I mentioned the other day that there had been some controversy around the Archbishop of York’s comments about some people finding it difficult to refer to God as “our Father.” Quite a few people jumped in assuming (prompted by the media headlines) that the Archbishop was seeking to stir up the old controversy about God, gender and whether or not we should still call God “Father.” I don’t think he did intend this. However the debate is live once again.
I’ve seen a few responses to the suggestion that we should stop calling God “Father” that whilst God is Spirit and so neither male nor female, transcending sex and gender, God does allow himself to be named and revealed in Scripture as Father. Because the word helps us to see certain things about his character, particular in terms of all things originating from him, of his love, provision and protection. In that respect “Fatherhood” functions as a form of metaphor.
To some extent, those arguments are helpful. It is right to respond to misconceptions from all sides about God and the assumption that God is gendered. However, I don’t think that the arguments quite get us to where we want to be. I want to say that “Father” is not just a metaphor, at least not in the way that we understand the term. God really is Father.
Such a suggestion tends to get some push back. Are we attempting to impose something onto God that isn’t true of him. There may be aspects of his character and work that make him comparable to our human fathers but God is utterly different. In particular, it is unhelpful to think of God as siring us so to speak.
Well, let’s lean a bit more into this together. It is absolutely correct to emphasise that our human language can never do true justice to our understanding of God. This means that language about God is not univocal, it’s meaning relating to us is not directly equivalent to its meaning relating to him. God is not just a super big creature and so we are not meant to think of him as a bigger or even as a better version of our fathers here. God is completely other, distinct, transcendent. He won’t be Father in the same way that you or I might be.
However, this doesn’t mean that the language doesn’t work. So, we say that it is analogical. Whiolst it is not a like for like match, the usages do match up. This is why I’ve emphasised that the direction of interpretation is not from us to God but from God to us. God is not a bit like a human father, human fathers are a bit like him. So this means that it is God who truly is Father in the truest form.
This is important, first because Fatherhood starts with the relationship of the first person of the Trinity to the Second. The Father really is The Father and The Son really is The Son. This is important doctrinal because, contra the accusations of anti-Trinitarians, Christians do not believe that God had sexual intercourse with Mary or with anyone leading to the coming of the Son. However, we do believe that the Son is begotten of the Father, we believe in Eternal Generation.
It’s also important pastorally. Only The Son is son through begetting. We are sons and daughters through adoption. Yet, we want to insist that God really is our Father too. This matters because many fathers and mothers did not come to have their children through sexual procreation and many people are not able to. We want to send a clear message to step fathers and mothers as well as to adoptive parents that they really are parents. They are not second class dads and mums, they are not just a metaphor for parenthood. When their children call out to them “daddy” or “mummy” they really mean it and are saying something beautifully true.
God is our Father, he really and truly is. That’s incredible good news.
Faithroots 