Divine Sovereignty, the Sexist Political Order, and Antigone’s Free Action

This paper confirms a longstanding feministFeminist critique that the belief in God’sGod sovereignty, understood as His having supreme authorityAuthority over all creatures and controlling them according to His own will, has served to bolster the non-egalitarian and sexist politicalPolitical orderPolitical order of our worldWorld, since a sovereign ruler can easily claim that his model of government is in accordance with and conforms to the model of divine sovereignty. Feminist theologyTheology, by criticizing this conception of divine sovereignty, proposes a reconciliatory resolution between theology and a nonsexist non-paternalistPaternalist socio-political order, whereas the lack of this sort of reconciliatory resolution leads to tragedy. Focusing on SophoclesSophocles’ Antigone, in this paper I read Antigone’s deed as a feminist critique of the sexist/racist political order of her day interpreted through her feminist theology. I conclude that if we see God’s powerPower and sovereignty as bestowing freedomFreedom and love, as from Antigone’s feminist perspective it does, then the divine law of love and mercy and the human law of the nonsexist polis can be reconciled.