Metaphor, Idolatry, and Theology

I begin with a definition:

Metaphor – a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable (OED)

So there I was, a first semester graduate student reading a book about the Psalms for my Old Testament Introduction course when I read something that caught my attention and impacted me greatly:

“When metaphors become literalized to the point that they exclude other metaphors for the same subject or target domain, particularly in the case of God, they function as idols.”

William P. Brown, Seeing the Psalms (pg. 10)

I remember reading that statement, putting the book down, and thinking through its implications. (I was a good student! At least for that day.) I had never really thought about the fact that we rely on metaphors to understand God because God is wholly other. We cannot comprehend God, so we use images with which we are familiar (rock, shepherd, king, father, etc…) in order to describe attributes that we ascribe to God (strong, stable, caring, protective, etc….). So when I finally realized why we use these metaphors, it made perfect sense to me to come to the conclusion that no single metaphor can fully describe God.

However, I was not immediately convinced of the proposition that to limit God to any single metaphor was idolatry. I thought idolatry meant bowing down in front of images or praying to other gods. I could recognize that it was not commendable or wise to limit God to one metaphor, but idolatry? That sounded a bit harsh.

But the longer I thought about it, the more sense it made. Idolatry (at least as far as the biblical witness is concerned) means to worship any god other than God, and that includes a god that we fashion in our own image. So, if we define God in terms of a particular metaphor and worship that image of God exclusively, then we are not worshipping God in God’s fullness, but rather a god more suitable to our concept of what God should be—i.e. idolatry.

At the time, this was a very important revelation for me. However, it was not necessarily this statement that changed my theology; it was the example that followed:

“Such has been said of the exclusive use of masculine imagery for God.”

To use a boxing metaphor, the first statement was only the jab that set up the right hook that followed. I had just convinced myself that it was wrong to limit God to any metaphor, and then I realized that the masculinity of God was precisely such a metaphor. Considering that I had only ever heard masculine language used to describe God, I was floored by this realization.

God is not male. God is not gendered at all. And yet, we exclusively use masculine pronouns to refer to God. And in doing so, we limit the identity of God to one metaphor, worship the image we have created, and thereby commit idolatry.

Some of you may object here and say that God is revealed within scripture as male. Aren’t most of the metaphors used for God in the Bible “masculine”? Doesn’t the Bible, both OT and NT, use masculine pronouns for God? Doesn’t Jesus call God “Father”?

With regard to the first question: no. Most of the metaphors used for God are neuter—that is, they are not inherently masculine or feminine. Think about it: what is the gender of a rock? Grammatically speaking, a rock may be masculine or feminine within languages that use gender, but ontologically, a rock has no gender. Or think of another frequent metaphor for God: a shepherd. Can a shepherd not be either male or female?

Generally when we use these metaphors, we do think of these as “masculine” metaphors because of the attributes we intend to imply by using those metaphors: to call God “rock” means to imply that God is solid/safe/unmovable and to call God “shepherd” is to imply that God is protective/caring. And based on our socially constructed views of gender, we assume that these attributes are properly the attributes of men and conclude that God is male. But there is one obvious problem here: can’t women by solid/safe/unmovable and protective/caring?

In other words, we ascribe masculinity to God because we think that the attributes associated with the biblical metaphors are “masculine”. But if you really think about it, which metaphors in scripture are necessarily masculine? I can think of two: father and king. Although, I would argue that the King metaphor is used instead of a non-gendered term like “ruler” because of the lack of experience with female rulers in the Ancient Near East.

So what about father? Well, it is certainly well established within scripture, and even Jesus refers to and addresses God as “father”. However, we must treat this terminology as what it is: a metaphor. Think about what we would be implying if we insist that God is literally Jesus’ father: 1) that God has a body; 2) God’s body includes male reproductive organs; and 3) God used that body to impregnate Mary. Like it or not, that’s what it means to interpret God as the “literal” father of Jesus.

So how do we avoid such heresy? We interpret the father terminology as metaphor, but not as the metaphor, or as the most important metaphor, or as the metaphor that takes precedence above all others—it is one metaphor among many, including the “mother” metaphor. It may or may not come as a surprise to you to hear that there is feminine/motherly imagery used to describe God in the Bible, but I assure you that it is there (see Isaiah 66:9-13).

So what exactly am I advocating? That we replace masculine pronouns with feminine and call God “she”? Not exactly. I am advocating that we use metaphor appropriate pronouns when necessary—that is, when we are talking about God being father we say he/him/his, and when we talk about God as mother we say she/her/hers. But most importantly, I am advocating that we not use gendered language to talk about God when it is not linked to a particular metaphor—in other words, most of the time that we talk about God.

Is it cumbersome to replace most he/him/his/himself with God/God’s/Godself? Yes. But why should that stop us? Maybe the language we use about God should draw attention because of its awkwardness. After all, we are attempting to describe the indescribable, and maybe that requires us to rethink our use of metaphors, language, and pronouns.

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