It is a widely recognized today that the Christian concept of God as Father is under attack. Specifically, various religious writers, primarily feminists, have proposed that God should be called Mother, or possibly the androgynous Father/Mother or Mother/Father. In some instances the term God as Parent has been proposed. This paper will, however, explore the psychological case for the orthodox understanding of God as Father. Obviously, this is a sensitive subject today-but where angels fear to tread, psychologists rush in.

But before getting to our primary subject it is well worth summarizing some a priori reasons for not accepting the androgynous or feminized notion of God. To begin with, it should be clear that when people change the name for God, they have changed their religion. If a small group began to refer to God as "Zeus" we would know that something non-Christian was going on. Likewise, when neo-pagans begin speaking of the "Horned God," this modification is not without significant theological impact, to put it mildly. Changes in the name of God, therefore, are truly great changes because they mean that you are changing religions. For example, to reject God the Father as a name is to deny the basic Christian creeds. It is to deny the language of baptism, and of course to deny the entire theology of the Trinity upon which Christianity and its theology have been constructed.

But we can get even more specific. Jesus himself gave us the terminology for referring to God as Father. He expressed himself in this language often, clearly and with emphasis in the Gospels, and it is obvious that the notion of God as Father is a major new theological contribution of Jesus himself. This means that to deny the language of God as Father is to repudiate Jesus and his message. Therefore, whether one admits it or not, to do this is to reject Christianity.

Aside from such theological considerations, there are also historical a priori reasons for not changing the name of God. Looking back, we see that the history of Christian heresies has been the history of succumbing to the spirit of different ages. Ours is the age of modernism, which includes a great emphasis on egalitarianism and on sexuality. These two elements have combined to create the modern emphasis on androgyny. Androgyny or unisex is the notion that sexuality, male and female, is not fundamental to our nature but is arbitrary, and that all forms of sexuality are equivalent and basically arbitrary. From an androgynous perspective, male and female are not part of the nature of reality-much less of the nature of who each of us is.

Since modernism was founded to a large extent on hostility to Christianity, it should not be surprising that ideas coming out of it-particularly in extreme forms-are also hostile to the faith. Rationalism, materialism, individualism, nationalism, communism, evolutionism, fascism and positivism are all examples of modernist movements that created Christian heresies or involved explicit rejection of important Christian beliefs.

Although the history of heresy has been the history of giving in to the spirit of the age, nevertheless heresies have been useful because they often attack an important but previously undeveloped aspect of our theology. As a consequence, Christian theology has often developed in response to heresies. In any case, when the spirit of the age, in some extreme form, presses for changes in theology, this is an a priori reason to say "No thanks!"

Another reason is that modernism itself is dying. The list of ideologies given above is also a list of exhausted world views. These are now has-been ideas which have lost their cultural energy, which have been thoroughly critiqued and which exist primarily in college courses on "The History of Ideas: from the 18th through the early 20th centuries."

In the context of the death of modernism, let us look at feminism, which arose in the mid-19th century and is clearly modern in origin and character. The major ideas which had to develop first, before feminism, were individualism, egalitarianism and socialism/communism. This is not the place to describe how these ideas lay the groundwork for feminism, but perhaps on some reflection it is obvious. In any case, many of the important feminists were Marxists or socialists (for example, Simone de Beauvoir, Rosa Luxemburg, Bella Abzug, and the many explicitly Marxist feminists). Feminism took the basic idea of class warfare and used a similar rationale to interpret the conflicts between men and women. Marxism is known to be dead, or at the least, mortally wounded. Socialism and the welfare state are well past their peak and literally facing bankruptcy. Individualism has been criticized for some 30 years, from both the Left and the Right-the Left longs for community while the Right (and sometimes the Left) is now advocating ethnic purity (as in former Yugoslavia and in some Black movements), tribalism or some other localism.

