What's the gender of God and how do you know?

Question

I see a lot of mentioning of God being a man or woman. I believe sometimes this is used to argue the superiority of one gender over another--so my question is, what gender do you think God is and who did you come to that conclusion?

I'm agnostic, so I don't have an opinion.

Laela(Layla): I really don't have anything against you or lifestyle--I don't understand the anger.

Answer 1

i, too, am agnostic. but, if i had to say, God would probably be gender-less. i believe this because, God is not a human being. he/she is above human beings. therefore, i don't think he/she would have recognizable human traits.

Answer 2

I was raised Catholic and even was on my way to becoming a Catholic priest, but my studies have "enhanced" my understanding of faith. Saying God has no gender, IMHO, is treading on thin ice. If I am made in the image and likeness of God, and I am male, who's image does that come from? I would propose that God is, as the theologians have put it, ALL IN ALL. God is both male and female, both masculine and feminine. If someone images God in their own mind as a man, it is because, at some point, God has exibited typically masculine qualities. The same can be said of the "feminist" perspective on the other side of the coin. God creates such a diverse world because God is "all-diverse." I wouldn't want to believe in a God any other way any more.

Answer 3

Only my personal opinion, but God is both. He/She is the originator of the soul and consciousness and may have given different parts to the different genders because we are in the image of, not a duplication and possibly could not handle the full scope of emotion, understanding and physical traits that He/She possesses. Could that be why we hear that 2 halves become a whole in a committed union?
Some get more of one trait set and less of another so I can see how same gender relationships are born.
Just a guess, of course!

Answer 4

God is beyond gender, but the very structure of this question brings with it a bias toward seeing God as masculine.
___Feminist epistemology tends to disparage the distinction-making processes of human cognition, but the kind of cognition that's left, when the dsitinctions are left out, is the immediate experience of non-egoic states that is unselfconscious, incapable of considering hypotheticals and counterfactuals, and unfree. It is the kind of consciousness had by animals and infants, who learn only via classical and operant conditioning. This kind of consciousness, in its attachmant to and integration with sensation and emotion, lacks the freedom that comes with detachment, and it is this freedom on which the power to form questions depends.
___It is true that this freedom is a phenomenological construct, that is, an artifice, but it is an artifice that grants a lot of cognitive utility and power. This artifice enables all non-conditioned learning and inquiry.
___The distinction-making processes involved here, and the detachments from immecdiate sensual experience are associated with the masculine not only by feminist epistemology, but also historically, in that their refinements were for the most part products of patriarchal eras or of patriarchy-favoring cultural developments.
___The mere asking of such a question invokes a lot of cognitive processes that lean toward masculine biases.
Leonard Shlain's "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image" presents a feminist-leaning critique of these processes. It's not very disciplined, but it gets the concepts across in a general way that's easy for those without a lot of philosophical education.

Answer 5

I don't think there's any way to really know. My personal opinion is that it's the arrogance of mankind to try and fit God into a physical image of our own creation. Our Creator could be both male and female, or neither. Who can really know for sure? I'm certain you are going to get a variety of answers to this question, that depend on each individual's perception of religion or spirituality. Some will say there is no "god", some will say that "god" must be a male, because the Bible refers to God as a "he", etc. I personally would like to think that if we have a Creator, that this entity (or energy?) is all-inclusive, that each of us (despite our differences) also has a bit of our Creator inside of us. I would like to believe that if we were created by a loving "god," He would have created us with equal love, equal value, and equal worth.

Answer 6

God is a male. In the Bible, God is always referred to as a he. (Gen 1:27; 2:2; Josh 23:16; Psa 2:2; Eph 1:14; Phil 4:7; Rev 7:15)

Answer 7

My higher power is genderless.
The idea of making God a male only served to further oppress females.

The name for God in the Hebrew language is "Elohim". Most scholars acknowledge that this word has a plural ending, which some use to suggest an Old Testament anticipation of the Trinity. What most scholars either do not know or care not to inform their constituents is that "Elohim" is not the plural of "El" the masculine form of the name. It is plural of the feminine, "Elowah". Strictly speaking, we can translate the Old Testament name for God as "goddesses".

Such a fact is naturally shocking to traditionalists who are largely ignorant of the origins of their faith. We do not favor, however, a translation of the name for God into the feminine because masculine pronouns are used in association with "Elohim". But we do argue that the use of the feminine ending by Divine Revelation ought to settle unequivocally that God's being encompasses both the masculine and feminine genders. Indeed, when describing man as made in God's image, the Scriptures say,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

- Genesis 1:27

Answer 8

I don't think of Gd as a gendered being. I think Gd transcends human categories like gender, bodies, race, etc. I guess I've always assumed that the ascription of the gendered pronoun him to Gd was just a manifestation of sexist language and didn't really reflect people's innate understandings. If people want to give the divine a gender and if that helps them understand/experience, that's their choice but for me Gd is so much bigger than gender. In terms of how I came to that conclusion, I honestly don't know. In my temple it's rare for people to ascribe a gender...

Answer 9

Christian esotericists, who explore such things, say that the Trinity includes the masculine: the Father God, and the feminine: the Holy Spirit/Divine Sophia. Though this is from esoteric Christianity it is recognized by individuals in other esoteric streams as well. It is the result of spiritual research by those who are capable of looking into the spiritual world as a result of their own work or grace.

Answer 10

I disbelieve in the existence of a god (or gods) until proven otherwise, remain open to the possibility of anything, but will not believe in something without concrete evidence.
I think that the reason people consider a god (or gods) to be of one sex or the other, is because we tend to humanise whatever things we cannot explain, so as to absorb or limit them to our understanding. It makes us feel more comfortable when we think we know what goes on outside of our mortal and mundane human existence.

Spirituality is something I do believe in, it's hard for me to explain now (don't want to write long, boring paragraphs), there are all sorts of ideas of it than run through my head, but I dare not make assumptions of something I have no profound and defined understanding of.

Excellent question. :-)

Answer 11

I was raised as a quasi-christian, but now I'm agnostic as well. I was told that God didn't have a gender, that women too were created in the image of God, which sounds suspicious considering that God is referred to almost exclusively as a He in the Bible.

If God exists then I would say s/he obviously has no physical body and probably represents a gender duality. Referring to God as a female would be as true as referring to God as a male.