Archive: Why We Don’t Call God Mother

By John N Oswalt

It is frequently asserted that until we erase male pronouns and appellations from our language about God, there is no hope for bringing women to full “personhood” as Christians. Furthermore, it is asserted that those male pronouns and appellations are the result of the patriarchal chauvinism of Hebrew religion. In that light, it is argued with greater or lesser intensity, that we need to change the biblical references to God in order to make them “non-sexist.”

In the midst of this debate, we must be clear about this: the terms for God are neither arbitrary nor the result of patriarchal chauvinism; and attempts to change them, whatever other results the changes may have, will fundamentally alter biblical theology, and that for the worse.

In this discussion there are two significant points which must be made. The first is that, unlike the gods of lsrael’s neighbors, Yahweh is not sexual. The second point is that, since the male terms do not express an essential maleness in the divine reality, they are not therefore expressive of chauvinism, but instead represent a theological decision.

In pagan religions the world over, ultimate reality is patterned on the psycho-socio-physical world. Thus, what is true here on earth is doubly true in “heaven.” So if humans are a mixture of good and bad, the gods are even more so. Likewise, if life as we know it is generated through sex, then all life is created through sex. Indeed, sex and sexuality become necessary descriptors of all things. This is entirely understandable when we reflect upon the fact that sexuality is a part of all that we human beings know.

The origin of this approach to the understanding of existence—that divine reality mirrors the world—is not hard to comprehend when we think about the process involved. As we look at life and at the meaning of life, it is hard to reason other than by analogy from what we know. Polytheism is a reflection of the “manyness” of life as we encounter it. Idolatry is a representation of the fact that life as we know it is profoundly material. Perhaps the only people ever to attempt to explain reality by means of logic as opposed to analogy are the pre-Christian Greeks. However, logic is much less susceptible to the workings of sympathetic magic than is analogy, and the logical approach had largely failed by the time of Christ’s birth.

In this light, it is fascinating—but not unexpected—that across the world, creation is depicted as the result of divine sexual activity. A first god and goddess have sex; they reproduce other gods and goddesses who reproduce other gods and goddesses, and ultimately the world is created. A variation of this is found in Egypt where the high god masturbates and brings about creation as the result. The analogical connection is obvious. All things came into existence along the lines which are familiar to us.

By the same token, the maintenance of life is through divine sexual activity. The analogical reasoning is evident. If the earth is to be fertile, then the gods must be fertile. If refraining from sexual activity means lack of reproduction, then the gods and goddesses must not be permitted to refrain from sexual activity, but must be made to engage in it wherever possible. Sympathetic magic is very significant in this process. The worshipper and the cult prostitute are considered to take the place of the god of the sky and goddess of the earth, and since they represent the god and the goddess, they are in fact the god and goddess. Thus when the two human beings have sex together, the god and goddess are assumed to have sex as well, and this insures the fertility of the crops. This means, of course, that around the world prostitution has always been considered a religious activity.

The Hebrew understandings and practices are diametrically opposite of this. There is no mention of sex as being instrumental in creation. Fertility cult and the accompanying magic are strictly forbidden. Throughout the Old Testament, any use of the Canaanite fertility cult centers or their cult methods is condemned in the strongest terms. Prostitution of any sort is expressly forbidden.

There are those who argue that this is merely a reaction to the heavily sexualized worship of the Canaanites over against whom the Hebrews were trying to establish their own identity. However, if that is the case, there is no explanation why the Moabites or the Ammonites or the Philistines or any of the other non-Canaanite national groups did not create the same reaction. No, there is a deeper reason for the prohibition of any sexual activity in worship or in relation to worship, and that is because God is not sexual.

The fact that God is not sexual becomes evident when we recognize that God is never said to have a consort, nor is any sexual activity ever ascribed to him. For those of us raised on the Bible, the very thought is completely foreign. But when we read the Bible against the backdrop of the Ancient Near East, it is astonishing that of all the gods, this One alone should never be described in sexual terms. It is important to point out in this context that God has no genitalia; he is not depicted as physically male.

