God the Father

[11] 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".

[12] 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.

[16][17][18] 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 and states: "It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

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.

[25][26][27][28] 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.

[3] 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.

[2] 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.

[34][35][36] The Nicene Creed, which dates to 325, states that the Son (Jesus Christ) is "born of the Father before all ages", indicating that their divine Father-Son relationship is seen as not tied to an event within time or human history.

[38][41] The Trinitarian concept of God the Father is not pantheistic in that he is not viewed as identical to the universe or a vague notion that persists in it, but exists fully outside of creation, as its creator.

[50] In Mormonism, including its largest denomination the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the most prominent conception of "the Godhead" is as a divine council of three distinct beings: the Father (who is also referred to as Elohim), the Son Jesus (who is identified with Jehovah of the Old Testament), and the Holy Spirit.

[57] The Yahweh Assemblies and other Sacred Name groups generally teach that Christ the Son was God's first and prime creation, and was used to create everything else.

They believe that the Father and the Son are united in divine purpose, administration, legislation, and man's salvation, but are not one being and are not equal in power.

[65][66] Unlike in Judaism, the term "father" is not formally applied to God by Muslims, and the Christian notion of the Trinity is rejected in Islam.

[67] Islamic theology strictly reiterates the Absolute Oneness of God, and totally separates him from other beings (whether humans, angel or any other holy figure), and rejects any form of dualism or Trinitarianism.

According to Ariela Pelaia, in a prayer of Rosh Hashanah, Areshet Sfateinu, an ambivalent attitude toward God is demonstrated, due to his role as a father and as a king.

"[citation needed] Another famous prayer emphasizing this dichotomy is called Avinu Malkeinu, which means "Our Father Our King" in Hebrew.

Usually the entire congregation will sing the last verse of this prayer in unison, which says: "Our Father, our King, answer us as though we have no deed to plead our cause, save us with mercy and loving-kindness.

This is because the Granth is written in north Indian Indo-Aryan languages (mixture of Punjabi and dialects of Hindi) which have no neutral gender.

Other names, expressive of his supremacy, are thakur, prabhu, svami, sah, patsah, sahib, sain (Lord, Master).

By the twelfth century depictions of a figure of God the Father, essentially based on the Ancient of Days in the Book of Daniel had started to appear in French manuscripts and in stained glass church windows in England.

By the 15th century, the Rohan Book of Hours included depictions of God the Father in human form or anthropomorphic imagery.

Though the depiction remains rare and often controversial in Eastern Orthodox art, by the time of the Renaissance artistic representations of God the Father were freely used in the Western Church.