The Pub

Naming God: Feminine Predication of God

Landon DePasquale

Language is admittedly imperfect. Nowhere are the limitations of language more pronounced than when speaking of God. Our language for God is a peculiar thing indeed, since we are forced to use language to describe someone utterly ineffable. Our finite language, and even our finite knowledge, always falls short of the infinite reality of God. Even such direct revelations as the Tetragrammaton – the revealed, most holy name of God – is not without its limit. Simply put, our language fails to capture the entirety of God.

This is not to say that our words for God have no meaning. Holy Scripture repeatedly describes God not only in names, but in metaphors to help convey truths about God. Some metaphors are much closer to what God is like while others are more of a stretch. “Lion of Zion” is meant to covey a truth about God, but is clearly not meant to claim that God is literally a large carnivorous cat. Other metaphors are closer to what God is like, such as light; in the Creed we say “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” While light may be closer to what God is like in that it is immaterial and the source of illumination in the world, more similar than a lion, it still fails to fully encapsulate who and what God is. It is true that any physical metaphor of God falls short, since God is a non-physical being.[i] God, properly speaking, has no body and is made of no material; He is spirit. He has no shape or weight; He is sublime.

This is often forgotten as we speak and think of God. We often take physical metaphors of God as being literally true. Nowhere is this more prevalent than with gendered names for God. Typically, thoughts about gendered names for God congregate at the two extremes. Either: God is a man because the Bible says so or God is the Divine Feminine within us all. There is, however, a third way, a via media, in which one may properly name and conceive of God in the feminine without falling into the new-age, politically correct heterodoxy that plagues certain modern streams of thought. There are two primary reasons why the orthodox Christian would refer to God in the feminine: one is the affirmation of the feminine metaphors and descriptions of God in Holy Scripture, and another is God's non-bodily nature. There are also some cautions the Christian would face in embracing such language.

There are many neglected descriptions of God in feminine terms found in Holy Scripture. Christ says: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!”[ii] and Isaiah records God saying: “I have looked away, and kept silence, I have said nothing, holding myself in; But now, I cry out as a woman in labor, gasping and panting.”[iii] There is also the allegory of Wisdom in Proverbs 8: “Does not Wisdom call, and Understanding raise her voice? 'The LORD begot me [Wisdom], the first-born of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.'”[iv] These verses all use female metaphors to describe God, to show characteristics of God that are more feminine in nature. They don't purport to show that God is a woman any more than the lion metaphor claims God is a cat. They serve to show truths about God through analogical imagery. These metaphors are key to a fuller understanding of who God is.

Any time we neglect a metaphor or description of God, we allow our conception of God to overrule who He has revealed himself to be. As we restrict the names and metaphors we use for God, we not only restrict our knowledge of God, we run the risk of thinking that our words describe God as He actually is, a danger akin to idolatry. For any human to believe that her language truly or completely describes God is for that human to do violence to the Infinite, to reduce it to some finite idea. For this reason, feminine metaphors and descriptions of God should be used to affirm a more full view of who God is.

The second reason for feminine naming stems from God's Nature. God is not physical, so any physical description of God is metaphor. Since God is not the kind of being that has a body, properly speaking He is not gendered; He is neither male nor female because such a being cannot be sexed.[v] That is not to say that God lacks gender or is in any way deficient. As Genesis states: “God created man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them.”[vi] Rather, God is supra-gendered; He contains both genders while simultaneously transcending both. He is not confined to a finite bodily gender; He supersedes gender, just like He supersedes the physical metaphor of the lion or of light. In this case, it seems proper that one would use both gender pronouns in describing God, since He really is not bound by either gender. This includes using feminine pronouns for God (she, her) and feminine names for God (mother, woman). This idea enjoys support in the Christian Tradition in the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, who lays the foundation for this theory of analogical language and how it functions for the Christian. In addition, Hildegard von Bingen and Julian of Norwich both use female pronouns to describe God and some of his more feminine attributes.

It is important to note what I am not saying. This is not an appeal to neo-paganism or a return to any feminine cult. I am also not saying that this should be done to be politically correct. I am not trying to sanitize God or His names to appeal to some misguided sense of plurality. I am not suggesting that feminine names be used in a liturgical setting. For those of us who use the liturgy in a worship setting, the purpose is to call Christians to communal worship by connecting with the Tradition of the Church. The liturgy is not about new ways of worshiping, but is a means of standing in the stream of Tradition handed down by the Church.  Any change made to the liturgy should be done with the greatest of care, in the community by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to greater reflect the Tradition of the Church.

Finally, this is not an invitation, nor an excuse, to reformulate the Trinity. The Trinity is a particular revelation of one of the sublime mysteries of the Godhead. The Tradition of the Church has sufficiently established that the Trinity is a set dogma and not a theology to be changed or reconstituted. While this may seem to be at odds with this idea that metaphors must not be held literally, it must be noted that the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not a metaphor for God. The Trinity is a special revelation that, while not a complete or total reflection of who God is – it is still bound by our human finitude – is nevertheless one of the greatest revelations we have of God and requires no reconstitution or reformulation. Further, the formula Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reveals particular relational truths about the Triune God. The relation of the begotten Son to the Father as First Cause should not be underestimated.

While arguing that God should be named in the feminine may seem like an ivory tower, abstract argument for something that seems utterly insignificant for the Christian life, nothing could be further from the truth. Using feminine names is an important part of one's devotional life. Just as with other limited metaphors that are contrary, using masculine and feminine language for God opens up the Christian to the tension inherent in human language and thoughts of God. This tension is not something to be put off or ignored, but is to be embraced. By allowing tension between different gendered names, the Christian is forced to remember the non-gendered, supra-gendered nature of God.

Furthermore, it allows Her to directly inform us of who She is. She has revealed Herself through Scripture, Tradition, and the Holy Spirit, and continues to reveal Himself in the intimate participation that we enjoy as Christians. This illumination of God by Her direct revelation is an integral part in uniting us to Her, just as Baptism and the Eucharist further unite us to Him. As our language falters, and we realize just how limited our vocabulary and knowledge is, truly we stand silent and ready for God to inform us of who She is. As we embrace the tension of who God is, we grow to know Him more deeply. As Pseudo-Dionysius says: “The fact is that the more we take flight upward, the more our words are confined to the ideas we are capable of forming; so that now as we plunge ourselves into that darkness which is beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing.”[vii]

Landon DePasquale is a senior Philosophy major from Wheaton, IL. He enjoys hunting dinosaurs with his best friend, Moses, and fending off the Bolshevik revolution.

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[i] I use God here to mean the Godhead, the One shared Essence, not any particular person of the Trinity.

[ii] Matthew 23:37

[iii] Isaiah 42:14

[iv] Proverbs 8:1, 23-24

[v] Denys Turner, The Darkness of God

[vi] Genesis 1:27

[vii] I am greatly indebted to Denys Turner for his work on this subject, particularly The Darkness of God. For further reading, see: Pseudo-Dionysius The Divine Names, Mystical Theology; Jaroslav Pelikan The Odyssey of Dionysian Spirituality.