(It should also be pointed out here that neither does he have female genitalia. The recent attempt to review the interpretation that El Shaddai means “the breasted god” is a classic example of tendentiousness—that is, the spreading of an idea in order to support some previously held point. This interpretation, which was suggested in the last century on the basis of a possible Arabic etymology, had been almost completely rejected by the middle of this century. It has only been revived in recent days by those who are attempting to support an androgynous view of God.)

Nor is the biblical account of creation, either in Genesis 1 or 2, sexualized in any way. Sexuality has nothing to do with the origin of life. It is plain that God visualized the world and spoke it into existence. One of the Egyptian accounts is often said to be similar in thought to this, but the similarities are very superficial. The fact is that of all the world’s creation accounts, the biblical one is the only one in which the sexuality of the deity is totally absent.

This complete absence of sexual reference to God and to any sexual activity in the process of creation means that, biblically speaking, sex is a part of the created world but it is not a part of ultimate reality. This view is unique to biblical faith, and is of the utmost importance. If we for any reason, conscious or unconscious, suggest that sexuality is a part of ultimate reality, we will be delivered over to an understanding of reality that has devastating implications.

But we may ask why the Hebrew religion takes this position, which is so violently at odds with all the religions around it? The reason is that the Bible presents a fundamentally different world view from that of the neighboring religions. Apart from the Hebrew religion and its daughters, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, the world view which characterizes every one of the other religions is that of continuity. Continuity sees all things, visible and invisible, as continuous with one another. It stresses that things which appear similar are in fact identical. Thus, the raindrop and the ocean are one and the same. By the same token, an image of a person bearing a nail paring or a hair of that person, is the same as the person. The point of view of continuity is, of course, absolutely necessary for rituals which depend upon sympathetic magic to work. On the other hand, if there is a discontinuity between me and the image of me, then there is no reason to believe that anything done to the image will necessarily happen to me. Of even greater importance, there is no reason to believe that what I do to the image of the deity will have any necessary consequences in the divine realm. If that is true, then it is impossible for human beings to manipulate divine reality for their own security’s sake.

Over against the world view of continuity is the world view of the Bible which is transcendence. In the Bible’s view there is a radical discontinuity between God and his world. The world is the creation of God, but it is in no sense God himself. God is other than this world. This means, above everything else, that it is impossible for us to manipulate God for our own purposes. Rather, as the Bible makes very plain, human beings can only relate to God through trust and commitment. This is, of course, very frightening. A major descriptor of humanity is insecurity. We want to know everything beforehand, and then decide whether we will do something or not. Instead, God calls us to abandon our self-serving, and to commit ourselves to him in advance.

This view of transcendence explains why the Bible would deny that God is sexual, or that he could be manipulated through sexuality. Furthermore, it explains why creation should be described in completely non-sexual terms. God is neither man nor woman. Sexuality is a part of the creation, but it is not a part of the Creator. He is other than we.

This brings us to our second point. If it is true that God is not sexual, that he is not treated as being physically male, then we must ask why the Bible so resolutely uses male terms to describe him. And it must be said that this usage is indeed resolute, for although there are instances where God is said to act like a mother or a nurse, there is no place in the Bible where God is said to be a mother or a nurse. Thus it appears that the insistence on the sole use of male terms is not accidental but carefully planned. Why should this be so?

When the Hebrews came to describe the God whom they had experienced (and there is no other explanation for their unique world view, including monotheism and iconoclasm, than that they did experience the God they describe to us) they were faced with a difficult problem. The Being whom they had experienced was one, supra-sexual, personal, and all-powerful. The problem was how to describe this being in terms which did not do damage to the Being’s essential character, yet were intelligible to human beings.

