Why is God not a Woman?

While speaking to a group of youngsters during a Retreat, a young man challenged me for consistently calling God a 'He'. He said that according to his parents, God is neither a 'he' or a 'she', but an 'it'. By now, it should be no secret that I have all kind of questions when it comes to God. But this one was new territory for me as I never considered God as anything other than a 'man'. So ever wondered why God is always addressed as a man in Christianity, why not a woman, or something in between?

To begin, God's true nature needs to be understood. John 4:24 states: "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth". So God is pure spirit, which means he has no physical body. This means God has no gender, neither masculine nor feminine. This would suggest that the argument by the youngster about God being 'it' sounds accurate. But (and it is a big but) God as an 'it' doesn't work in Christianity for two reasons: doctrines and revelation.

It is impossible for the finite minds of human beings to understand the infinite nature of God. Moses ran into this problem during his first encounter with God, as we see in the Book of Exodus. Moses wanted to tell the Israelites something about God to make them believe in him, so he asked for God's name. And the answer was, "I am who I AM" (Exodus 3:14). Now imagine Moses trying to explain that to the Israelites suffering under the captivity of Pharaoh. The God in the Bible has a mind, will, intellect, and emotions. When God revealed those characteristics to the prophets, the anointed ones and the authors of the Bible, they discerned that God wants to reveal Himself to his people as a person rather than some supernatural phenomenon. So it became necessary for the authors of Bible to reveal God as a person without falling into the trap of anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human form or characteristics to anything that is not human. In religion and mythology, this refers to perception of divine beings in either human or semi-human form, and recognizing certain human characteristics in these beings. So from Zeus, the famous Greek god, to Ganesha, the Hindu god with elephant's head and human body, are all products of anthropomorphism. 

The writers of the Bible couldn't risk being anthropomorphic because in doing so, they would have created an idol. Instead, they relied entirely on the revelations and looked for a proper medium to effectively express what God is trying to tell His people. Throughout the Old Testament, the relationship between God and Israelites is portrayed as that of a husband and wife. So, whenever the Israelites dabbled in idolatry and pagan worship, it was seen as a violation of the marriage covenant. But unlike husbands who are actually human, God the husband never stopped loving or forgiving his wife. To reveal the unconditional love of God for his people, pronouns like "he" and "she" were used just to keep things sensible.

So it is a mistake to understand God as a male human being when we address Him using masculine pronouns. Therefore, those who try to be politically correct and use terms like "God our mother" or "God the it" are guilty of being anthropomorphic, trying to personify God for the purpose of idolatry.