Benjamin G. Robinson
I would like to thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. I can tell this is a deeply sensitive and personal issue and I will attempt to address it in such a manner. In order to do so I’d like to talk about why we call God Father, how this name actually helps correct male dominance, and why this name is essential to Christian belief and practice. These three points are not isolated issues but by focusing on them separately we will be able to see how they do affect one another. I want to make sure you are keenly aware that your concerns are legitimate. Christian history does unfortunately attest that the name ‘Father’ has been used in manipulative and abusive ways.1 Yet I want to encourage you to look beyond those abuses in hope that you may find the name ‘Father’ redemptive.
It seems a good place to start in answer to the question of why we call God Father is with determining how we, as Christians, obtain knowledge about God. I would argue that our primary understanding of God comes from God’s self-disclosure.2 In other words, we know things about God because God has told us things about God. As Christians we believe that the Bible witnesses to this self-disclosure of God and in some sense is the very self-disclosure of God. In the Bible God speaks to us. The Bible doesn’t just retell stories from the past but tells us stories that give us a framework for how we are to live our lives.3 From the beginning of Christianity Christians have listened to what God is saying through the Bible. When they called God Father and when we call God Father it is because God has called himself Father in the Bible. We believe God has done so for a reason.
First, let’s consider how the Bible calls God Father. We notice that God is not first called Father in relation to Jesus, but is first called Father in relation to Israel. In Exodus 4:22 God calls Israel “my firstborn son.”4 In so doing God initiates a relationship with Israel by declaring that God is Israel’s Father. We see in the Old Testament that what it means for Israel to be God’s son is that God is Israel’s Father. Isaiah makes this relationship clear when he says in chapter 63, verse 16, “For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our father.” Again, in Jeremiah 3:4-5, “Have you not just now called to me, ‘My Father, you are the friend of my youth – will he be angry forever, will he be indignant to the end?” The prophets decry the fact that Israel at times abandoned the God who called himself their Father.5
Calling God Father becomes especially important when we consider how Jesus expressed his relationship with God. We consider God’s revelation in Jesus to be the most full and perfect expression of who God is and so we must take this revelation seriously. Matthew 11:25-27 says, “At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’” It is clear that Jesus finds the name ‘Father’ to be the most accurate way of describing his relationship with God.6 So, we shouldn’t say that calling God Father is an arbitrary name. Rather, we call God Father because the Bible calls God Father.7
Let me make here a distinction between images used to describe God and the very name of God. I want to affirm your desire to use maternal images in describing God’s interaction with humanity. The Bible uses these images! In God’s actions towards us he is sometimes described as a mother. Jesus, too, uses motherly images.8 So I wouldn’t want to make you think that we call God Father because he is not motherly. The Christian tradition has always affirmed strongly that God is neither male nor female. It is appropriate to speak of God as a mother. But when we speak of God as Father we are not saying that God is like human fathers. Instead, we are saying that this is God’s very name. God has revealed himself to be Father and calls himself Father because that is who God is. Our concept of human fathers does not direct our concept of God as Father, but instead naming God Father directs our concept of appropriate human fatherhood.9
By naming God Father the Bible has a very different meaning then some of our concepts of fatherhood. Certainly I can see that calling God Father might make you uncomfortable if your own father was not a good example. I would never want to you to leave this church because we call God Father here. The solution, though, is not to get rid of the language of ‘Father’.10 Instead, I’d like to suggest that we need this language in order to correct our misunderstandings of true fatherhood and manhood. In this very language we will find the cure to the misuse of the name Father to justify domination of women and sexism. Perhaps even your sister would be willing to step inside a church if she could hear what calling God Father means for men everywhere.
Again, it is true that in the history of the Church the name Father has been used to promote a distorted understanding of manhood. But what we find is that the problem is the distorted understanding of manhood and not the name Father. We’ve been told that to be manly means to be tough and gruff. A true man is the John Wayne figure in the old westerns, brandishing a gun and slaying the bad guys. This is an image of power and violence. The idea that a man is a man by being powerful, being wealthy, and being important is an idea that runs directly counter to Christianity’s understanding of manhood.11 We believe that what it means to be a man is most clearly defined by the life and obedience of Jesus. Christian men learn how to be men by observing the relationship between Jesus and the God he calls Father.
