No metaphor, simile, concept, or model can ever fully or adequately capture the reality of God.
Still, we’re human: we talk. And if we’re going to talk about God—there’s no stopping us, it seems—then we need a wildly abundant garden of metaphors, similes, concepts, and models to draw from, so that we can point truly to that complex reality that goes beyond all our thoughts and imaginings. Consider the diverse metaphors for God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Father, Mother, Friend, Warrior, Shepherd, Lover, A Woman Baking Bread, King, Eagle, Dove, Enemy, Compeller, Rock, Thunder, Storm, Mountain, Fountain, Ocean, Womb, Center, Place, Dwelling. The list is long and it is open-ended.
Each of these images, whether it’s personal or impersonal, female or male, active or static, does the work of metaphor: It carries us beyond our ordinary perception to taste
something new of the reality of God, which is like and unlike all that we know. In
La métaphor vive (The Living Metaphor), Paul Ricouer notes the power that metaphor releases when two things like and unlike one another are juxtaposed. The force of their collision explodes into new meaning. We need metaphors to expand our awareness of all experience, including our experience and understanding of God. And where God is concerned, we need even more metaphors. Let a thousand metaphors for God bloom!
And yet, in different times and circumstances, certain metaphors dominate human consciousness. This is not necessarily a bad thing. True, some metaphors are used to to devalue and push out all others. Examples of this are all too easy to find. But a single shared metaphor that is
not a despot but
primus inter pares can focus, unite, and guide a community or an individual. There may be a thousand metaphors for God, but from this fertile garden which is the one (or ones) that looks and smells most beautiful to you? Which is the one (or ones) that is
alive for you? That speaks the language you understand? That explodes into your consciousness and carries you beyond yourself to experience God more deeply? It may not be the same metaphor your culture or faith community finds so compelling. It may be one that is unfamiliar or even repulsive to them. Yet it is yours, and it is to be cherished.
Metaphors for God are dynamic. The Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities, for example, experienced God in different ways through the ages and developed new ways of relating to God and talking about God to reflect that new experience. (See Karen Armstrong,
The History of God; Jack Miles,
The Biography of God; Ilana Pardes,
The Biography of Ancient Israel). The same is true for individuals. We develop our own shorthand images for our personal experiences of God, and these change through our lifetime. (See Ana-Maria Rizzuto
, The Birth of the Living God; James Fowler,
Stages of Faith.). The metaphor of God as Father may comfort a child, but when the child reaches adolescence she may need a new image that supports her growing independence—an eagle bearing her fledglings on her wings, perhaps; and when she reaches maturity, she may require a new image, such as Friend or Beloved. In every stage of communal and individual life crises and trauma can shatter our familiar images and force us to wander in search of a new focusing image. As painful as this can be, it is inevitable, and it can lead to new awareness.
When I was a child the image of God as Father was comforting to me. Because of my family, I would have found the image of God as Mother far too frightening. When I was an adolescent, the image of God as a rock in a changing desert landscape or as the purifying waters of life settled my spirit. When I became a feminist, I still did not warm to God as Mother. Instead, nurturing images from nature, such as a well of living water, spoke to me. During my many anxious years of converting to Judaism from Christianity I experienced God as a compelling force, more like Job’s destroying whirlwind than anything else. As a Jew I discovered the beauty of the rabbinic image of God as
Ha Makom, The Place which is the center and circumference of all that is, the only reference point for our lives. My journeys with the Sufi community have reawakened in me the image of God as the Beloved, an image I have known well since childhood from the prophets and the
Song of Songs. My love for the work of poet-novelist-theologian Edmond Jabès has brought me the evocative image of God as Question. (See Jabès,
The Book of Questions).
What’s your history with images of God? What is the metaphor(s) for God that opens up new meaning and experience for you
now, carries
you beyond?