This name “Father,” accordingly, is not a metaphor derived from the earth and attributed to God. Exactly the opposite is true: fatherhood on earth is but a distant and vague reflection of the fatherhood of God (Eph. 3:14–15). God is Father in the true and complete sense of the term . . . . He is solely, purely, and totally Father. He is Father alone; he is Father by nature and Father eternally, without beginning or end.

Fatherlessness is an epidemic of western civilization. The downstream effect on western culture is already the subject of several Christ Over All articles. This article is going to move upstream from the social effect of fatherlessness into something far more sublime—the classical Christian doctrine of God.[1]

There is a trend in Christian theology, growing in its influence in evangelical spaces, that threatens to move the cultural epidemic of fatherlessness right up into theology proper—into the doctrine of God himself. Many egalitarian evangelical voices have embraced the claim, long advanced by more radical feminists, that the overwhelming preponderance of masculine language for God in Scripture and the history of Christian theology is a serious problem in need of a corrective solution.[2] Post-Christian feminists and liberal Christian feminists are inclined to replace masculine names and titles with feminine or gender-neutral ones. Evangelical egalitarians are more inclined to supplement masculine names with feminine ones in an effort to give equal representation to feminine language in our naming of God. For the egalitarian, just as male and female roles are interchangeable in society, so masculine and feminine divine names are interchangeable in the doctrine of God. At the center of this controversy is the cherished divine name, Father, which many claim is interchangeable with the name Mother. It is now more commonplace than ever before, in more traditional Christian contexts than ever before, to hear prayers offered to “our Mother in heaven” or perhaps “our Mother and Father in heaven.”

The replacement of Father with Mother is not merely a matter of semantics. If Father is a revealed proper name of God, as this essay will demonstrate, then this move borders on the blasphemous, as it presumes a prerogative in divine naming that God reserves for himself. It places the creature in the dangerous position of repudiating or diminishing the verity and significance of the very name of God, a name which must not be taken in vain. With respect to both personal and corporate devotion and prayer, addressing God as “Mother” replaces the specifically revealed designation by which the Lord Jesus taught us to address God with a designation nowhere given in Scripture. Furthermore, the move toward a more inclusive or feminine naming of God can have disastrous effects on one’s understanding and application of the divinely appointed calling and position of both fathers and mothers in the home. If there is any legitimate sense in which a human father uniquely ought to pattern his love and leadership for his family after the fatherly care of God for his covenant people, then replacing the name “Father” with “Mother” will result in confusion at best, fatherly abdication and motherly usurpation at worst. This is a serious matter indeed.

Foundational to the argument that Mother is interchangeable with Father as a way of referring to God is the claim that the name Father is a metaphor drawn from the human family. In this article I will argue that the name Father is not, in fact, metaphorical. Rather, Father is a proper divine name predicated of God in two distinct ways, essential and personal. A right understanding of this fact will equip Christians to be faithful in their understanding and application of the analogical relationship between the fatherhood of God and human fatherhood.

The argument will proceed in five steps. First, I will show that God’s names are the result of divine revelation, not human imagination. Next, the nature of all theological language as analogical will be considered. Third, the distinction between proper and figurative speech about God will be discussed. It will be seen that Father is proper, not figurative. The fourth section will take up the important distinction between essential and personal divine names in order to show that Father is predicated of God in both ways in Scripture. In the final section, I will draw on the theological account of Father as a divine name developed in this essay to suggest some limited points of analogical correspondence between divine and human fatherhood.

God’s Names as Divinely Revealed

Reformed theologians have always given significant attention to the biblically revealed names of God. For them, the word “name” is typically reserved for a proper predication that functions as the object of direct address or as the subject of a sentence.[3] In other words, something is a name of God if God is addressed by it in Scripture (e.g., “O LORD, our LORD, how majestic is your name”) or if it is used in Scripture as the subject of a sentence in which God is described by some attribute (e.g., “God is great.”). In standard Reformed nomenclature, these features distinguish a name from more abstract predications, such as divine attributes or eternal trinitarian relations. It is not as though Reformed thinkers ignored such issues as attributes and trinitarian relations in their theology. Far from it, the Reformed Orthodox are known for their robust treatment of such themes. But as Richard Muller observes in his magisterial Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, “From the time of Zwingli onward . . . the names of God provided the Reformed with a primary source and focus” for theology proper as a whole. He goes on to suggest that the reason for this move is a “fundamental biblicism”[4] and a conviction that the divine names offer a primary exegetical pathway into theology proper as a dogmatic locus.[5] Seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed theologian Petrus Van Mastricht, for example, offers an extensive treatise on the divine names and the relationship of names to the rest of the doctrine of God. He says, “The nature of God is made known to us by his names.” He goes on to explain that the names of God (1) reveal the divine essence, (2) distinguish the true God from false gods and creatures, and (3) disclose his properties (attributes and eternal triune relations).[6]

In Scripture, divine names are either revealed directly by God or are evoked as a response to his revelation. The paradigmatic passage for understanding this truth is Exodus 3:1–15, the historical narrative of the call of Moses at the burning bush. Here it is abundantly clear that the act of naming the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a divine prerogative. Moses asks God his name, and God answers,

“I AM who I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD [YHWH], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exod. 3:14–15)

Moses could not choose a name for God based on some mere metaphorical association drawn from the creaturely realm, nor based on his own reason, preference, or imagination. If Moses would know the name of God, it would have to be made known to him by revelation from God. “What is your name?” says Moses. “This is my name,” says the LORD.

