Why is god called a "he"?

[ToBeLoved]

So you just deny it too. Noted. Yes I take fact over writings by men written 2,000 years ago.

I missed that you were a 'Humanist'. Now it all makes sense.

We need to start sharing the gospel with you all.

 

[ToBeLoved]

So you just deny it too. Noted. Yes I take fact over writings by men written 2,000 years ago.

You know, historically and on so many levels that book is more accurate than anything anyone could have made up. But I know you don't have an open mind and probably have no idea what is even in the book you are bashing.

But such is life when everyone is all over CF.

 

[Motherofkittens]

I love your avatar. I was a Christian and creationist. I've read the bible, many times. But thank you for thinking of me.

 

[ViaCrucis]

This is a sincere question. Why is god called a "he"? Does he have male private parts? Does he have testosterone? What about females? Is he half male half female?

If you say we are not made physically in gods image, just our consciences is than why is he called a "he"?

Convention of language. One difficulty in English is that personal pronouns are gendered, we have an ungendered pronoun "it" but this is generally considered impersonal and unfitting to describe human beings, let alone God.

Further, at least in Christian theology, Jesus referred to His Father. And as such the paternal reference Jesus uses colors and informs Christian ways of speaking about God, and so masculine pronouns in reference to God the Father are standard, even though the Father is not a "male" for reasons you offered, God does not have "male private parts" or testosterone. God has no sex or gender, God is God. When talking about Jesus, obviously this is different, Jesus is male--a human male--but His maleness is a quality of His humanity, the fact that He is a human being.

God is neither male or female, neither part male or part female, or any such thing--gender and sex in any form are simply not applicable to God in His Essence.

Masculine pronouns are conventions of language, reflective of the theology and revelation of God's Self as presented to us in and by Jesus; but they should never be taken to mean that God is male, that would be erroneous if not straight up heretical. The incomprehensibility and ineffability of the Divine Essence demands that all anthropomorphic and anthropocentric language in reference to God be understood as analogy or as a dim comparison.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Didn't the Holy Spirit supply the male part of the pregnancy?

No. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus' "biological father". There is no paternal contribution to His conception, that's what makes it a virgin birth.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[CrystalDragon]

This is a sincere question. Why is god called a "he"? Does he have male private parts? Does he have testosterone? What about females? Is he half male half female?

If you say we are not made physically in gods image, just our consciences is than why is he called a "he"?

Patriarchy society and women were seen as inferior. Ergo God was always seen as male.

 

[Motherofkittens]

Patriarchy society and women were seen as inferior. Ergo God was always seen as male.

That's what I thought. But I would assume an all loving all powerful God wouldn't a, be so anthropogenic (he's just a human with superpowers) and b, he'd give us new words so we can describe him. Especially so as not to add to sexism.

 

[ViaCrucis]

That's what I thought. But I would assume an all loving all powerful God wouldn't a, be so anthropogenic (he's just a human with superpowers) and b, he'd give us new words so we can describe him. Especially so as not to add to sexism.

A traditional Christian teaching about God is Divine Ineffability, that is, God is ineffable--beyond description, beyond comprehension, beyond our capacity to understand, or adequately put into words. This also follows the traditional teaching that God is holy and transcendent: that is, God's radical otherness. God isn't just not like anything we have experience of or can imagine, God is beyond even that--it is impossible to try and make an adequate comparison between God and anything that exists in the universe. Our tradition still further says that the Divine Essence is completely unknowable; it is entirely impossible to know God, or to know of God, in and by His Essence.

This talk of the unknowable Essence of God gives us an important transition though, as talk of God's Essence also lets us talk about God's "Energies", that's at least how the Orthodox describe it, from the Greek "energeia" that is, "works"; in the West we'd say God's Acts, God's Works, etc. God is completely unknowable in His Essence, and can only be known by what He does, that is, chiefly, by revelation.

In addition to God's transcendence, there is also God's immanence, God is radically other but not far away, "in Him we live and move and have our being". Further, God's revelation of God's Self is personal. What cannot by any means be comprehended by human imagination nevertheless is made known, and this revelation can be seen in the encounter of God and man as described in the Bible--profound encounter such as Moses and the burning bush. But Moses's encounter with God here is not a naked encounter with God, but a veiled encounter. In Christian teaching God's chief revelation is Jesus, the Word made flesh, the union of God and man together in one Person. The Fourth Evangelist writes, "No one has every seen God at any time, but the only-begotten Son who is at the Father's side has made Him known" (John 1:18).

