The Absolute Being relates to human beings as parent to child. The Jewish and Christian scriptures call God our Heavenly Father; in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha is called “Father of the World.”
In some traditions, the Absolute Being is also identified as the Divine Mother. Even religions that customarily employ patriarchal imagery for God also describe a motherly aspect: God as Nurturer, Fount of compassion, and Sustainer.
“There is something in the nature of God that corresponds to our maleness and our femaleness,” remarks Bishop Desmond Tutu.36 God’s fatherhood and motherhood may be identified with heaven and earth, cooperating to create and nurture all living things.
God’s parental role is not limited to the act of creation; it is an enduring affective relationship of the heart. Love reveals God’s parental aspect better than anything. Even Islam, which avoids describing God as a divine father, in light of its strong rejection of polytheism in which gods physically procreate, includes traditions that describe God’s love by analogy to a father’s love for his son.
Love is central to Father Moon’s teaching about the parenthood of God: “The relationship of the Father and His children is the foundation of the universe.”
Elaborating, he teaches that we can and should establish a genuinely filial relationship to God, attending Him and sharing His heart. God, for His part, is ever searching for children who can meet Him in that intimate embrace.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Matthew 6.9
You men are all my children,
And I am your Father.
For age upon age, you
Have been scorched by multitudinous woes,
And I have saved you all.
Lotus Sutra 3 (Buddhism)
The Great Principle, the Divine, is my womb;
I cast the seed into it;
There is the origin of all creatures.
Whatever forms originate in any wombs
The real womb is the Divine,
the Great Principle.
I am the Father that gives the seed.
Bhagavad-Gita 14.4 (Hinduism)
Thou art Father, Mother, Friend, Brother.
With Thee as succorer in all places, what fear have I?
Adi Granth, Majh M.5, p. 103 (Sikhism)
For God, people of the whole world are all my children. All of you equally must understand that I am your Parent.
The daily concern of the Parent is single-mindedly how best I can advance arrangements to save all of you.
Ofudesaki 4.79; 14.35 (Tenrikyo)
Our Father, it is thy universe, it is thy will,
Let us be at peace, let the souls of the people be cool.
Thou art our Father; remove all evil from our path. Nuer Prayer
(African Traditional Religions)
Heaven and Earth are the father and mother of the ten thousand things.
People are the sensibility of the ten thousand things.
Book of History 5.1.1: The Great Declaration (Confucianism)
What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent?
If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matthew 7.10-11
Once a man came to the Messenger with his son.
The Messenger embraced they boy and said,
“Do you have mercy upon him?” The father said, “Yes.”
Then the Messenger replied, “Allah is more merciful upon him than you.”
Hadith of Bukhari (Islam)
Do you thus requite the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?…
He found him in a desert land, in the howling waste of the wilderness;
He encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young,
Spreading out its wings, catching them,bearing them on its pinions,
The Lord alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him.
Deuteronomy 32.6-12
All ye under heaven! Regard heaven as your father, earth as your mother, and all things as your brothers and sisters. Oracle of the Kami of Atsuta (Shinto)
Mother Earth, have pity on us and give us food to eat! Father Sun, bless all our children and may our paths be straight! Blackfoot Prayer
(Native American Religions)
That breast of Thine which is inexhaustible, health-giving, by which thou nursest all that is noble, containing treasure, bearing wealth, bestowed freely; lay that bare, O Divine Mother, for our nurture. Rig Veda 1.164.49 (Hinduism)
As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you;
You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 66.13
O Mother of Imupa, advocate for the whole [feminine] world! What a remarkable Mother I have! O Mother, a pillar, a refuge!
O Mother, to whom all prostrate in greeting
Before one enters her habitation! I am justly proud of my Mother.
O Mother who arrives, Who arrives majestic and offers water to all!
