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God as the Wholly Other First Cause: A Feminist Reappraisal of God-Belief


Religion remains a compelling vantage point for feminist critique because of its significant role in perpetuating patriarchal ideology. This critique is often founded on the analyses of sexual hierarchies manifest in and further sustained by religious texts, beliefs, and practices. Most feminist alternatives to patriarchal religion involve either a rejection of God-belief or a recourse to feminist spirituality or Goddess theology. This article presents an alternative feminist analysis of God-belief: one that does not adopt the popular God projections or reject the concept of God altogether. Ultimately, this article argues that Godbelief is compatible with feminism by reassessing the concept of God. It attempts to expose the gaps in popular God-belief and espouse a feminist God-belief in two steps: first, the rejection of the False God projections in religion, specifically in Christianity, identified by Mary Daly in Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation; and second, a reconceptualization of God as the wholly other First Cause using Thomas Aquinas' treatise on God's nature and existence in Summa Theologica.



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