Why must we refer to God as "He"?

[SmileBugMK]

So I wrote to a theologian on Facebook.  I don't know him, but we have mutual facebook friends so I saw an update that a friend of mine commented on.  He's writing a book, and he's decided to refer to God in a gender-neutral way.  It doesn't look like the gender issue is relevant to the subject of his book, however.  He asked me if I thought God was male.  I answered that Christ in His humanity is of course male, but God in his essence as spirit is neither male nor female, like the angels.  Hopefully that answer was not wrong.  But anyway, quoted below is the relevant part of my original letter.  I feel like there's something really obvious that I'm missing, as to why the God(dess) business is absolutely incorrect.  Obviously, "The Church has always refered to God as 'He'," isn't going to cut it for this guy, which tells me I'm probably wasting my time.  But I've seen this nonsense other places as well and would like to be able to present a clear argument against it.

Using "God" rather than "S/He" et al is an improvement, but it's still clunky in my opinion. English prose without pronouns just isn't natural, and their conspicuous omission can only distract the reader from what you are actually trying to say!

More important than issues of style is that you believe enforcing a gender neutrality in reference to God is more "enlightened," whatever that means, than the tradtional practice of refering to God with the masculine pronoun, a practice that was followed by Christ Himself, and inspired by the Holy Spirit to be written into the Scriptures. Of course Christ, being a man, cannot be referenced by any pronouns but the masculine, but this is also true of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Two quick examples: 1) Try reading the book of Hosea with a genderless God. 2) How could Mary be the spouse of the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit could just as well be refered to as "She"? The whole of Scripture and Catholic Tradition is intensely rich with nuptial themes, most of which would be thrown out of the window by adopting this gender neutral nonsense. You may already be familiar with it, but I highly recommend the lecture "The Bridegroom Messiah" by Dr. Brant Pitre for an overview of this theme. Refering to God as "He" isn't about boys being better than girls. Both male and female were created in His image; we can't get more dignified than that.

The way I see it, all human beings being feminine in relation to God (Who must of course therefore be masculine) is beautifully affirming of the dignity of women. Humankind, whom God loves infinitely and wishes to be with Him forever in perfect eternal happiness, is characterized as a woman, a wife. Christ died for His Bride, the Church. Of course St. Paul makes this connection in Ephesisans 5 by telling husbands that they must lay down their lives for their wives. In human experience, marriage is the most intimate relationship possible. God desires perfect unity with all of us, represented by the intimacy between husband and wife.

Of course this just a smattering of all that can be said on the subject, but please think (and pray!) very carefully on the matter before you go forward with your book. Popular ideas are always changing, but God and His revelation of Himself to us never change.

[elizabee]

Yikes! God revealed Himself with the masculine pronoun (ie the Bible). The Church has several explanations about why He has chosen to do so despite being in Himself transcendent of sex, but our obedience should not be contingent on our understanding. He can't be claiming to write a Catholic book if he's entertaining that nonsense.

[cgraye]

Well, I think you are on the right track.  I once read something that stuck with me.  It was about how God relates to creation in a masculine way, as you have touched on.  Reproductively speaking, a man gives, begets, is active, initiates, and a woman receives, conceives, is passive, and awaits.  Likewise, God gives, begets, is active, initiates, while creation receives, is begotten, is passive, and awaits.  The direction of generation flows from masculine to feminine, and so it is with God, who then must necessarily be masculine in his relation to creation.

[StrictCatholicGirl]

And of course Jesus taught us to call God "Our Father..." To be gender neutral we'd have to say "Our Parent" and there lacks a poetic ring, among other things.

[Walty]

This theologian obviously knows better than not only the Prophets, but Christ.

[mamalove]

you cant tell those "gender equality" theologians anything...might as well send him an e mail that says blah blah blah blah....

why do we have to call God "He"?

short answer: because we are not goddess worshipping liberal "nuns"

[mike6240]

Jesus said for us to call God "Our Father".  Father means "he".  End of story.  period.

It's the same with "This is my Body" - "This is my Blood".  Jesus said it.  period.  End of story. He didn't imply it or suggest it.  He said it.

How obvious and blantant can Jesus be?  Or let me rephrase this:  How ignorant and blind can we be (or perhaps, how disobedient can we be)?

[DesperatelySeeking]

Jesus said for us to call God "Our Father".  Father means "he".  End of story.  period.

Yup, that pretty much does it.

[Louis_Martin]

Well, I think you are on the right track.  I once read something that stuck with me.  It was about how God relates to creation in a masculine way, as you have touched on.  Reproductively speaking, a man gives, begets, is active, initiates, and a woman receives, conceives, is passive, and awaits.  Likewise, God gives, begets, is active, initiates, while creation receives, is begotten, is passive, and awaits.  The direction of generation flows from masculine to feminine, and so it is with God, who then must necessarily be masculine in his relation to creation.

Well put.  The best way to deal with people who have a problem with calling God a "He" is to point out that creation is a "she," in that it is receptive to God's action.
Also, in the reproductive act, females move between potency and act as regards fertility (i.e. when pregnant you cannot conceive at that time).  Males however in the reproductive act do not move from potency to act, but are always in act (as in, you remain fertile despite conceiving).  God never moves from potency to act as He is unmoved.  So He in the creative act is the male, lest He change.

[serviam]

This theologian obviously knows better than not only the Prophets, but Christ.

+1

[SmileBugMK]

Thank you for your replies, everyone.  I ought to have asked for your prayers for this soul as well.  I wrote a response summarizing what you all have said.  You've given me some beautiful things to contemplate Louis and cgraye!  I think this will be the end of the discussion, so here are my closing remarks, in the hopes they will be useful to you as well.   

Really, the consistent use of masculine pronouns in reference to God and the complete absence of feminine ones in Scripture ought to be enough. God chose to identify Himself as father, husband, priest, king, and son. The names for God given in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures are likewise all masculine. The masculine more acurately describes the relationship of God to creation, as I touched upon above.

Ultimately, this is a question of authority. The problem with deciding to make God gender-neutral is that God Himself has taught us how to think and speak of Him. The most obvious example of course is Jesus teaching us, "When you pray, say, 'Our Father...'" To say that we need not follow this mandate is to say that either the masculine imagery in Scripture is not inspired, which contradicts the very nature of Scripture, or that it is arbitrary, which contradicts the very nature of God.

[glgas]

The problem lays only in the Indogerman and semitic languages. The Ural Altaic languages, and has gender neutral pronouns only, the same pronoun for male, female.

May be God is not Indoeuropean, neither Semitic.

[Petertherock]

Jesus said for us to call God "Our Father".  Father means "he".  End of story.  period.

Yup, that pretty much does it.

Ditto. Jesus says God is our Father, so that would tell me God is male.

[Benno]

Just a problem with what "masculine" and "feminine" mean, that's all. If he/she  is hung up about it all, mention how the desert fathers used to describe some women saints as "masculine". Maybe add that St J of the C said that Jesus "effeminized" men with His touch. Language picks up on truth - "male" and "female" etc mean certain things, and should. If your friend doesn't accept that male and female etc mean different things, he/she won't get the rest. There should be no gender-neutral translations, because they miss half the translation. Maybe get your friend to include a glossary which controversially defines "masculine" and "feminine", even if he/she has to refer to cultural traditions. Then the usage might be seen as coming from at least a logical "prejudice".

[Credo]

He can't be claiming to write a Catholic book if he's entertaining that nonsense.

Can you please explain this? The above statement can easily lend itself to serious misunderstanding, even blasphemy. At first blush, I read the above as saying that God needs to conform to the standards of the Catholic Church in order to reveal Scripture.