Why do we rely so heavily on male dominate language for God? Are we reaching "way beyond the veil" when we bring forward feminine language about God that has already been brought to earth revealed inside God's Holy Word? It seems like an act of injustice acknowledging God's "motherly" characteristics but to shroud them solely in Fatherly designations. The sole use of "He" language when speaking of God.
Scripture articulates God as both Spirit and Wisdom. Both of which are inextricably connected to God's Nature and Being. For example, Spirit (pneuma) is Greek with a feminine gender, and Sophia, known as "Lady Wisdom" in the Hebrew Scriptures, is said to have been there with God in the beginning in order to lay the earth's foundations (Prov. 3:19). Taking this as Truth means She, Sophia, was there in the beginning with the Logos. The only difference being that the Logos was made flesh and Sophia was not as recorded by John. (God's power married with God's wisdom is what conceived the Word that created everything.)
So, is the scandal of the incarnation what solidifies the dominant masculine gendered language for God? If not, then why do centuries of Christians lift up only one form of God-language in opposition to the other? Particularly, if we are to ascribe to ideals espoused in conservative-evangelical fundamentalism, shouldn't we take seriously and literally the totality of God's Word and incorporate a fuller breadth of God-language provided for us in Holy scripture?
Taking scripture literally should also necessitate consideration of the sources for whom God chose to reveal God's plan for salvation in written form. I would posit that in the practice of responsible hermeneutics readers of sacred scripture should be mindful of the limits of human experience and speech; the anthropic language the writers (and possibly even God) were limited to using in order to articulate ultimate Truth about God's Nature and Essence. Concessions of these limitations are often made in other contexts (for instance, does God's articulation as a conquering King really make God imperialistic or genocidal?). Yet, in the context of gendered language for God there is no consideration of the sufficiency of one expression of language in conjunction with another.
Therefore, at the heart of the scandal of feminine language to articulate God's Nature and Being appears to be both prejudice on the part of those "[doing their] best to present themselves to God as one approved… rightly diving the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). Second, are the assumptions and unreserved trust placed into the nature and being of the man-y human person's God chose to disseminate God's Holy Word. Meaning, because masculine imagery is the more pervasive and resolute articulation of God's Being in scripture, than it was God's sovereign desire to be understood strictly in masculine terms.
However, while upholding these views there seems to be an unintended and unrealized contradiction against some of the most prominent assumptions dominant in Christian ecclesiological beliefs. Specifically, the dogmas and doctrines of original sin, human free will, and God's sovereignty which are critical to conservative, evangelical fundamentalist idealogy.
Thus, in reverence of God's all pervasive sovereignty, unquestioned, unreasoned and heretical trust is placed into the hearts, minds and hands of those responsible for compiling "sacred writ," and superhuman, divine, and God-like status is given over to said writers. Implying, at least in my mind, that they are above the confines of fallibility and finitude endemic of the human experience. Morever, that they are beyond susceptibility to sin!
Such thinking also contradicts the prevailing Christian dogma of human free will because implied is God's ability to supercede, erase, or convert man-kind from corruptible to incorruptible while writing the inspired text. Moreover, the implication is in God's ability to remove or supercede the natural human inclination to get things wrong, get things incomplete, or succumb to their biases, cultural realities, traditions, and other external influences that inform how inspiration by God is heard and interpreted. (I do not think it was God who chose to limit God's revelation strictly to men who are subsumed in a patriarchal society with a misogynistic worldview.)
Thus, if an all Good, all Powerful, and all Knowing God is in the business of usurping human fallibility, why hasn't Death been "swallowed up in victory" and an end brought to the problem and pervasiveness of evil in our world? (1 Corin. 15:53-54 NKJV) Asked differently, what separates the fallibility and sin of the scribes of "sacred writ" from the scribes, ministers, theologians, pastors, preachers, or just "regular" Christian folk who continue to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and who continue convey God's Holy Word?
Or, if the scribes in fact were right, that "God's ways are higher than our ways and God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts" (Is. 55:8-9). And, if we are to take Paul's observations about himself as endemic to all persons, that as humans we only "know in part and prophecy in part" wouldn't it be heretical to ever suggest that our God-talk can encapsulate the fullness of God as Holy Mystery?
Since even Moses only got to see God's backside and not God's total visage I hold that we all should hold our understandings and "absolutes" about God in humility. Furthermore, if God's revelation about Godself in scripture is to matter and be taken seriously than we must not be lopsided in which words we deem significant over others. Especially, God's demands for justice and God's desire to make the Kingdom of Heaven accessible and relevant for all.
For in the words of Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, "… we prove ourselves to be enlightened Saints when it is okay to call God She."
My Thinking Deeper 