Why couldn't God the Father be also God the Mother?

Three decades ago, two young advertising professionals, Ramiro Agulla, who recently passed away, and Carlos Baccetti, created a clever ad for the launch of Mujeres&Compañía, a magazine for professionals and entrepreneurs edited with Norma Morandini. The advertisement appeared in several newspapers and read: “We asked God to illuminate us so we could make the best women’s magazine. And She listened.” What was initially seen as a bold and creative move to draw attention turned out to be prophetic. Today, the feminine identity of God is a subject of study and discussion within religious institutions and universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Buenos Aires. This dialogue involves historians, theologians, and spiritual seekers of both genders and diverse traditions. The core question raised is uncomfortable: why can’t God the Father also be God the Mother? Why did the ancient monotheistic worldview that emerged in the Middle East around 4,000 years ago erase all traces of the Great Mother goddess worshipped by early peoples and powerful deities from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythologies? In Olympus, Zeus ruled alongside five gods and six goddesses: Hera, his wife and goddess of marriage; Athena, goddess of wisdom; Artemis, goddess of hunting; Aphrodite, goddess of love; Demeter, goddess of agriculture; and Hestia, goddess of the home. The Hebrew theology of a singular, masculine, and omnipotent God established a patriarchal and authoritarian order that took root in Christianity and Islam. Not only were the goddesses removed from the sacred pantheon, but women were blamed with Eve for the Original Sin, stripped of freedom, and subordinated to men. Many scholars and researchers of biblical texts argue that this vision of the universe's origin and a social structure based on male supremacy was not a divine plan, but rather a formulation by political and religious elites with temporary aims. In her book The Forgotten Feminine Face of God (translated as El olvidado rostro femenino de Dios), British historian Anne Baring, educated at the Universities of Oxford and Sheffield, states: “We are living in the time of the ‘death of God,’ marked by social agitation, confusion, conflict, and fear… Perhaps it is not God who is dying, but more likely the image we have projected onto Him.” This reflects her central thesis: “We have fixed the image of the divine in the masculine gender, denying ourselves until very recently the consideration that the feminine aspect of the spirit is essential for the fullness and balance of our image of the divine and, therefore, for the balance of civilization.” At the age of 95, with nine books to her name, including The Myth of the Goddess and The Dream of the Cosmos, Baring asserts that in the evolution of human consciousness there are two clearly differentiated stages. The first, the lunar phase, generally covers the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. “Humanity lived instinctively as a daughter of the Great Mother, in harmony magical within her body, the Creation. Life and death were two modes of her divine reality,” she writes. In the second phase, the solar phase, which began 4,000 years ago, human consciousness separated from nature. “During this phase of rupture, there was a shift from the Great Mother toward the Great Father,” explains Baring. “The concept of a creator God, masculine and transcendent, formulated by Hebrew prophets and leaders, became identified with reason, light, the creative mind, and goodness. The goddess, in contrast, was associated with matter, darkness, and chaos.” Baring maintains that today we face an urgent need to enter a new stage that reintegrates and balances the masculine and feminine dimensions of God. “The feminine image of the divine, with its tradition of wisdom, is returning to consciousness. She reconnects us with the inner, forgotten dimension of the soul, which has been lost.”