What Is God's Name? (Part 3)

Is God a male person?  Why do the descriptions of God in the Bible seem male instead of female?  Why is God called a "father"? Can we use feminine concepts
for God also?  We've started on some important questions here:  whether the names and descriptions we have for God are adequate and if not, what to do about it.

Last week I wrote about whether being wounded by a father figure (or any male figure) means we shouldn't try to think of God as a father, substituting some other word instead.  We recognized that idea as "anthropocentric" or human-centered reasoning, which is basically idolatry.  It starts from the basis of who we are, what we understand, and what we feel our needs are, then projects our ideas onto God, like he was a big movie screen.  But God is far greater than our ideas of who he should be, so we need to use "theocentric" or "God-centered" reasoning instead. 

Since God describes himself to us in the Bible using the word Father, then we should use those concepts to describe and define for us what a physical father should be like.  God is not often referred to in the Old Testament as a father, but Jesus describes him right from the start as "Our Father" (Mat. 6:9) and he speaks of God as Father 16 times in Luke's gospel and at least 93 times in John's Gospel!  We would do well to review John's writings, especially, to see more of the Fatherhood of God as Jesus showed it to us.  But in summary, we could say that the Father is an infinitely loving Person who plans and provides good for us, looks out for us, and always works out what is best for us, even to the point of sacrificing himself for us (see John 3:16).  In fact, he loves us as much as he loves the Son of God (John 17:23) -- which shows us that the infinite and eternal love that is characteristic of the Father-Son-Spirit God is now being shared with us!

If we are willing to trust that Scripture has come to us as it was inspired by God, without changes in its meaning, then we also have to accept that the names for God are what he actually calls himself.  Can God be Father even if we have similar terms in human life, and some of those terms leave us with negative images?  Yes, if we're willing to think in theocentric terms:  admitting that God is Father of all, and that he defines for us what Fatherhood is, therefore we can re-define what fatherhood should be!  Our own fathers fell short of that ideal, no matter how good they were, but we can choose to see them through the eyes of grace just as our heavenly Father sees us.  More on all of this next time.