Why We Name God as Father
It's about origin and relationship, not gender
This is part 4 of a series on the Apostles’ Creed through the lens of Ben Myers’ book The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism as well as Brother David Steindl-Rast’s book Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles’ Creed.
So far in this series I’ve talked about the sacramental (not just educational) nature of the creeds, who the “I” is that believes the Apostles’ Creed, and what it means to say that we “believe” in God. Now we come to the specific name for God that Jesus puts on our lips in prayer: “Father.”
Unique but also inclusive
We name God as Father because Jesus did, and taught us to do the same. Jesus relates to God as his Father and invites us to do the same. “Jesus’ relationship to God is unique but also inclusive,” Myers writes, “His followers stand on the inside of Jesus’ unique relationship to God. Jesus calls God ‘Abba, Father’ (Mark 14:36), and his followers are empowered by the Holy Spirit to pray in the same way (Rom 8:15-16)… Jesus is God’s child by nature, and we become God’s children by grace.”
So we name God as Father not because we speculate that God is like a human father, or because we think it’s a good theological encapsulation of God’s nature. We call God our “Father” simply because Jesus did, and taught us to do the same, and we trust there is something important about this for us.
Our trouble with fathers
A lot of Christians today, though, are uncomfortable naming God as Father. Many people have had to endure difficult or abusive relationships with their own fathers, and it’s hard not to project all of that onto God when we confess in the creed that God is “the Father.” Also, the traditional masculine language and imagery of God, along with the historic patricarchal practices of the church, have given the implicit (and sometimes explicit) message that women don’t reflect God’s image as fully as men do.
Because of this, in my tradition, liturgies are often modified to use more inclusive language, which often includes naming God and the Trinity in different ways. “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” for example, becomes “Blessed be the one, holy, and living God” or “Blessed be the one, holy, and undivided Trinity.”
What it means to confess God as “Father”
I do understand the difficulties of calling God “Father,” and I am fully in favor of creating liturgies with more inclusive language1, but I also think it’s important to understand what it means (and doesn’t mean) to call God “Father” in the creed (and in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray).
It’s worth noting that these concerns about the implications of naming God as “Father” are not new. “Early Christian teachers were already very sensitive to these problems,” Myers writes, “They took pains to explain that the Bible uses the word ‘Father’ without any connotations of gender.” This was one way among many that Christian teachers sought to differentiate the God of the Christian gospel from the pagan gods of Greek and Roman culture. The pagans gods were male or female, but “the true God totally transcends gender and the body.”
For example, near the end of the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus preached a sermon where he explained that we should use the terms “Father” and “Son” without any thoughts of gender or human bodies in our minds. We must learn to trust the realities these names point to without getting distracted by the names themsevles. “Do you take it,” Gregory asks his congregation, “that our God is a male because of the masculine nouns ‘God’ and ‘Father’? Is the ‘Godhead’ a female beacuse in Greek the word is feminine?”
So what does it mean to name God as “Father” when we confess the creed? “For Christians, the word simply describes a relationship and nothing more” Myers writes. The Father is the origin of everything. The Father is the source of divine life. The Son derives from that source, and we are included in this relationship. God being “Father” (or “Son” for that matter) has nothing to do with gender, or biological sex, or our relationships with our own fathers, or human bodies at all.
“Calling God Father,” Stendl-Rast writes, “implies that we can experience the ultimate Source of all as personally and caringly related to us… Awareness of being personally related to the divine Ground of Being is the basis for ultimate gratefulness and thus for the deepest joy.”
Next in this series: The Kind of Power God Has
Up until a few years ago, this wasn't something I *ever* thought about. It was just, "God is our Father," plain and simple. I inherited the tradition and, perhaps to my shame, never thought much about a woman's or a neglected/abused child's difficulty with such framing of the relationship. I was tone deaf to the patriarchal and gender baggage tied to a "masculine" title for God. Like many of us, though, I find myself suddenly "triggered" and "questioning" the age old assumption. I am suddenly awake to the bias and baggage of God as "Father." And it seems that there is growing curiosity about the "Divine Feminine." I have to say, I find it striking that one of the first metaphors given to us in Scripture for God is actually a feminine/maternal one - the Spirit brooding over the chaos waters! Chris Green helped me see past/beyond the gender of God and reframe my understanding of God as Father with his Substack essay, "The Father is Not a Father." Recently, I also stumbled across Kenneth Bailey's "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes," and appreciated his thoughts on the "Our Father" and the masculine/feminine Divine attributes. All that said, I do find myself defautling to inclusive pronouns for God, because *why not*? Not saying "He/him/his" doesn't change God, it doesn't change Christ, it doesn't change the gospel - right? But, I also think of God moreso now less as a male dad father and more of a Prodigal Other-Worldly Abba who transcends any/every earthly father - or mother - type.