Many of the pagan religions recognized that behind the gods in their fickleness and fallibility, there must be an all-powerful force. However, that force was never considered to be personal. Personality is a characteristic of the gods, but they are neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. Hebrew religion says that this force is a person. This Being is profoundly personal, personal in every way. It becomes necessary then to use personal pronouns and terms to describe God. The use of a neuter pronoun and neuter terms would not be acceptable, because they would not convey the personality of God. Furthermore, the Hebrew language does not contain a neuter pronoun or even the concept of the neuter. It is my personal conviction that this absence of a neuter gender is the Hebrews’ means of expressing the concept that personality is intrinsic to all of reality. But be that as it may, the neuter was not an option for them.

The problem is further complicated by the oneness of this divine being. Contrary to the theologies of Israel’s neighbors—which, growing out of a continuous world view, posited many divine beings—the Hebrews had experienced the fact that there is but one divine being. Thus, they did not have the alternative open to them of using both he and she, the one time for one deity and another time for another deity. A third possibility might be androgyny—the idea that God is sexually male and sexually female at the same time. But androgyny would not represent the fact that God is supra-sexual. In fact, such a representation would draw attention to the deity’s sexuality. What we would have would not be a theological accommodation, but a monstrosity.

As the result of all this, the Hebrews chose to represent God through the use of male terms. Again, I want to assert that this is not to say that God is a man or is in some way uniquely male; but it is to say that in terms of the revelation, the only appropriate terms they could use which did not do violence to the nature of the divine being were the male ones. It may be justly asked why this is so. Again, the answer is found in the Near Eastern environment. In that setting, it is impossible to separate the female principle from the idea of sexual reproduction and continuity. Across the Near East and indeed, the world-goddesses are always associated with sexuality. They are associated with fertility, with reproduction, and with abundance through sexuality. We may argue as to why this is so. We may even assert that it need not be so. But as a matter of fact, it is so.

But male terms need not be associated with sexual reproduction. To be sure, many of the male deities are profoundly sexual in their representation and in their activities, but this is not true of all of them. Thus, if one wished to represent that divine Being who was revealed to the Hebrews in such a way as to communicate that the Being was not sexed and did not have power through sexuality, it was impossible to use female terms to represent that Being.

But beyond the association of the female principle with reproduction, there is the issue of continuity. In profound ways a mother and her child are continuous. For nine months they are physically one in ways which are impossible for the male to imitate. If the desire is to represent a transcendent God, the male terms are the only alternative. The mother goddess is uniquely appropriate to represent the world view of continuity, but it is fraught with immense danger for the biblical view of transcendence. Certain feminists have addressed this issue directly by asserting that one of the problems in the world is the concept concept of divine transcendence, and that we need to represent deity as female in order to reassert the importance of continuity as a religious principle. In fact, the religious principle of continuity is destructive of all which the Bible teaches.

Thus, in order for the Hebrews to find an appropriate metaphor for the one, transcendent, personal, supra-sexual being who had revealed himself to them, they were limited to male metaphors and terms. Again, these terms are not saying that God is male. In fact, all that is good and true of all human beings is reflective of the character and nature of God. But to say that God is father and mother is indeed to reduce him to terms of this world, and to remove from us the possibility of recognizing that God is beyond us. To change the terminology which the Bible uses to describe God may indeed make some women feel a greater degree of self-worth, but at what price? The price will be loss of the unique biblical revelation of reality.

The purpose desired is a good one. Women do deserve the right to know that they are fully as significant and valuable in the eyes of God as any male. But the means being taken to achieve this end are highly destructive of that very religion which has succeeded in giving women the highest status of any religion in the world. Without doubt, we have farther yet to go but reducing God to merely the level of male and female is not the way to achieve the results we desire.

John N. Oswalt is the Beeson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is a noted Old Testament scholar in the area of Ancient Near Eastern cultures, literature, and language. Dr. Oswalt is also a contributing editor to Good News.