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

This paper confirms a longstanding feminist critique that the belief in God’s sovereignty, understood as His having supreme authority over all creatures and controlling them according to His own will, has served to bolster the non-egalitarian and sexist political order of our world, 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 theology, by criticizing this conception of divine sovereignty, proposes a reconciliatory resolution between theology and a nonsexist non-paternalist socio-political order, whereas the lack of this sort of reconciliatory resolution leads to tragedy. Focusing on Sophocles’ 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 power and sovereignty as bestowing freedom 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.