Saying that calling God Father encourages male dominance over women assumes that the true concept of manhood is the John Wayne concept and not the Jesus Christ concept. My concern is that you will end up reinforcing the notion that true manhood is characterized by violence and dominance. Abstaining from the name Father I think will end up leaving men with no hope to change. They will have no alternative model of manhood to use as a corrective. While your intentions are certainly admirable I think you will find the result to be destructive rather than constructive.
Instead of getting rid of the language of Father or even the language of Son, I think we need to encourage this language in order to offer men a true concept of manhood. There is perhaps no better dsisplay of this manhood than in the cross of Christ. In the cross we learn that true manhood lies in serving others, even submitting to death for the sake of others. Unfortunately we have often associated women exclusively with mercy and compassion and in so doing have seen women as weak and inferior. But the cross tells us that these characteristics belong properly to both males and females, and rather than being a sign of weakness are a strong refutation of our society’s idea about them. In fact, the cross tells us that true manhood is not having the power to violate others but resides in rescue. Christ submitted to the cross in order to rescue us, and any manhood that looks different than this is not Christian manhood.12 Jesus could have opposed Rome violently. He could have given in to our ideas of manhood and justice and used violence to liberate Israel. But instead he chose the cross and this ought to radically redefine both our understanding of justice and manhood.13 This is the context within which to understand God as Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
Finally, I’d like to address the last thing you said. Although you might already see some ways in which calling God Father does affect the way we make sense of God and Christian belief, I’d like to see if we could pull those out even further. In fact, it is only by naming God Father that we can begin to make sense of the God of the Bible. The reason this is so lies in the fact that God is Triune. Christians affirm God is a Trinity. This means that there is one God but in this one God there are three unique relations. I’m afraid that if we don’t call God Father we risk losing the three-ness of God. To call God Father implies that he is Father in relation to something or someone. In the Old Testament we saw that God is Father in relation to his son Israel. But with the coming of Jesus Christ we understand that God is Father most fully in relationship to Jesus, his eternal Son. Furthermore, by calling God Father we necessarily imply the Trinity because we have knowledge of the Son through the Holy Spirit, and the Son reveals the Father.14 What I hope to make clear is that only in Trinitarian terms does the Christian faith make sense. Even in prayer, which you pointed to, we need to know God as Father. After all, the New Testament teaches us to pray in the Holy Spirit, who is Christ the Son’s Spirit, to the Father. All that we do as Christians revolves around God disclosing himself as the Trinity.15
Another crucial aspect to our faith is that in Christ we are given a new identity. If we object to calling God Father because it is inherently masculine, we reinforce the idea that our gender defines our identity. Doing this would make our new identity in Christ obsolete! We are told that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek nor Hebrew, slave nor free.16 We can’t see our gender as giving us identity because we are told to abandon ourselves to Christ. We are Christians, and we are identified through our identification with Jesus Christ.
It is my sincere hope that you have heard my comments in such a way that you do not feel as if I have simply dismissed your uneasiness. I have tried to take your concerns seriously because they are serious concerns. You are asking good questions and I hope you see that the answer to those questions lies in a truly Christian understanding of God as Father. We call God Father because God has told us that is what we are to call God. In calling God Father we can bring hope and healing to men and women hurt by a perverse perception of what it means to be a man. Know that I would am very willing to talk with you further about this and I pray that in our discussion you have found the name Father to be a source of redemption. Grace and peace in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
1 Ellen Charry is lucid in this regard that masculine language has historical particularities of abuse (Charry, Ellen 232). She argues that the problem deals most directly with sinful humanity, rather than corrupt institutions. It is sinful humanity that creates perverse institutions. In this sense the abuse of masculine language can to some extent be expected. But even here we can see that the problem lies not with the masculine language but with its manipulation. Thus, Charry telegraphs the logic of her argument by rooting the problem in the human agent wielding the language of Father. In this way Charry reveals that a corrective must be external to human agency.