At times, God’s disclosure of his name is slightly less direct but no less revealed. For example, In Genesis 16:13, Hagar calls the name of the LORD “You are a God of seeing” (El Roi). There is no account of Hagar asking God his name, nor any indication that the LORD said to Hagar, “This is my name: El Roi.” Nevertheless, Hagar’s naming of God is in response to God’s revelation of himself. Hagar fled from the presence of Abram and Sarai and was desperate and alone in the wilderness where she believed that she and the child in her womb would surely perish. It is then that the LORD “found her” and spoke to her words of promise and instruction. She would bear a son who would live and flourish, and she should return to Sarai and bear the son for Abram. Note that the LORD found Hagar, not the other way around. The name by which Hagar referred to God—“God of seeing”—was a response to his revelation of himself. Thus, Herman Bavinck was right when he said, “We do not name God; he names himself,”—a sentiment Bavinck further clarified by saying, “What God reveals of himself is expressed and conveyed in specific names. To his creatures he grants the privilege of naming and addressing him on the basis of, and in keeping with, his revelation.”[7]

In Scripture, names are given by one with authority to one under authority. Recognition of this important feature of names in Scripture shows us the solemnity of the fact that God is the one who reveals his names—we never name him on our own initiative.

For example, in Genesis 1:26, God (the one with authority) names mankind (the one under authority) Adam, a name designating both the genus of humanity and the specific name of the first male human created. Adam, who is given dominion over the animals on the earth, names the animals (Gen. 2:19–20). Significantly, Adam also names the woman as a particular type of human (Gen. 2:23) and later gives his wife the specific name, Eve (Gen. 3:20). Furthermore, parents, who have authority over their children, give names to their children, who are to honor and obey their parents (Exod. 20:12, Eph. 6:1). The implication is clear. Only God can name himself because no one and nothing else can ever have authority over God. When creatures presume to choose for themselves new names for God, names which he has not revealed, they are assuming a posture of authority over God rather than one of joyful and humble submission.

While a full survey of divine names is beyond the scope of this essay, there are a few important distinctions in the way that Scripture predicates names of God that merit careful attention as we seek to understand Father as a divine name.

Analogical Language in Speech about God

All creaturely language about God is analogical, including the language God himself uses in holy Scripture. This, however, is not the same thing as saying that all creaturely language about God is metaphorical. To say that all language about God is analogical is to recognize two facts. First, God has chosen to reveal himself truly to creatures in a way that can be understood by creatures, namely through created words. Second, words predicated of God do not mean exactly the same thing in God as when predicated of creatures. Rather, words predicated of God are true of God in ways that transcend the limits of created reality. Take wisdom, for example. When we say, “God is wise,” we are referring to infinite, infallible wisdom. When we say, “The teacher is wise,” we are referring to a finite and fallible wisdom. In any analogy, two things correspond to one another in ways that are similar and dissimilar. In the case of analogical language predicated of God, the two things, words and God, do not bear an exact similitude with no remainder. Rather, the fullness of God’s being transcends the capacity of meaning conveyed by finite words.

The idea that all language about God is analogical stands in stark contrast to two alternative proposals: the theories of univocal and equivocal language. First, if words spoken about God are univocal, then the meaning of the word discloses exactly what is true about God without remainder. The implication of this theory is that God can be comprehended intellectually (i.e., exhaustively understood) by finite creatures. Most theologians in the classical tradition have recognized that this would blur the Creator/creature distinction by reducing the being of God to the level of creatures.

Second, the theory of analogical language stands in contrast to the theory of equivocal language about God. If words spoken about God are equivocal, then the meaning of a word does not disclose anything true about God. To equivocate is to express two altogether different things with the same word. To hold a theory of equivocal language about God would be to embrace a kind of functional deism in which all speech about God is merely a blind guess concerning the reality of one who is utterly unknowable. The analogical theory of theological predication affirms the fittingness of created words spoken about God to reveal truth concerning him (John 17:17) while acknowledging that the LORD’s being is ultimately beyond all comparison (Isa. 46:5, 9) and his ways “inscrutable” on account of his infinite glory (Rom. 11:33).

Proper vs. Figurative Speech about God

Serious Christian thinkers must acknowledge the basic truth of God’s transcendence and creaturely limitations when speaking of God lest they collapse the Creator/creature distinction. A commitment to the analogical theory of language about God has proven to be the most consistent way that classical Christian thinkers have accomplished this. But further distinctions are necessary for a clear understanding of theological language.

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