Yoruba Prayer (African Traditional Religions)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
God is our Friend, our greatest Friend. God is our Father, Elder Brother, King, and Creator. How proud we should be to have such a God! (293:161, May 26, 1998)
Why did God create the universe? The reason is that God wants to engage in the loving relationship of a father with his children. The relationship of father and children is, in fact, the foundation of the universe. (118:290, June 20, 1982)
What is the Creator like, the Lord who created us? He is the lord of our body and mind. He is the lord of our ideas and the world of emotions. He is the lord of our hearts. We absolutely need such a God.
We do not just need Him conceptually; we do not just need to recognize He exists; we need Him absolutely. Losing the Lord is sorrow. God is more than our Lord. Taking one more step, God is our Father. God is Lord because He created us and created the heavens and the earth, but He did not stop at being our Lord. He is our Father.
Therefore, He seeks to clarify the bond between us by revealing, “I am your Father, and you are my sons and daughters.” He longs to rejoice in that relationship, singing songs of happiness.
This hope is the center of the Father’s daily living, the center of His thought, and the purpose for which He created human beings.
(7:48-49, July 12, 1959)
We should call God “Father.” God is the Father who originally created you. Due to the Human Fall, we also need rebirth, but God engendered your first birth. Your physical father was only the bridge over which you came into this world.
When you go to dwell in the spirit world, you will not call Him “father” but rather “older brother.” You will also not call your physical mother “mother.” People of firmly rooted faith in the spirit realms all call God “Father,” just as Christians do on earth.
In any given family, the grandfather calls God “Father,” the father calls God “Father,” the grandchild calls God “Father”—every member of the family calls God “Father.” Since God is the Father of all people, all people are brothers and sisters to one another. (21:249, November 24, 1968)
Heaven represents the father, and Earth represents the mother. Your first mother is the woman who gave you birth. Your second mother is the Earth, which supplies all the resources for life. Like a woman, the earth digests everything without complaint… Your third mother is the Holy Spirit. (279:171, August 4, 1996)
When you go to the spirit world, you will not only have a Heavenly Father but also a Heavenly Mother. Can a new life be born without both a father and a mother?
The dual characteristics of God are as divine Father and Mother, who were to be united as one in Adam and Eve. Therefore, we can say that through either our father or our mother, there lies a gate to heaven.
Had Adam and Eve become one, who would be the leading lights of the Kingdom of God in the spirit world? They would be our father and mother. Having lived on earth in the body, they would be the King and Queen of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven in the other world.
Hence, in the Unification Church…you have spiritual experiences where I, Reverend Moon, appear in your visions or dreams, and so does True Mother. You can experience that Mother and I are truly living with you throughout your life. How does the invisible God appear to earthly people?
You should know that He can appear in the image of True Father and True Mother, to show Himself to His children throughout the world.
(90:196-97, January 1, 1977)
Human beings lost God. What is this God? He is our Parent. He is the ultimate First Ancestor and King, such as whom there never was and never will be another. What, then, are we? We are God’s sons and daughters.
We are the sons and daughters of the King who rules the universe. This means we are princes and princesses. Then, what should we princes and princesses do? We should be educated in love and live with love under God’s sovereign authority. This is the world’s ideal. (105:26, July 8, 1979)
God’s purpose of creation is to create an ideal family where God can dwell with human beings. Although human beings fell, in their hearts they long for the day when God can live as the Father of the human family and they can live as members of God’s family.
We long to attend God as our eternal Father, become members of His family and live with God eternally. That is our hope, our ideal, our life, and our joy. That will be the completion of God’s long-sought purpose. (7:264-65 September 27, 1959)
Don’t simply serve God. Become God’s object partner, who says, “Father, here I am. How anxiously thou hast waited for this moment for 6,000 years! How many tears thou hast shed! How desperately thou hast yearned for me! Now, here I am.” This is what God has desired to hear from you.
After such a reunion, when God blesses you with dominion over all things in heaven and on earth, He would like to forget all the pain of the past and say, “I rejoice, for today is the day of My birth.”
God wants to put all the pain of the past 6,000 years behind him and sing songs of heartfelt love with His children in the new heaven and new earth. Then we will know that God is our Father, and we are His children. (7:171, August 30, 1959)