If God is as the Catholic and other churches describe him, then we can pretty much rule out there being a Mother in heaven. If, on the other hand, our heavenly Father is a personal God, the door is at least open to the idea. Let’s see why this is so.
Here’s what Jesus said:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent.” (John 17:3.)
And:
“Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
“Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”(John 14:9.)
Adding to Jesus’ witness, Paul had this to say:
“[Jesus] Who being the brightness of his [i.e., God’s] glory, and the express image of his person, and up holding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3; emphasis mine.)
And if that weren’t enough:
“When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on [Stephen] with their teeth.
“But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
“And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:54-56; emphasis mine.)
Starting with the first quotation, Jesus tells us that in order to obtain eternal life, we must come to know both he and the Father, who is God.
Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn’t enough to merely know about them, that they live and are two of the three members of the Godhood. Even the devils know that . . . and much more! In fact, I would dare say that the devils know more about God than does the average Christian! (Perhaps we’ll talk about that at a future time.)
So, let’s now go back to the Catholic church which says that God is unknowable, without body, parts or passions, and so forth.
Given this, it would seem that by the Catholic Church’s standards, no one is even capable of obtaining eternal life, for no one can know God because he is unknowable!
That’s kind of scary.
That, being the case, you can rule out any idea of there being a Mother in heaven, for she would be in heaven all by herself, without any of her children, with only an unknowable God for her companion.
Does that sound like a harsh assessment? Yes, it does, but then, I didn’t make up the rules. I only followed them to their logical conclusion.
In the second quote, Jesus said he and his Father look alike. In the third quote, Paul said Jesus was in the express image of the Father and even sat down next to him, which would be pretty hard to do if he didn’t have a body or any parts.
According to the Greek, express image refers to an engraving, “the figure stamped, i.e., an exact copy” of the tool that made it. (James Strong, S.T.D., LL.D., Greek Dictionary of the New Testament, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1973.)
Lastly, Stephen actually saw God and Jesus Christ, standing next to each other! Thus, we might say that Stephen had personal knowledge of them, thus assuring his eternal life. His knowledge didn’t stop at just knowing about them. Of course, he sacrificed his life for that knowledge. (There’s a message in there somewhere.)
What all these things point to is that God is very much a personal God, not made in our image, as the debunkers point out, but we in his, as is stated in Genesis 1:26-27.
In this context, a Mother in heaven would fit in very nicely with that sort of a God. Let’s see if she, in fact, does.
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