Psychologies Magazine, October 2002 —
“Eve is alone in paradise. She is bored and asks God to create a companion for her. God creates all sorts of animals to keep Eve company, but she is still just as bored. So God says to her:
“I could create a man who would be very close to you, but you might regret it, for he is a proud being who needs to dominate.
” “That doesn’t matter,” Eve begged, “give me this companion.
” “Very well,” God continued, “but on one condition: don’t tell him he was created after you, for he wouldn’t be able to bear it. Let this remain a secret between us… between women.”
This little Jewish story is indicative of a shift that I believe is very important in our understanding of the divine. The advent of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim monotheisms imposed the very masculine divine figure of an all-powerful, and sometimes tyrannical, "father." However, this representation is becoming less and less prevalent among Western believers. It is being replaced today by the image of a protective, merciful, and nurturing God, who ultimately possesses all the qualities of a "good mother.".
It is no coincidence that the figure of Mary, mother of Jesus, has been steadily gaining prominence for the past 150 years: the increasing number of pilgrimages to the sites of her apparitions, the importance of Marian devotion within the Charismatic Renewal, and the fact that the last two dogmas of faith formulated by the Church concern the Virgin Mary: her Immaculate Conception in 1854 and her Assumption in 1950. This tendency toward the feminization of the divine also affects those who, in ever-growing numbers, no longer attend church but believe in a meaning to existence. We are thus witnessing a fading of the personal and paternal figure of God in favor of a more impersonal and maternal one: that of destiny. We can no longer imagine God as a creator father, but we believe in providence, in the meaning of life, in signs, in destiny written in the stars, in one's "personal legend," an expression that contributed to the worldwide success of "The Alchemist," Paulo Coelho's initiatory tale.
In short, we no longer want an authoritarian, law-making God, dogmas, and norms, but readily believe in a benevolent and protective divine energy that envelops the universe and guides our lives in mysterious ways. This conception is reminiscent of the providence of the Stoic philosophers of antiquity. It also leads us to reconnect with the sacred feminine figures of ancient societies, against whom monotheistic religions fought so hard. Certainly, we are not going to worship the "mother goddesses" of the past, but we need, perhaps more unconsciously than consciously, to restore to the absolute the feminine and maternal qualities that patriarchal societies had partly stripped from it. Banish the feminine… and it comes galloping back. And that's all for the best!
October 2002