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My own opinion:
Since I asked everyone else to weigh in, it’s only fair that I answer it as well. I asked this question because I think it’s very important. Our image of God matters. Do we picture some guy in the sky? The big man upstairs? I wonder how our image of God affects boys and girls differently. Seeing God, or talking about God as your own sex, or as a different sex obviously must affect us.
I believe God is a spirit – sexless – genderless. Men and women were created in the image of God. I think often times the Genesis story gets told in such a way as to make it sound like men alone are made in the image of God due to English translations. The word “man” being used as a shorthand for “mankind” *ahem* humanity.. is frustrating, and careless – because again – our image of these things matters. If God’s image is found in both men and women, then God is just as much female as male – meaning the Creator is androgynous.
If God is not male, why only He? I say He when referring specifically to Jesus, but in a generic sense, I suspect either pronoun, or better yet, no pronoun is correct. However, I believe that saying only “He” is not just theological, but also political and sociological. God is referred to using superlatives – the almighty, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, supremely everything. These are all exalted status definitions – high versus low – strong versus weak – light versus dark – permanent versus temporary – good versus evil.. and… male versus female.
I wonder why people are uncomfortable with thinking of Her female traits, and yet comfortable with His masculine traits. I suspect it has to do with our social conditioning – the unconscious hierarchy of the patriarchy that we are accustomed to.
I admit much of our problem comes with language – but short of creating new genderless pronouns – it seems that the best option (for me) is to decline from using all pronouns, and to explain that relating to God can be done from either a feminine, masculine, or neuter position. I admit though, that at times it can be challenging to do.
One last thing. An interesting fact: The Christian God portrayed as a male in artwork is strikingly similar to the Greek god Zeus. Coincidence?
Something I’ve been wondering…
Since I asked everyone else to weigh in, it’s only fair that I answer it as well. I asked this question because I think it’s very important. Our image of God matters. Do we picture some guy in the sky? The big man upstairs? I wonder how our image of God affects boys and girls differently. Seeing God, or talking about God as your own sex, or as a different sex obviously must affect us.
I believe God is a spirit – sexless – genderless. Men and women were created in the image of God. I think often times the Genesis story gets told in such a way as to make it sound like men alone are made in the image of God due to English translations. The word “man” being used as a shorthand for “mankind” *ahem* humanity.. is frustrating, and careless – because again – our image of these things matters. If God’s image is found in both men and women, then God is just as much female as male – meaning the Creator is androgynous.
If God is not male, why only He? I say He when referring specifically to Jesus, but in a generic sense, I suspect either pronoun, or better yet, no pronoun is correct. However, I believe that saying only “He” is not just theological, but also political and sociological. God is referred to using superlatives – the almighty, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, supremely everything. These are all exalted status definitions – high versus low – strong versus weak – light versus dark – permanent versus temporary – good versus evil.. and… male versus female.
I wonder why people are uncomfortable with thinking of Her female traits, and yet comfortable with His masculine traits. I suspect it has to do with our social conditioning – the unconscious hierarchy of the patriarchy that we are accustomed to.
I admit much of our problem comes with language – but short of creating new genderless pronouns – it seems that the best option (for me) is to decline from using all pronouns, and to explain that relating to God can be done from either a feminine, masculine, or neuter position. I admit though, that at times it can be challenging to do.
One last thing. An interesting fact: The Christian God portrayed as a male in artwork is strikingly similar to the Greek god Zeus. Coincidence?
Something I’ve been wondering…
When you speak about, or pray to God – do you ever use feminine pronouns such as She? Why, or why not?
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December 19th, 2005 at 12:50 am
Best image of God: Alanis Morisette in Dogma.
December 17th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Alanajuliana- you misinterpret me. (and I did say it wasn’t a complete description of my beliefs). God gave our “corpses” life too–we are certainly a complete package and in no way did I mean to downplay the importance of our physical bodies, or imply they won’t be part of our eternal lives. But in responding to the original question regarding a gendered God, there is none as God exisited before anything physical, and as He gave our physical bodies life with His Spirit, its on THAT level that we most closely relate to Him. WldlFegrl213
December 17th, 2005 at 8:58 am
OK, I’ll go with that.
December 16th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Alana: First of all, I could not agree more with your first paragraph. Where classical Greek thought (especially Platonism) tended toward a deprecation of the body in favor of the pure life of the Spirit, Christianity, following its Jewish inheritance, has always insisted on the importance of the body. Whatever life we have, we live in bodies of flesh; and the redemption that Christ has accomplished for us extends to our bodies as well.
On metaphor: there is no “mere” metaphor. When you refer to God as father, you are speaking metaphorically unless you believe that God physically had sexual relations with your mother to conceive you. When you call God “Father,” you are describing God’s relationship to humanity in terms of what we understand as fatherhood. Our disagreement rests in whether God relates to humanity in exclusively “male” ways, or whether there is room to understand God in the feminine as well. But we are always speaking metaphorically–unless we are willing to say that our human language can actually capture the full essence of God, which is (I think) blasphemy.
Metaphor is a form of divine grace–God’s willingness to condescend to be described in terms that human minds and hearts can comprehend.
So I think I misspoke, upon looking back and reading your critique. I never meant to say that Husbandhood (or Fatherhood) are not essential to God’s nature. They are metaphors, yes, but as metaphors they describe aspects of God’s essential nature. What I meant to say (or what I am revising myself to say now) is that Husband/Father do not exhaust all that we can say of how God relates to humanity–there is infinite room for an infinite Being to relate in feminine ways to humanity as well–and in our culture, such feminine metaphors are powerful ways of communicating God’s actions towards humanity. But they re-articulate Classical Christian orthodoxy. They do not fundamentally change it–to do so would (rightfully) be heresy, a “stepping outside” of the boundaries of Christianity.