Should we stop calling God 'He' since God is not male?
God is spirit — He has no body, no shape, and nothing about Him can be pictured or carved. That raises a fair question: if the categories of male and female belong to creatures, why does Scripture speak of God as "He," and why did Jesus teach us to say "Father"?
God Has No Bodily Form
The starting point is what Scripture itself says about God's being. One writer draws out the force of the phrase carefully:
William J Hocking"God is a spirit." He is the Being who is spirit in essence. It is not merely that this is His character, as would be expressed if the phrase were "God is spirit." But God is a spirit. It refers to His being, to the Person. He has no bodily shape. He is not circumscribed like ourselves, and He is an omnipresent spirit, and therefore though in heaven, He is here, and we being spirit are in His presence.
So the premise of the question is right. God is not a male being. Anyone imagining an old man in the sky has already missed Him.
We Are Not Free to Form Our Own Idea of God
But the conclusion many draw — that we should therefore redesign the language — runs against the reason God gave no visible form in the first place. Commenting on Israel at Sinai, where the people heard a voice but saw no shape, one writer applies it directly:
C. H. MackintoshThey saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not assume any bodily shape of which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments... There was no need for them therefore to set about imagining what God was like; nay, this was the very sin against which they were so faithfully warned. They were called to hear God's voice, not to see His shape... We are not called to work up our minds to form any conception of God. We have simply to hear His word and keep His commandments. We can have no idea whatever of God, but as He has been pleased to reveal Himself.
The same rule that forbids carving God in wood forbids recasting Him in words of our own choosing. Both replace what He said about Himself with what we prefer.
"Father" Is a Name He Disclosed, Not One We Selected
The word "Father" did not come from human religious instinct. It was brought to us by the Son, and before He came it could not be known:
H J VineThe Father's Name has been manifested by His Son in the world — manifested in pure and sovereign grace. Of old He was revealed as the Creator, as the Almighty, or as the All-sufficient One, and as Jehovah; but by the Son the ineffable Name of Father has been manifested. Until the Son came to reveal Him as Father He could not so be known, for Jesus said, "Neither knows any man the Father save the Son."
Father and Son Are Real, Not Borrowed Pictures
One common argument is that "Father" and "Son" are human images God borrowed to help us. Commentators in this collection reject that, and insist the direction runs the other way:
James BoydIt will not do to say that Father and Son are but names taken in connection with the revelation, for the revelation is of that which exists... But such an argument is founded upon the knowledge that we possess from creature relationships, and not from the revelation given to us of God... We do not know Divine relationships by knowing them as found in this fallen world. We know them by Divine revelation, though the Spirit of God may use the earthly to help us to understand the heavenly; but we must not think that they are alike in every particular.
That last line matters for this question. Human fatherhood involves a male parent; the divine relationship does not import everything the human word carries.
The Words Themselves Were Chosen by God
If the naming were ours, we could revise it. Writers here hold that the very words of Scripture were given, not just the ideas behind them:
Leslie M. GrantLet us closely observe too, that it is not merely the thoughts or concepts involved that are inspired of God, but the "words." Every word as it was given was precisely right, exactly expressing (in the original languages) the mind of God. Translators are not at liberty therefore to merely translate what they conceive to be the meaning of any given passage.
Nothing Tender Is Lost
Keeping God's own language costs us nothing, because Scripture already carries the tenderness people fear is missing. Isaiah says, "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you." One writer sees both sides held together in God:
The Bible TreasuryFatherly authority in the church should be coupled with motherly tenderness, as was the case with the apostle... He wrote to them, "We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children." Are not perfect power and perfect tenderness united in our God? His hand is as tender as it is mighty.
Summary
- Spirit — God has no bodily shape and is not confined like us; He is not male, and no picture of Him is possible.
- Silence — At Sinai He showed no form on purpose, so that Israel would hear His voice rather than imagine His shape.
- Speech — Since we can know Him only as He reveals Himself, His words, not our ideas, decide how He is named.
- Son — "Father" was disclosed by the Son and describes a real relationship, not a human image borrowed to illustrate God.
- Sufficiency — His fatherly authority already holds perfect tenderness; His hand is as tender as it is mighty, so nothing is gained by renaming Him.