Is God “He,” “She,” “It,” or “They”?
Increasingly, pronouns matter, especially personal pronouns. There’s a rising trend toward incorporating the pronouns by which a person wishes to be referred into email signature blocks: “He/Him,” “She/Her”; I received one like that only yesterday. Traditionally, the Bible speaks of God as “He/Him”; indeed, all three persons of the Trinity are spoken of in male language. Why might that be? Should it still be? What is that “saying”?
I am not an expert on the history of language development (biblical or otherwise) so this article will simply offer some theological observations.
Our church recently ran a weekday evening (“Alpha-style”) Holy Spirit Course. One of the questions raised was whether the Holy Spirit could/should be spoken of as “She/Her.” The questioner thought this would be a helpful corrective to the “maleness” that speaking of the Trinity in masculine language is in danger of reflecting (and that many Christians, probably unwittingly, take to be appropriate for understanding who God is). Since those leading the course were understandably a little unsure how to respond, I was asked for my thoughts so they could go back to the person the following week. Here’s an expanded version of what I said.
The biblical basis underlying the question is that in Old Testament Hebrew the word for “Spirit” (rûaḥ) is feminine (so, too, in Aramaic). Further support comes from wisdom being personified and expressly identified as feminine in the Old Testament—for example, in Proverbs 1:20: “Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the public square”—allied with the close biblical connection between wisdom and the Holy Spirit.
What, then, are we to make of this? Several thoughts occur to me, in no particular order, and with no single thought adequate in itself.
Firstly, how relevant to a word’s meaning is its gender in a language that (unlike English) has such distinctions? In French, the word for a window is la fenêtre, but I doubt many would say that windows were therefore in some sense female. More to the point, perhaps, the New Testament Greek word for Spirit is neuter (pneuma), so if the same logic were to be followed, we would refer to the Holy Spirit in New Testament terms as “It/Its,” which would result in a depersonification and depersonalizing.
Secondly, in terms of how we got to where we are (God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being spoken of using male pronouns) we probably need to face the fact that in the ancient world in which this personification began it would have been considered self-evident that an all-powerful deity would be depicted primarily in power and authority terms, including ascribing titles such as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. And though there were some exceptions, power and authority roles were almost invariably fulfilled by men. Physical strength, power, and warrior attributes resided in the male domain. In short, it was a patriarchal world with a patriarchal worldview. (A “worldview” is everything that people in a time and place take to be “obvious” about “the way things are,” without even really thinking about it.) Scripture is not here reflecting a timeless “biblical” worldview, it’s reflecting the way things were. Only now, and belatedly, does society (mostly) recognize that women can equally validly hold such roles—that is what’s “obvious” today. Ironically, and very sadly, it is some conservative churches that are the main exception, based on an anachronistic (and for men, highly convenient) interpretation of what the Bible was saying and why.
Thirdly, though we could be gender-neutral and speak of the trinitarian God entirely in terms of It/Its, the cost that comes with it would be once again to depersonalize God relationally. Some may say that’s a price worth paying, to overcome the “God is male” assumption, but it would involve a great deal of rewriting of Scripture to change all that gendered language, and, a great deal of awkwardness in, for example, reworking lots of the metaphors through which characteristics of God are described. Equally, it would be linguistically awkward to try to speak in terms of “He/She” all the time. That said, where we can easily change biblical words and phrases from, say, “brothers” to “brothers and sisters,” and “all men everywhere” to “all people everywhere,” we should do so (it reflects the theological intent and removes the anachronism).
Fourthly, we need to make it VERY clear that notwithstanding this discussion about the use of male language, God is 100% NOT “biologically male.” God is not defined in human male terms in his nature and character. As a feminist theologian famously said, many years ago now, “If God is male, then the male is God” (perish the thought). Conservative church hierarchies have, of course, followed precisely this abhorrent falsehood to deny women roles such as pastor and elder, adding to that a prohibition on women teaching men (though there seems to be an exemption for teaching male children for some reason—presumably because too few men are willing to serve in children’s ministry).
A feminist theologian also famously questioned, “Can a male savior save women?” The context is a statement by Gregory of Nazianzus (a 4th-century theologian and archbishop of Constantinople): “That which is not assumed [by Christ] is not redeemed.” The statement reflects a theory of atonement (“how Jesus saves us”) through which Jesus is taking humanity into himself and redeeming it from within. I think this question is valid to ask but flawed insofar as (a) the human Jesus could not be fully both male and female (otherwise he would be neither); (b) he could not be every variety of human, experiencing every person’s life and circumstances; and (c) the question confuses Jesus’ representative, identification role vis-à-vis humanity with a precise literal correspondence to every human; something that is not anthropologically possible.
Fifthly, part of the solution is to give much more attention to bringing out the classically feminine characteristics of God’s nature and character that are evident in Scripture. These get far too little airtime. For example, nurturing language, mothering language, birthing language (“born again,” anyone?—who gives birth but a mother?), empathy, and compassion. So, too, the feminine metaphors for God. For example, Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11–14; Deuteronomy 32:18; and Isaiah 49:15. If we did this more proactively, there would be less of a problem to overcome.
At the very beginning of the creation account, the “image of God” is clearly stated as “male and female” (Genesis 1:27). Unless we think of God in both male and female terms we have a significantly deficient perspective on God’s nature and character.
Sixthly, the problem with the option of using “They” language instead of “He” or “She” is that whilst it can be said to be reflective of the trinitarian God as three Persons, it overstates their three-ness at the expense of their one-ness. This is exacerbated by the doctrine of the Trinity being the hardest to grasp and explain (followed closely by the incarnate Jesus being fully God and fully human). We must not forget that each Person is invariably spoken of in Scripture as Father, Son, or Spirit. Rarely if ever is God spoken of as “they” in a kind of “all three of them together” way. I don’t think “they” language is the answer or even part of an answer.
This brings me to the final point, perhaps the most compelling for me. Going back to the question that we began with, the cost of referencing the third person of the Trinity in female terms is that it inevitably concedes speaking of the first and second persons in male terms. And, dare I say it, the Christian world already generally perceives the Spirit to be in a subservient relationship to the Father and the Son (not so much on paper, perhaps, but inferred in practice). Derived, for example, from verses such as John 16:13, “He [the Spirit] will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears.” Verse 14: “He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” And in John 15:26, Jesus speaks of the Spirit “whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.” With that as background, if and to the extent that we affirm the Spirit as female, there is every likelihood of inadvertently perpetuating the falsehood of female secondary status (and also attributing that as a feature within the godhead).
Are we therefore losing more than we gain by identifying the Holy Spirit in female terms—unwittingly reinforcing an inappropriate gendering of God that we should be challenging? Trying to work around it in a way that, for all practical purposes, ends up affirming it? I think so.
Bottom line, we need to do a lot more work in the church explaining all of this, theologically, rather than looking to a quick fix of changing pronouns, which will not do the job.