As for egalitarianism, it too is being rejected in recent years, even-in fact, particularly-by many recent feminists. Modern feminism was very much about equality between men and women and was opposed to any emphasis on differences between the sexes. But in the last 15 years or so a new kind of feminism has arisen which might be called "post-modern" feminism. These feminists very much emphasize sexual difference-indeed some of these radical feminists argue not only that women are different from men but are psychologically and morally superior to them. This kind of emphasis on difference rather quickly led, in theology, to goddess-worship and to explicit rejection of Christianity.

Much less extreme examples of this post-modern feminism would include Carol Gilligan's (1982) work on how men and women demonstrate different approaches to the moral life and even such popular works as Deborah Tannen's (1990) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and John Gray's (1992) Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. In short, egalitarianism in its extreme forms is decidedly on the way out. For Catholics to buy into this kind of individualist egalitarian logic at such a late date is just another example of Catholic intellectuals trying to catch up with a dominant secular trend-with timing that is absolutely abysmal. Such Catholics show the intellectual equivalent of the stock-market victim: Buy high and sell low.

Three models of sexuality

But let us set aside these theological and historical considerations, however important. Our primary concern here is with the psychological significance of the concept of the Fatherhood of God. To set a context for this we address the major interpretations or "models" of sexuality. Probably the most familiar model of sexuality is the exploitive model in which men have traditionally dominated and taken advantage of women. This model has been rightly criticized, especially by feminists. I will call this the "Exploitation Model." Throughout the world, men have dominated and exploited women in all the societies of which we have any historical record. Sometimes the treatment has been relatively benevolent, but in any case the general picture is familiar to all.

The second model is what has already been termed the "Androgyny" or "Unisex" Model. This is an understanding of sexuality as basically arbitrary, and that male and female are not only equivalent but more or less interchangeable, except for minor differences in external genitalia and associated sensory pleasure. Some people seem to assume that a unisex understanding of sexuality is less exploitive of women. There is, however, no evidence for this, and instead there is good reason to believe that the androgynous understanding does lead to exploitation of both men and women. After all, in the unisex model, sex is essentially each individual's personal search for sexual pleasure, however experienced. It is this model which provides today's general rationale for pornography. The androgynous understanding of sex means that any form of sexual pleasure is okay since there is no natural character to sexuality; it is an arbitrary social convention defined by each person. Once sex as recreation, rather than as procreation, is established, individual moral relativism goes with it. The result is the world of today's pornographic exploitation, in which sex with either sex, including-even especially-sado-masochistic sex, sex with children, and now sex with animals is justified; if you enjoy it, it's okay. But the logic that relativizes sex to each individual also relativizes power to the individual. That is, power can now be utilized in the service of pleasure with no more restraints either. In short, if you have the power you can get away with sexual exploitation.

That is, a feature of the current situation with regard to sex and power is that now exploitation is without any "principled" rationale. Men can exploit women, and occasionally women can exploit men, because those who have the power to exploit do so. In the "old days"-under the old regime-you had exploitation justified by bad social philosophy; in the androgynous situation we have exploitation in a philosophical vacuum in which "anything goes." Does anyone really believe that the amount of sexual exploitation in the last 30 years has been significantly less than that under the old "exploitive" macho system?

The third model which I believe to be the traditional Christian model will be called "The Complementary Model." Here, maleness and femaleness are seen as important and positive differences, and as fundamental to reality and to the nature of each person. God created us, male and female, and it was good. This emphasis on the reality and importance of sexual differences contrasts with androgyny. But masculinity and femininity-maleness and femaleness-are seen as cooperating in a mutually supportive fashion. This also contrasts with the exploitive model. No doubt, the complementary model is hard to maintain and to live up to, but then so is much of the rest of Christianity. We all know that the Christian faith is not about how to live the easy life. Instead, it is a faith that challenges us to rise to a higher way of being.

What I will try to show now is how the psychological significance of the fatherhood of God helps to maintain the complementary understanding of the sexes, for both men and women.