2 Here we encounter the question of theological epistemology. How do we know God? We can parse this question first through a basic epistemological inquiry. Here we rely heavily on Dr. J. Kameron Carter’s articulation in lecture #6. In order for knowledge to occur there must be a knower and an object to be known. True knowledge supersedes mere cognitive acquisition of data about the object to be known. Instead, true knowledge depends on a union between the knower and the known. The resulting intimacy is dependent upon the object to be known making itself available to the knower, without which there can be no true knowledge. Thus, theological knowledge depends upon the initial movement of YHWH making himself available to be known. This occurs through the election of Israel as partner in the covenant. Israel’s response is ‘knowledge bearing’ and we observe that personal knowledge includes behavioral response. This is why Israel’s response can be seen as revelatory. This is necessary for true union between the knower and God, who is not merely an object to be known but is also subject in theological knowledge. These are the assumptions guiding our dialogue. Implicit in this discussion is that Israel’s response as son contributes to our understanding of God as Father.
3 “Christianity is not a religion designed by its adherents. It is a tradition that stands on the disclosure of God” (Charry, Ellen 233). Stanley Grenz fosters our understanding of how this disclosure occurs. Within the assertion that God has disclosed God’s self in the Bible is the question of how this disclosure is translated. It is not enough to say God has disclosed God’s self but that this disclosure speaks to humans in particular cultural and social contexts. God speaks to us through the Spirit and the primary medium chosen by God is the Scripture. This is the vehicle by which the Spirit speaks the possibility of a new world (Grenz, Stanley 24). Using the speech-act-theory of J.L. Austin Grenz considers this aspect to be the perlocution. The speaking of the Spirit is not locution (i.e. the actual words of the Bible), but is illocution in that such speaking addresses us as the Christian community. The perennial question of what the Spirit is saying is the ongoing task of the Church. While addressing this question we draw upon the theological heritage set before us by Christian theologians in cooperation with our particular cultural setting (Grenz, Stanley 27-33). Our question concerning God as Father is conditioned by this heritage, and commences in part because it is demanded by this heritage. Therefore, to say that God has disclosed God’s self is not meant to convey this disclosure as an object we can possess and grasp, but is an invitation to engage in the theological task of asking the question of what the Spirit is speaking.
4 We owe this insight to Dr. J. Kameron Carter’s lecture #4.
5 To speak of God as Father must include reference to God as Father of Israel. Marshall says, “The one who sends his Word and his Spirit into the world for the world’s redemption is not a previously unheard of deity, but rather, as Christian theologians maintained early on, the God of Israel, who in these actions fulfills his promises to Abraham” (Marshall, Bruce 97). The God who is called Father is first known by Israel. Christian Trinitarian reflection presupposes continuity with the God of Israel. In fact, Trinitarian reflection can only proceed by first confessing this continuity. Israel’s experience of God as Father is formative and prior for any Christian affirmation of God as Father.
6 Jesus does not use this name only in regards to his eternal Sonship with the eternal Father. Following Dr. J. Kameron Carter we can say that imbedded in the claim of Jesus that God is his Father is the reality of Jesus as the recapitulation of Israel. Jesus assumes the identity of Israel as God’s son precisely because he is the ‘summary’ of Israel ‘refracted’ into the life of Jesus (cf. Dr. J. Kameron Carter’s lecture #7). In this sense Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel and the perfect human response to God’s covenant. He is the perfect son. He is the nation of Israel perfectly adequated to God’s call in the covenant. Any consideration of the particular incarnation of the Son must address this reality. We cite this to remind ourselves that we are simultaneously dealing with Jesus as the eternal Son and as the nation of Israel. These are complementary understandings. For the eternal Son in his freedom eternally chooses to unite himself with this humanity (cf. Karl Barth The Election of Jesus Christ).
7 Similarly, in reference to the Trinity Wainwright says, “And such a doctrine is based precisely on the given name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Wainwright, Geoffrey 221). The names are not properly ours but instead are given and must be received.
