Pronouns and God - Why "He" is for Me!

A recent comment from a friend of mine has led me to this entry.  He chooses to use a feminine pronoun for God.  That's well and good.  Considering his reasoning, it makes sense.  God is tender, compassionate and merciful, and he feels as though these attributes have a feminine ring to them.  Plus, considering that pronouns do little justice to the all-encompassing Spirit that is God, why not give some air-time to an under-utilized pronoun such as "she."

That's fair.  I'm not writing this to alter his opinion on the matter.  I thought it an interesting topic to delve into, so here I go!

Why do I choose to use "He" when referencing God?

For one, Christ is male.  He (and all His Jewish ancestors before Him) referred to God using masculine words, and all parables which describe God use male persons as corresponding symbols: father, bridegroom, rabbi, king, judge.

Why might that be?  After all, in Genesis, it does say God made humans "male and female" after His own image, right?  Does that mean God is a hermaphrodite?

Not so much. 

We humans tend to think of everything on a physical realm because we're physical beings.  However, we're also spiritual beings, having been gifted souls that are intrinsically united to our bodies.  Our souls contain the neshama of God.  THAT is the the part of God that makes us "like unto Him."  That's the part that separates us from the rest of creation. 

Since God's neshama is neither male nor female (it is simply a gift of His Being - specifically His Wisdom and Power to understand and choose good over evil), that phrase in Genesis isn't referring to a physical likeness of God.  It's referring to a spiritual likeness in which humans are granted a very specific dignity. 

The best way of explaining this that I've seen comes from the Catholic Patriot.  He wrote:

• Rather, our understanding and use of the words Him, He, His and Father, are mere shadows as to the fullness of what these words convey when applied to the Divine Nature. Perhaps the best analogy for this can described in terms of Plato's "forms", where for everything that exists on earth, the perfection of what that thing is exists in some other plane. The words we use here are mere shadows of what is meant when expressed by the Holy Spirit through the inspired authors of the Scriptures. These authors are bound by the limited nature of words which can never express the reality of God. So, if our father has miserably failed to live up to the ideal of what a "father" is supposed to be in the eyes of God who personifies Father in its ideal, what has that to do with the English language?
  

I might not agree with all that Catholic Patriot has to say on this subject, but I think the above succinctly captures my thoughts in a better way than I could.  :)

Try as we might to label God, we can't do Him justice because our minds are simply not equipped with handling it.  However, we've been given little glimpses here and there of what our God deems Himself to be, so far be it from me to go against the examples He laid forth through that of His Son - and His Son's reciprocal teachings of His "Father." 

In a nutshell, that is why I choose masculine pronouns.

I mean, there's also things like the Blessed Mother being daughter, spouse and mother of God as well, but that's another conversation for another time.  :)

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