on the earth, in the way that a father would take an interest in his children who are dependent on him and as a father, he will respond to humanity, his children, acting in their best interests.John W. Miller, Calling God "Father" (November 1999). , pp. x–xii.Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. 2.1, Section 31: The Doctrine of God (23 September 2010). , pp. 15–17. Many believe they can communicate with God and come closer to him through prayer – a key element of achieving communion with God.Floyd H. Barackman, 2002, Practical Christian Theology, , p. 117.John W. Miller, Calling God "Father" (November 1999). , p. 51.
In general, the title Father (capitalized) signifies God's role as the life-giver, the authority, and powerful protector, often viewed as immense, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent with infinite power and charity that goes beyond human understanding.Lawrence Kimbrough, 2006, Contemplating God the Father, B&H Publishing, , p. 3. For instance, after completing his monumental work Summa Theologica, Catholic St. Thomas Aquinas concluded that he had not yet begun to understand "God the Father".Thomas W. Petrisko, 200,1 The Kingdom of Our Father, St. Andrew's Press, . p. 8.
Although the term "Father" implies masculine characteristics, God is usually defined as having the form of a spirit without any human biological gender, e.g. the Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 239 specifically states that "God is neither man nor woman: he is God".David Bordwell, 2002, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Continuum International Publishing, , p. 84.Catechism at the Vatican website. . Although God is never directly addressed as "Mother", at times motherly attributes may be interpreted in Old Testament references such as hymns of praise , or .John W. Miller, Calling God "Father": Essays on the Bible, Fatherhood and Culture (November 1999). , pp. 50–51.
In the New Testament, the Christian concept of God the Father may be seen as a continuation of the Jewish concept, but with specific additions and changes, which over time made the Christian concept become even more distinct by the start of the Middle Ages.Wendy North and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (27 May 2004). , pp. 111–112.Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (25 October 2003). pp. 96–100. The conformity to the Old Testament concepts is shown in Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8 where in response to temptation Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13 stating: "It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." 1 Corinthians 8:6 shows the distinct Christian teaching about the agency of Christ by first stating: "there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him" and immediately continuing with "and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him." This passage acknowledges the Jewish teachings on the uniqueness of God, yet also states the role of Jesus as an agent in creation. Over time, the Christian doctrine began to fully diverge from Judaism through the teachings of the Church Fathers in the second century and by the fourth century belief in the Trinity was formalized.Thomas D. McGonigle and James F. Quigley, A History of the Christian Tradition, Vol. I (September 1988). , pp. 72–75, 90.
According to Mary Rose D'Angelo and James Barr, the Aramaic term Abba was in the early times of the New Testament neither markedly a term of endearment,James Barr, "Abba isn't 'daddy'", Journal of Theological Studies, 39: 28–47.Mary Rose D'Angelo, "Abba and 'Father': Imperial Theology and the Jesus Traditions", Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 615–616. nor a formal word; but the word normally used by sons and daughters, throughout their lives, in the family context.
Old Testament
According to Marianne Thompson, in the Old Testament, God is called "Father" with a unique sense of familiarity. In addition to the sense in which God is "Father" to all men because he created the world (and in that sense "fathered" the world), the same God is also uniquely the law-giver to his chosen people. He maintains a special, covenantal father–child relationship with the people, giving them the Shabbat, stewardship of his prophecies, and a unique heritage in the things of God, calling Israel 'my son' because he delivered the descendants of Jacob out of slavery in Egypt according to his covenants and oaths to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 63:16 (JP) reads: "For You are our father, for Abraham did not know us, neither did Israel recognize us; You, O [YHWH], are our father; our redeemer of old is your name." To God, according to Judaism, is attributed the fatherly role of protector. He is titled the Father of the poor, of the orphan and the widow, their guarantor of justice. He is also titled the Father of the king, as the teacher and helper over the judge of Israel.Marianne Meye Thompson, The promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament ch. 2 God as Father in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism p.35 2000. "Christian theologians have often accentuated the distinctiveness of the portrait of God as Father in the New Testament on the basis of an alleged discontinuity."
According to Alon Goshen-Gottstein, in the Old Testament, "Father" is generally a metaphor; it is not a proper name for God but rather one of many titles by which Jews speak of and to God. According to Mark Sameth, references to God the Father convulsing in labor, giving birth, and suckling (Deuteronomy 32:13, 18) hint to a priestly belief, noted in the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries by Guillaume Postel and Michelangelo Lanci respectively, that “God the Father” is a dual-gendered deity. In Christianity, fatherhood is taken in a more literal and substantive sense, and is explicit about the need for the Son as a means of accessing the Father, making for a more metaphysical rather than metaphorical interpretation.
New Testament
There is a deep sense in which Christians believe that they are made participants in the eternal relationship of Father and Son, through Jesus Christ. Christians call themselves adopted children of God:Ian W. Scott, Paul's Way of Knowing (1 December 2008). , pp. 159–160.John F. O'Grady, Pillars of Paul's Gospel: Galatians and Romans (May 1992). , p. 162.
In Christianity the concept of God as the Father of Jesus is distinct from the concept of God as the creator and Father of all people, as indicated in the Apostles' Creed.Robert C. Neville, Symbols of Jesus: a Christology of symbolic engagement, 2002, , p. 26. The profession in the creed begins with expressing belief in the "Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth" and then immediately, but separately, in "Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord", thus expressing both senses of fatherhood within the creed.
History
Since the second century, creeds in the Western Church have included affirmation of belief in "God the Father (Almighty)", the primary reference being to "God in his capacity as Father and creator of the universe".Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Creeds Longmans: 1960, pp. 136, 139, 195 respectively. This did not exclude either the fact the "eternal father of the universe was also the Father of Jesus the Christ" or that he had even "vouchsafed to adopt [the believer] as his son by grace".
Creeds in the Eastern Church (known to have come from a later date) began with an affirmation of faith in "one God" and almost always expanded this by adding "the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible" or words to that effect.
By the end of the first century, Clement of Rome had repeatedly referred to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and linked the Father to creation, 1 Clement 19.2 stating: "let us look steadfastly to the Father and Creator of the universe".Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, The Doctrine of God: A Global Introduction, 2004, , pp. 70–74. Around AD 213 in Adversus Praxeas (chapter 3), Tertullian is believed to have provided a formal representation of the concept of the Trinity, i.e. that God exists as one "substance" but three 'Persons': The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and with God the Father being the Head.Roger E. Olson, Christopher Alan Hall, The Trinity, 2002, , pp. 29–31.Eric Osborn, Tertullian, First Theologian of the West (4 December 2003). , pp. 116–117. Tertullian also discussed how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. While the expression "from the Father through the Son" is also found among them.