Quotes that Teach Us About the Image of the Divine
“You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire.”
—Deuteronomy 4:15, Hebrew Testament, NIV*
"God is Spirit, and [God’s] worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth".
—Gospel of John 4:24, Christian Testament, NIV*
“Genesis 1:27 tells us that we are made in God’s image. Then we turn around and make God in our image.”
—Nancy Murgalo, M.A.
THE DIVINE IS SPIRIT—WITHOUT GENDER.
YET, HOW WE ENVISION THE DIVINE—OR HOW WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT BY OUR CULTURE TO DO SO— DOES HAVE A DIRECT IMPACT ON THE WAY HUMANS TREAT EACH OTHER IN SMALL AND LARGE WAYS EVERY DAY.
“The biblical and popular image of God as a great patriarch in heaven, rewarding and punishing according to his mysterious and seemingly arbitrary will, has dominated the imagination of millions over thousands of years.
The symbol of the Father God, spawned in the human imagination and sustained as plausible by patriarchy, has in turn rendered service to this type of society by making its mechanisms for the oppression of women appear right and fitting.
If God in ‘his’ heaven is a father ruling ‘his’ people, then it is in the ‘nature’ of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male-dominated.”
—by Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation, Beacon Press, 1973, p.13.
”If God is male, then male is God. ”
—Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father. p. 19.
“The state is made up of households, and to understand properly the management of the state one must understand the management of the household: ‘The first and fewest possible parts of the family are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children.
…the male is by nature superior and the female inferior; and the one rules and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.’”
—Aristotle, Politics (written 350 B.C.E.), in Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, Oxford University Press, 1986, p 208.
“Aristotle’s wordview is both hierarchical and dichotomized. Soul rules over body; rational thought over emotion; humans over animals, male over female, master over slaves; and Greeks over barbarians.”
—Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, p.208
“…[A]s any parent or teacher knows only too well, we all come out of a value system, as do our children. The real concern is: What are the values out of which we are living today? …Why are our children taught that history is the story of conquest and power over rather than the story of the good that has been done?”
—Eleanor Rae, "Women, the Earth, the Divine,” Orbis Books, 1994, pp. 43-44.
“I am no longer as certain, as I once was that when theologians speak of ‘man’, they are using the word in its generic sense.
It is, after all, a well-known fact that theology has been written almost exclusively by men. This alone should put us on guard, especially since contemporary theologians constantly remind us that one of man’s strongest temptations is to identify his own limited perspective with universal truth.”
—Valerie Saiving, “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, Harper & Row, 1979.
“Between 1973 and 1986 [Joseph] Campbell [American professor, scholar, and writer who specialized in comparative mythology and religion], gave over twenty lectures and workshops on goddesses, exploring the figures, functions, symbols, and theme of the feminine divine.…Campbell traces the blossoming from one Great Goddess to the many goddess of the mythic imagination….
One of his favorite themes is the transformation and endurance of the archetypal symbolic powers of the feminine divine despite the past two thousand years of patriarchal and monotheistic religious traditions that have attempted to exclude them.
…During his research, he came upon the brilliant and pioneering work of Marija Gimbutas on the Great Goddess of the Neolithic world of Old Europe (7500-3500 B.C).
Gimbutas’s work convinced Campbell even more deeply of what he was sensing, namely that the Great Goddess was the central divine figure in the earliest mythological conception of the world, and that the powers outlined by Gimbutas were the roots of those that he saw in the goddesses of later mythologies and sacred traditions.
—Safron Rossi, editor, Joseph Campbell, Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, 2013, page x.
“The new discoveries [in the interval of 1974-1982 when Gimbutas’ book was updated] served only to strengthen and support the view that the culture called Old Europe was characterized by a dominance of woman in society and worship of a Goddess incarnating the creative Principle as Source and Giver of All.
Map: Old Europe: the area of autochthonous European civilization, c.7000-3500 BC in relation to the rest of Europe.
The term Old Europe is applied to a pre-Indo-European culture of Europe, a culture matrifocal and probably matrilinear, agricultural and sedentary, egalitarian and peaceful.
It contrasted sharply with the ensuing proto-Indo-European culture which was patriarchal, stratified, pastoral, mobile, and war-oriented, superimposed on all of Europe, except the southern and western fringes, in three waves of infiltration from the Russian steppe, between 4500-and 2500 BC.
During and after this period the female deities, or more accurately, the Goddess Creatrix in her many aspects, were largely replaced by the predominantly male divinities of the Indo-European.
—Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 6500-3500 BC: Myths and Cult Images, University of California Press,1982; Preface to the new edition,1981; Map: page 16.
Originally published in the U.S. in 1974 under the title The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe 7000-3500 BC.
“…[T]here is a positive correlation between women’s personal perception/social situation and the imaging of the Divinity as feminine.58
However, the issue is much more complex than simply admitting goddesses into the pantheon or positing a feminine aspect of a monotheistic Divinity.
In fact, the presence of a feminine Divinity can be utilized against women rather than for them. This appears to be the case with the Goddess in Hinduism [even today] in that some males so fear re-engulfment with the female or become so fixated on the Goddess that they project their fears onto women.
Thus, on the religious plane they are seen as adoring the Goddess, while on the human plane they are misogynists.59
—Eleanor Rae, Women, the Earth, the Divine, Orbis Books, 1994, p.18.