Dealing with macho psychology

The psychology of men, influenced by the exploitive model, can be seen as the problem of correcting what can be called "macho" psychology. It is, I believe, easier to see the importance of God the Father if we see male psychology in the absence of such a concept. As noted, historically the predominant idea of male psychology has been one of male superiority, dominance and exploitation. We'll call this kind of male "the macho."

The answer to macho psychology, provided by God the Father is shown in the life of Jesus. The style of Jesus has been well described as "servant leadership." Jesus was a tough man, living in what today we would call a rough blue-collar world, filled with fishermen, farmers and carpenters, as well as the tough competitive world of the marketplace, e.g., tax collectors and moneylenders, and an even tougher world of politics dominated by unsentimental physical power. But all of his authority with which he spoke and with which he led, all of the power which he manifested in his miracles, his mental power shown in his intellectual confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees, was put in the service of others and of God. He did not come to do his own will. Servant leadership is the only model I know of that is strong enough to remove the sin of male exploitive psychology.

God the Father figures into this explicitly in Scripture. For example, when the disciples ask Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus is somewhat taken aback and then says, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." The concept of fatherhood as involving sacrificial leadership is further underlined by the fact that Jesus as the image of the father had no natural children and indeed was not involved in sexuality itself. Therefore, Jesus and God the Father model masculinity in its highest forms, independent of sexual activity or behavior. All children are God's; all children are Jesus'.

When masculine capacities are put in the service of others, neither women nor children, nor community are likely to object. The basic point of the Christian model about God as Father is that it allows a boy to identify strongly and positively with masculine ways of life but it removes the sting of selfishness-of what psychologists call "narcissism"-by placing male abilities in the service of others. The notion of God as Mother or androgynous Parent makes male identification psychologically not just difficult, but essentially impossible.

Another serious psychological problem in talking about God as father and mother is the strong implication that God is two people, just as our parents are two people. We would be setting up yet another Jupiter/Juno, Moloch/Astarte pair.

How does the concept of God the Father help men who are drifting toward androgyny, the other pathological model of sexuality? Since in this unisex model, men and women are seen as essentially the same, this has led to the development of a new kind of man commonly called "the wimp." In many respects the wimp is based on the attempt to reverse the traditional logic of sex roles. In rejecting his basic masculine nature, this type of man is left in severe conflict and confusion about how to live. The result of this uncertainty is the psychological weakness of the wimp-man.

Today American men very often seem to fall into one of these two categories-or to vacillate between them. The macho remains a man but does not care much for others; he devotes his energy, strength and intelligence exclusively to his own individual well-being. He looks out for his career. He looks out for Number 1. The macho treats women as sex partners; he understands marriage as something to be avoided or as a temporary arrangement to be maintained until something or someone better comes along.

Many other men-the new wimps-are nice androgynous creatures who are fun to go shopping with, but they are also indecisive, unreliable and weak. In short, men are opting for one of two ways of being-the strong man who leads and exploits or the weak man who is ineffectual but nice. Recently, it seems as though the latter is the fastest growing category. We all know "the great American wimp." He feels uncomfortable around strongly masculine men because they sense that he is squishy. The wimp needs to be loved at all costs, and the typical cost of the need to be loved is the truth. Holding to the truth in the face of social pressure, in response to political correctness, often means rejection by friends or parishioners. The easy way out is to compromise truth for social acceptance. In particular, the truth of manhood embarrasses him, and therefore he acts as though it doesn't exist.

This new type of sensitive American, "the wimp-man," was at first welcomed by many women. But now the complaints have come in loud and clear. The wimp, like the macho, fundamentally avoids commitment to others. He can't be counted on; often he is still dependent, too much like a child-a Peter Pan. Hence both the macho and the "wimpo" avoid true commitment to women-and of course women know it. The final result is that a good man becomes even harder to find. All this only increases the disappointment, frustration and anger of many women-which only leads to further criticisms of men and manhood, which further pushes men away. Talk about a vicious circle! Again, the answer is the strong man who serves, who sacrifices for others.

By Paul C. Vitz