8 Cf. Matthew 23:37.
9 We must resist identifying the name Father as analogical to human fatherhood. The analogy instead consists of human fatherhood in relation to the Father. Father and Son are ontological terms. Their meaning is articulated in the content of the life of Jesus (Wainwright, Geoffrey 218). We are dealing with names that denote being.
10 Attempts to exorcise the language of Father must consider whether they are capitulating to negative images of manhood. Unfortunately, such arguments imply masculine language is inherently dangerous, and necessarily includes all its abuses. One wonders, if all images of manhood are deleterious what ought we to ask men to become? Do men require some type of feminization? This solution is highly unsatisfactory and does not deal directly with the issue at hand. By demanding the removal of masculine language, masculinity becomes hopelessly defined by its abusers. Charry is right to raise concern regarding the well being of familial responsibility when such a method is employed. Certainly this does not promote “positive interactions between men and their wives and children” (Charry, Ellen 236).
11 This is a crucial point. Here we find how masculine language operates wickedly. The concept of man to which these parishioners object is a concept that exists independent of the Christian narrative. Furthermore, it is a concept diametrically opposed to the Christian concept. The distorted concept sees manhood in the pursuit of power, wealth, and status. Women in particular bear the brunt of such a concept as they often are the ones on whom these men exercise their power with a desire for subjugation. Again, Charry is insightful: “The point here is that if men have identified manliness with an understanding of divine fatherhood and sonship that reinforces their own proclivities to control, subjugate, or wreak violence upon others to bolsters their own feelings of power, they have gerrymandered the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the reason for the incarnation, the power of the cross, and the hope of the resurrection” (Charry, Ellen 234). The problem is not the language itself but its misuse.
12 We again must ask whether abandoning masculine language here would not also abandon men to the distorted concepts of manhood. It is in the Trinitarian relations that we learn what biblical manhood looks like. Germane to this discussion is the Christian doctrine of the atonement. The cross is the quintessential moment in which manhood is parsed. First, the cross intimately connects justice and mercy. Thus, it is not proper to abstract either of these two as being exclusively masculine or feminine. Properly understood they transcend gender identification. The cross is both the justice and mercy of God. Second, it is made clear that manhood “lies in rescuing, not in violating others” (Charry, Ellen 239). What we have, therefore, is a corrective manhood. This corrective not only renders intelligible the naming of God Father but also provides men with the propensity to be liberated from society’s models. Yet we should be careful to not assume that the cross provides only a corrective for manhood. It also provides a corrective for womanhood. The traits portrayed in the moment of the cross demand the assent of both woman and man.
13 It is in the context of these alternatives that Jesus forged a new way. Thurman identifies this chiefly with Jesus’ turn to the inner person. The kingdom of God is within (Thurman, Howard 27). Jesus refused to acquiesce to the other solutions his contemporaries supported for liberating Israel (i.e. through zealotry). He knew that such power was illusionary. In an act of obedience Jesus submitted to those who believed in the power of subjugation. There was no other way in which he could truly be the recapitulation of Israel, for the perfect response to God’s covenant required a mode of existence that would articulate the love exhibited in the Trinitarian relations.
14 Athanasius was brilliant to recognize the indispensability of the name Father. In arguing against the Arians he says that the term ‘unoriginate’ in reference to God describes God in relation to his works. But Father describes him in relation to the Son (Athanasius, 30). The Triadic formula is foundational for describing the inter-relations of the Trinity. It is only in relation to one another that the persons of the Trinity can be identified. Congruently, Gregory of Nyssa says, “So the Father is the source from whom comes the Son, the one through whom all things exist, and it is possible to conceive of the Son only in inseparable conjunction with the Holy Spirit; for no notion of the Son is possible unless one is first enlightened by the Spirit” (Gregory of Nyssa, 34).
15 Many alternative names for the persons of the Trinity flirt with Sabellian tendencies (Wainwright, Geoffrey 220). For example, the language of Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer describes God as Triune in relation to his economy only. This is part of Athanasius’ objection to the Arian term ‘unoriginate’. As aforementioned he insists that Father implies Son, and that these names are used because they describe the inner relations in the Godhead. Differentiation in the inner life of God resists the Sabellian tendency.
16 Cf. Galatians 3:28.