Is God Male or Female?
Response to N.T. Wright
Recently Mike Bird interviewed Tom Wright, dealing with the common question Whether God is male. I’ll let you listen yourself (21:15ff), but overall Wright was correct about all his conclusions (my favorite part was: “With God, you can’t just muck around and invent things”); but as so often happens in these discussions, I felt that he fell short on explanation or “the why” behind those conclusions.
On the one hand, God neither is male nor female; yet on the other, holy Scripture usurps names from both men and women (and especially fathers and mothers) and says them of God, saying that he is our father, our mother, etc. All this is clear and obviously correct. However, why or how does holy Scripture do this?; and, why or how do we ourselves do it? Responses to these sorts of questions are less clear, and often in short supply. I want to supply such here.
The basic and straightforward response is that we say these names through analogy of proportionality, through the parallel of relationships. We usurp names from both men and women and say them of God, according to the similarity of God’s works to the works more unique to men and women respectively. Let’s break this down carefully and unpack the logic.
In the created order, we find many creaturely states of affairs arise, and which result (more or less) ultimately from God. In other words, these states of affairs are divine works: the deeds and doings of God in the world. Yet as we consider these creaturely states of affairs, particularly looking at their outer surface, we begin to see that they are similar in various ways to the works of other creaturely agents. The prophets throughout holy Scripture saw the same thing: divine works have many similarities to many works of many creaturely agents.
Now this is extremely important–because fundamentally given some similarity between a divine work and a creaturely work, we begin to usurp names from within the work-creaturely agent relationship, and then call the divine work and even God himself by those names. This is something of the universal naming system which the prophets of God used throughout holy Scripture, and it applies for the names usurped from men and women respectively.
One major example, to fill this out, would be the husband-wife relationship. Importantly, the relationship of a wife to her husband is akin to the relationship of a soul to God. As a consequence, the prophets firmly apprehended this very analogy and held it continuously in mind; and “from within it” they adopted the habit of usurping various names from the wife-husband relationship and saying them of the soul-God relationship. Thus, they said that the soul is a wife, and so God a husband. They considered the different movements of the soul in relation to God, and usurped names from the marital works of the wife-husband relationship: the soul leaving God they said commits adultery; and God not preventing this they said gives a bill of divorce. The prophets even went so far as to usurp names from the various principles of these marital works, and deployed them as explanatories for what happened within the soul-God relationship: thus, they said that God is jealous, angered, and so on, whenever the soul had left God and was about to undergo pain. The through-line for this whole network of names (which dominates holy Scripture!) is the original analogy of proportionality, the fact that the relationship of a soul to God is akin to the relationship of a wife to her husband. As a result, all the names from the latter are “up for grabs,” to speak about the realities involving the former.
This exactly is occurring in the case of male and female names said of God throughout holy Scripture. Besides the husband-wife relationship, the prophets especially preferred to use the father-child relationship and the mother-child relationship, given how immediate these are to us and therefore how apt they are for speaking of the God-creature relationship. But the pattern remains the same: when what happens between us and God is similar to what happens between a child and his father, then names from the latter are said of the former; when similar to what occurs between a child and his mother, then names are usurped from the latter and said of the former. Note that never are these names speaking about something in God, but only about something among us and in its relation to God.
Many examples can be supplied–and not infrequently they explicitly signify the analogy of proportionality “running behind the scenes.” E.g., “as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isa. 66:13). What was about to happen to Israel would be similar to a child being comforted–a work much more unique to a mother than to a father. Therefore, God is said to be a mother who will comfort Israel. Again, “Did I birth them, that I should carry them as a nursing mother her infant?” (Num. 11:12). Moses notes that he is not the one who gave Israel life, and therefore is not the one who ought to sustain Israel’s life; rather, Israel was given life from God, and therefore ought to expect its sustenance from God, just as a child ought to expect its substance from its mother.
The same for those divine works which are similar to works more unique to men or fathers. “The Lord carried you, as a father carries his son” (Deut. 1:31): although carrying (as just noted) is common to men and women, here the heaviness of Israel makes the divine work similar to a work more unique to a man who is strong. Again, “The Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Prov. 3:12): discipline is a work more unique to a father, and therefore God is not said to be a mother when we are chastised, but instead a father.
In conclusion, God neither is male nor female; and the male and female names said of God in holy Scripture do not signify anything in God, but only different relationships which we have to God and which are comparable to relationships which a child has to its father and mother respectively.