Is God a man or a woman? When put this way, the question seems absurd. It is silly to think of God as a man or a woman, since such concepts are limited, and God is not. Yet, isn’t that what we do all the time? Don’t we tend to think of “Him” in that way? Isn’t He, after all, the old man in the cloud, reaching out His finger to touch Michelangelo’s Adam to give him life? Isn’t He the angry God of justice and holiness who destroyed the Earth in a flood, sparing only Noah and his family? Isn’t He the God who sent his angels to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? Isn’t He the God who chastised the Israelites by sending them into bondage more than once because of their loss of faith and attention? And isn’t He the God who Jesus called “Father” – a male term?
On the other hand, isn’t “He” the God who, out of love and compassion, sent his son, Jesus, to redeem a sinful world? For Trinitarians, isn’t He the God who showed so much compassion and grace that He went willingly to the cross on that mission of redemption? And isn’t He the God who desires to have an intimate, familiar relationship with us where we are nurtured, learn and grow? Isn’t He the wise teacher who patiently leads us down paths beside still waters? Isn’t He the God who welcomes the lamb back into the fold when it strays?
It has been suggested by theologians that God is neither male nor female, nor masculine or feminine – as God transcends these categories. After all, God is infinite and incomprehensible, so how could any category like “male” or “masculine” do justice to such as Him? If male only includes half of any species, how could God be adequately described by such a term? God is whole, complete and undivided – even as we experience Him in three persons. Jesus, when asked by a scribe which commandment is the greatest, replies “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (NSRV Mark, 12:21)
In the first creation story of the book of Genesis, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (1:26-27). Notice that God refers to Himself in first person, plural. One way to understand this would be as a foreshadowing of the Trinity, but another would be a parallel to the male and female that He had created. He created “them; male and female,” “in his image,” “according to our likeness.” This could provide the basis for a different reading than normal, where God Himself is male and female, as is humankind, fashioned in His image.
The second creation story differs from the first. In this account, “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (2:7). Later, God said, “it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner” (2:18). God then created the other animals, but this companionship was not enough, so He “caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (2: 21-23). As interesting as it is that we have two separate, and different, creation stories within the first few pages of the first book of the Bible, it is the nature of God that it highlights that I find most illuminating for our present subject. While this selection is often cited to show the inferior position of the woman (a helper, created after and from Adam), I think a different (and better) reading shows just the opposite. God made Adam in His own image, and the woman later created from his rib was an integral part of that image. To become one flesh, man leaves his home, and then clings to his wife – his “partner.” Man, alone, is partial, just as woman, alone, is partial. God, on the other hand, is integral, from whose image is man and woman, masculine and feminine together. (This does not, by the way, speak to the question of gay or lesbian relationships; but more on that in another column.) Thus, God is neither man nor woman, masculine nor feminine, but the whole from which both were derived.
On this reading, God is sovereign, pure, abstract, distant, just and powerful. At the same time, He(She) is diverse, real, close, compassionate and caring. We should be careful not to talk about God as if He(She) were confined to only one gender. (Norvene Vest uses the spelling Godde instead of God to refer to that complexity.) To do so would be idolatry – the confining of God within a bounded image – regardless of the fact that the image is mental rather than one made of stone, brass or gold. God is He, and God is She – and more. God is Masculine, and God is Feminine – and more. Neither aspect is over the other, but instead, both are parts of God’s image and nature. In the English language, we suffer from the lack of an ungendered personal pronoun. That’s too bad, because God is not (just) a He, nor (just) a She. And, because God is a person (as in the Trinity of the union of three Persons), God is not an It. God transcends these categories. As we talk of (and to) God, let us strive to keep this in mind
