Gender of the Abrahamic God: A Psychoanalytical Perspective

Abstract

Recent developments in the determination of natural grounds for nonbinary gender identities unavoidably lead to related religious fundamentals. In pagan, traditional paternalistic religion systems, the binarity of actors and objects is presumed by default. The same is true for Christianity, where the paternity of God is unequivocally postulated. Freud explains the emergence of the idea of God by the atonement of guilt for the "primary crime"—hypothetical murder of the forefather of primitive horde by his sons. In that concept of God, the "law of the father" is objectified for all traditionalist religious experiences of mankind. However, upon closer examination, the Old Testament concept of monotheism does not fit into the Freudian scheme since it opposes the very tradition by default. The radical opposition to pagan systems lies not so much in the singularity of Elohim but in his transcendent and therefore nonbinary nature. However, psychoanalysis presupposes only two primary mental instances—the instances of the Mother and the Father. There are no and cannot be any gender-neutral, nonbinary images, except as a product of the repressed incestuous desire. The gender neutrality of the Abrahamic God, expressed in his transcendence, has no other grounds than in the repression of the incestuous urges of the infante. Psychoanalytical review of the Fall defines God as the dominant Mother, who prevents the initiation and socialization of Adam-infant, while the instance of the initiating Father is represented by Tempter Serpent. We are dealing with the objectification of the mother's desire as a way of justifying the Subject's infantile narcissism.