How did it actually happen? How did men initially gain the control that now allows them to regulate the world in matters as vastly diverse as deciding which wars will be fought when to what time dinner should be served?
This book is the result of my reactions to those and similar questions which many of us concerned about the status of women in our society have been asking ourselves and each other.
(Preface, page xi)
…[T]o many of us today religion appears to be an archaic relic of the past (especially the writings of the Old Testament, which tell of times many centuries before the birth of Christ)….
Indeed, the ancient past is not so far removed as we might imagine or prefer to believe.
In fact, if we are to fully understand how and why man gained the image of the one who accomplishes the greatest and most important deeds while woman was relegated to the role of ever-patient helper, and subsequently assured that this was the natural state of female-male relationships, it is to those remote periods of human history that we must travel.
It is the ancient origins of human civilizations and the initial development of religious patterns we must explore. And this, as you will see, is no easy task.
(Introduction, p. xv).
—Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman, 1976, published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group Inc.
So, why should we care about ancient texts and figures of thousands of years ago?
One reason: Using the perspective of ecofeminism, which posits that the patriarchal ordering of society injures both women and the Earth in the same way, we have seen (in our C:WED study on ecofeminism) that this harm is the result of the view that both women and the Earth are considered objects to be used and than discarded when no longer useful to the so-called “owners:.
We can readily examine two consequences of patriarchy—with its concept of Divinity as male—that relate to women and men, and to the Earth—to the lives of all of us.
These consequences are described in terms of categories that are overarching and that encompass many different variations.
These categories are: femicide and ecocide.
Femicide is the killing of women just because they are women. Femicide takes many different formulations.
For men, that femicide is homicide should be sufficient to denounce it. Furthermore, the effects of femicide on the women in their own lives—their daughters or granddaughters, their wives, their mothers or grandmothers, their sisters, their aunts, cousins or nieces, or their friends—could be tragic in any of its variations.
Ecocide is the destruction of the Earth, the natural environment, by deliberate design, oftentimes as a byproduct of greed, or by negligence. Ecocide also occurs in many different varieties.
Many people are already aware of the tragic consequences of ecocide, of its effects on the environment—climate change, wildfires, severe storms, species near-extinction—and ultimately of its effects on our own lives.
To adequately explore the topic of the Image of the Divine, it is important that we examine the periods of early civilizations and what they have to teach us for today.
We also will examine how the transformation of the image of the Divine took place in ancient times.
And, it is imperative that we include some of the consequences of patriarchy in its variations as femicide and ecocide.
*NIV: New International Version (of the Bible)
Notes:
58. Eleanor Rae and Bernice Marie-Daly, Created in Her Image: Models of the Feminine Divine (New York: Crossroad, 1990).
59. Katherine K. Young, ”Introduction,” in Women in World Religions, ed. Arvind Shama (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 28.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS:
Previous Post: A Pause!, Written by Anne Anderson on September 5, 2025
—Thank you. We must protect our world. —RE
—Dear Anne: As always, very enlightening. —ER
Preview of Current Post: Quotes that Teach Us About the Image of the Divine, Written by Anne Anderson on September 12, 2025
—Very heavy but needed. —ER
C:WED’s new section:
WOMEN SPEAK OUT.
BELIEVE THE WOMEN.
Listen! Hear! Believe!
Backstory:
“Missing from governmental discussions of the Epstein/Maxwell pedophile and trafficking of girls and women story have been the voices of the survivors.
TODAY’S FEATURED WOMAN IS: ALICIA ARDEN
https://youtu.be/UOVSzBEGWo8?si=xGCoNNlD4H4H2C99
In a press conference held at her attorney Gloria Allred’s Los Angeles office, Alicia Arden, one of the first known victims to file a police report against Jeffrey Epstein, broke her silence and called on the US government to release all Epstein-related investigation files.
If you wish to know more about this subject:
The 2020 Netflix original, four-part docuseries, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, presents a detailed account of Epstein’s abuse and those who enabled him. Survivors also share their own stories.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80224905
DO YOU WISH TO BE PROACTIVE?
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES:
—Urge your House members to vote for:
H.R.4405—Epstein Files Transparency Act
—Ask your House members to stand with the survivors who are seeking an investigation and full release of unredacted Epstein files.
—Thank members who stand with the survivors!
HERE’S HOW:
FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
CONTACTING U.S. SENATORS:
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
PAPER STILL WORKS:
Handwritten or typed letters mailed in the U.S. Post Office are still considered an effective way to communicate with your representatives, according to the U.S. Capitol - Visitor Center.
https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/CVC_CraftVideo_FollowAlong_Letters.pdf
The link above offers a guideline on how to format and compose a letter to your member of Congress.
C:WED WISH LIST:
—Please consider this:
When we have completed our study of Ecofeminism with our examination of the Image of God (in several more posts), we will revert o a more leisurely posting timelframe
We will also cover more general topics of choice, while remaining within our framework of Women, the Earth, and the Divine.
—Perhaps you might suggest a topic for the C:WED blog.
We are very pleased that a member of our C:WED family has already suggested an interesting topic—and we will be covering it shortly.
We would love to hear from you!
—Please do send suggestions to: info@cwed.org
—PLEASE keep reading our posts!
—PLEASE spread the word about us!
Share our website with your friends, relatives, and colleagues: www.cwed.org