Now if I might get a bit Lutheran for a moment. In "Lutheranese" we speak of the Deus Absconditus and the Deus Revelatus, that is "the Hidden God" and "the Revealed God". We say that God in His Hiddenness is terrible, terrifying, we see the statement made to Moses, "No one can see me and live". Frequently we see the result of any kind of veiled encounter with God as being a source of terror, a holy terror, but terror nonetheless. YHWH is fire and smoke, terrible, frightening, incomprehensible, invisible; He is God hidden behind the veil of His own raw divinity. Seemingly so very different than what we see in Jesus who makes loving reference to His Father, but the difference isn't actual, it's only perceptual. Because the Hidden God is terrifying, so holy and glorious that none can behold Him. The Revealed God, clothed in the flesh of Jesus' humility is, paradoxically, to see God more clearly. No longer hidden behind a dark storm cloud, the friendly, fatherly, compassionate heart of God is made plain. It's not that before Jesus nobody thought of God as fatherly, compassionate, and loving (they did of course, and the Law, Prophets, and Psalms all say these same things, "I desire mercy not sacrifice", "the LORD is quick to forgive and slow to anger" etc). But where the Prophets could tell us these things about God, Jesus--being the very Son of God--can make it all the more clear and evident through His own Person, in all He said and did. And there is no more clear a picture of God then the humble, suffering Christ who submits to the humiliating death on a cross. This is the Theologia Crucis, the Theology of the Cross: that we don't meet God in glory, we meet God at the cross of Jesus.

All these things come together as deeply important. Because it is absolutely true that God is unfathomable, incomprehensible, ineffable, beyond anything and everything, and utterly sublime; and it is this utterly unfathomable, incomprehensible, ineffable, transcendent, and utterly sublime Reality that condescends to meet us in and through the suffering carpenter from Nazareth.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[CrystalDragon]

A traditional Christian teaching about God is Divine Ineffability, that is, God is ineffable--beyond description, beyond comprehension, beyond our capacity to understand, or adequately put into words. This also follows the traditional teaching that God is holy and transcendent: that is, God's radical otherness. God isn't just not like anything we have experience of or can imagine, God is beyond even that--it is impossible to try and make an adequate comparison between God and anything that exists in the universe. Our tradition still further says that the Divine Essence is completely unknowable; it is entirely impossible to know God, or to know of God, in and by His Essence.

This talk of the unknowable Essence of God gives us an important transition though, as talk of God's Essence also lets us talk about God's "Energies", that's at least how the Orthodox describe it, from the Greek "energeia" that is, "works"; in the West we'd say God's Acts, God's Works, etc. God is completely unknowable in His Essence, and can only be known by what He does, that is, chiefly, by revelation.

In addition to God's transcendence, there is also God's immanence, God is radically other but not far away, "in Him we live and move and have our being". Further, God's revelation of God's Self is personal. What cannot by any means be comprehended by human imagination nevertheless is made known, and this revelation can be seen in the encounter of God and man as described in the Bible--profound encounter such as Moses and the burning bush. But Moses's encounter with God here is not a naked encounter with God, but a veiled encounter. In Christian teaching God's chief revelation is Jesus, the Word made flesh, the union of God and man together in one Person. The Fourth Evangelist writes, "No one has every seen God at any time, but the only-begotten Son who is at the Father's side has made Him known" (John 1:18).

Now if I might get a bit Lutheran for a moment. In "Lutheranese" we speak of the Deus Absconditus and the Deus Revelatus, that is "the Hidden God" and "the Revealed God". We say that God in His Hiddenness is terrible, terrifying, we see the statement made to Moses, "No one can see me and live". Frequently we see the result of any kind of veiled encounter with God as being a source of terror, a holy terror, but terror nonetheless. YHWH is fire and smoke, terrible, frightening, incomprehensible, invisible; He is God hidden behind the veil of His own raw divinity. Seemingly so very different than what we see in Jesus who makes loving reference to His Father, but the difference isn't actual, it's only perceptual. Because the Hidden God is terrifying, so holy and glorious that none can behold Him. The Revealed God, clothed in the flesh of Jesus' humility is, paradoxically, to see God more clearly. No longer hidden behind a dark storm cloud, the friendly, fatherly, compassionate heart of God is made plain. It's not that before Jesus nobody thought of God as fatherly, compassionate, and loving (they did of course, and the Law, Prophets, and Psalms all say these same things, "I desire mercy not sacrifice", "the LORD is quick to forgive and slow to anger" etc). But where the Prophets could tell us these things about God, Jesus--being the very Son of God--can make it all the more clear and evident through His own Person, in all He said and did. And there is no more clear a picture of God then the humble, suffering Christ who submits to the humiliating death on a cross. This is the Theologia Crucis, the Theology of the Cross: that we don't meet God in glory, we meet God at the cross of Jesus.

All these things come together as deeply important. Because it is absolutely true that God is unfathomable, incomprehensible, ineffable, beyond anything and everything, and utterly sublime; and it is this utterly unfathomable, incomprehensible, ineffable, transcendent, and utterly sublime Reality that condescends to meet us in and through the suffering carpenter from Nazareth.

-CryptoLutheran

I wonder though then why we don't called God "they", if that's the case and he's a spirit who has no gender (since your sex/gender is determined by biology and, well, God has no physical biology). Sure you can't say "it" because it is for objects and that would be an insult, but sometimes we use "they" for people we aren't sure about, say if someone writes an article but they don't put their name so you don't know if a man or woman wrote it. Plus in Genesis God referred to himself as "us", and he didn't seem to know everything then... seems indicative of when the Israelites were henotheistic at one point.

That's what I thought. But I would assume an all loving all powerful God wouldn't a, be so anthropogenic (he's just a human with superpowers) and b, he'd give us new words so we can describe him. Especially so as not to add to sexism.

I agree with you there.