Metaphors for God

A God of visiting and nourishing. A God who strains toward humanity with gentle care. A mother God who protects. A father God who feeds. A brother God who embraced our flesh, who walked with us, felt with us, and couldn't bear to leave. A spirit God who puts fire in our hearts and words on our tongues so that we might care for each other

This quote from Words Made Flesh by Fran Ferder illustrates some of the many metaphors we use to describe God. Mother, father, brother, spirit. And there are so many more in both the Scriptures and in our faith tradition: king, shepherd, friend, judge, redeemer, to name just a few.

Dr. Eblen, my Hebrew Scriptures instructer, emphasizes that metaphors make an "is" claim, but they also always contain an "is not" claim. For example, a popular 80's song claims "life is a highway." And there are many ways we can compare life to highways--sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind; sometimes it's smooth sailing, other times you're stuck in gridlock. But life is actually not a highway. This is kind of a "duh" statement, right? We don't talk about the "is not" factor of metaphors because we all know that it's there; we just don't think about it.

We may say: "God is a warrior king." Okay, God may have qualities like a warrior king, but God is not a warrior king. We may say: "God is a gentle, merciful shepherd." Okay, God may have qualities like a gentle, merciful shepherd, but God is not a shepherd.

It's important for us to realize that all "God talk" is metaphorical. Anything we can say about God has an element of truth (the "is" claim) but there is also an "is not" claim. The reason we know this is that limited human language can never be used to fully capture the essence of a God who is mysterious and ultimately, beyond human understanding. We get in trouble when we forget that. For instance, "father" is one of the most common images of God. But as a result of this pervasive metaphor, how hard is it for some of us to ever imagine describing God as "mother" because we have forgotten the "is not" claim of the father metaphor?

This realization can be scary; how can we talk about God when everything we say about God has an "is not" claim attached to it? I think, ultimately, this enriches our communication about and with God. It frees us from the limitations of making "is" claims about God that are too strong. When we open up to the mystery of God, and allow ourselves to recognize that God will never fit into the boxes we would like to fit God into, we can move into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the God who actually is, rather than the God we want to be.