In recent years, I’ve encountered this and similar questions quite often. While I can’t yet claim to have reached an old age marked by the fatigue that often comes from many things—or even from everything—this topic truly exhausts me. No judgment; everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course. But just as everyone has the right to their opinion, I have the right to my exhaustion. And now, at least half of the reasonable world will say, “Okay, woman, why are you spending time and energy writing about something that tires you out?” Fair enough. I write because I feel the need to express what exhausts me, but also because I feel the need to make certain things clear and explicit. An additional motivation came from a recent experience at a multi-religious prayer gathering, where a dear friend—a theologian—refused to pray because, as she put it, she does not pray to a male God. The group encouraged her to offer the prayer in her own way, as she wished and as she normally does. This act of inclusion strengthened the cohesion of the group, and everything that followed felt like a manifestation of the global ethos that Hans Küng advocates so passionately, an ethos that I deeply admire and support.
Many traditional believers from the Abrahamic religions might view this as blasphemy, which, at the very least, could lead to ostracism and, quite likely, full excommunication. To prevent such a reaction, let’s first ask ourselves a basic and logical question: If God is God—YHVH according to the Old Testament or Allah according to the Qur’an—then, as the cause of all existence, does that Someone even have gender? Does the being who is the cause of everything, who is self-sufficient and exists independently, need to have a gender at all?
If God is a being who exists independently, needing neither food, drink, nor a partner, and is the source of all creation, and if, as the Bible says, He created man “in His own image and likeness” and “male and female He created them,” or as the Qur’an teaches, “He created everything in pairs”—then isn’t it unnecessary to discuss God’s gender?
If God created both male and female “in His own image and likeness,” doesn’t that already tell us enough about God’s nature? Is there anything more to explain?
If we accept this, I would argue that God is both male and female—and even beyond that. He created us with genders so that we might clearly understand our own insufficiency and dependence on one another. We cannot accomplish anything alone, whether in private or social life. We are not self-sufficient. In everything, we depend on God, the only being who is complete and whole. To grow closer to God, who is the source of all existence, we must live in harmony and cooperation with one another.
In every aspect of life, we are created to be dependent on each other. Our interdependence has nothing to do with our sex or gender, except in procreation. Take, for example, your morning routine: even something as simple as brushing your teeth depends on the person who produced the toothpaste, the one who transported it to the store, and the one who sold it to you—none of which depends on the gender of those individuals. Similarly, we depend on the people who produced the food we eat for breakfast, the car we drive to work, and the medical professionals who treat us if we’re involved in an accident on the way.
Admit to yourself that in none of these aspects of life does the sex, gender, or sexual orientation of those people matter to you. The only thing that matters is that they do their job well enough to keep you healthy and safe.
Therefore, the far more important question than “What is God’s gender?” or “Does God even have a gender?” is this:
“What is God’s essence, and what can I do to draw closer to God’s will?”
I believe that our interdependence speaks far more loudly about what God desires from us and how we can please Him. I believe it conveys a powerful message.
Who is willing to listen?
