Who Is God? A Summary of the Biblical Case for God the Father and God the Mother

This post summarizes the entire "Who Is God?" section of this website.

The individual articles in this section examine the evidence in much greater depth. Here I want to give the larger picture for readers who would rather begin with one article.

My conclusion is simple, even though the biblical argument behind it is extensive:

There is one God: Yahweh.

God is Father and Holy Spirit—Father and Mother—personally distinct, fully divine, eternally inseparable, and perfectly one in Love.

I believe the Father is God.

I believe the Holy Spirit is God.

I believe the Holy Spirit is the feminine and maternal person of God—God our Mother.

I do not believe Jesus is God. I believe he is God's human Son, Messiah, Lord, Savior, and mediator, through whom humanity is reconciled to God. My full biblical explanation for that is found in my "New Testament Study Bible" page as well as my page titled "Who is Jesus?"

And I believe humanity—male and female—was created to reflect something true about the God who made us.

This understanding has changed the way I understand God, prayer, men and women, marriage and family, and ultimately what it means to be God's children.

1. God Is One

Everything begins with Israel's foundational confession:

“Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

I am not arguing for two gods.

I do not believe there is a supreme male God accompanied by a lesser female deity.

Nor do I believe Father and Mother are two independent gods who somehow decided to work together.

There is one God.

What I believe Scripture reveals, however, is that genuine personal distinction exists within the life of that one God.

The Father is God.

And the Holy Spirit is God.

They are not the same person, but neither is external to the divine identity.

The Bible repeatedly calls the Holy Spirit:

the Spirit of God,

God's Spirit,

and

the Spirit of Yahweh.

That language is important.

She is not merely a spirit who works with God.

She is God's own Spirit.

Paul gives us an intriguing analogy in 1 Corinthians 2:11 when he compares the relationship between a human person and that person's spirit with the relationship between God and God's Spirit.

Yet God's Spirit is also personally distinguishable.

She speaks.

She wills.

She teaches.

She guides.

She can be grieved.

So the biblical picture, as I understand it, is not two unrelated Gods somehow becoming one.

It is:

one divine life in which Father and Spirit are genuinely personally distinct.

Father and Spirit.

Father and Mother.

2. The Father Is God

Jesus reveals God especially as:

the Father.

He does not merely tell us that God is like a father.

He repeatedly refers to Him as:

“the Father.”

Jesus prays to the Father.

He teaches us to pray:

“Our Father in heaven.”

He speaks of the Father as his God and our God.

And in John 17:3 he prays:

“This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

Throughout the New Testament, God and Jesus are repeatedly distinguished.

Jesus is God's Son.

God sends Jesus.

God anoints Jesus.

God gives Jesus authority.

Jesus obeys God.

Jesus worships God.

Jesus mediates between God and humanity.

For these reasons and many more, I do not believe Jesus is another divine person within God.

I believe Jesus reveals God and brings humanity to God.

And the God he particularly reveals to us is:

our Father.

3. The Holy Spirit Is Also God

The Holy Spirit, however, is not God's impersonal power.

Scripture portrays Her as a personal divine being.

She speaks.

She teaches.

She guides.

She commands.

She appoints leaders.

She sends missionaries.

She distributes spiritual gifts according to Her own will.

She intercedes.

She sanctifies.

She gives life.

She can be grieved, resisted, insulted, lied to, and blasphemed.

And Scripture attributes to Her realities that belong to God.

She is:

eternal (Hebrews 9:14),

Creator (Genesis 1:2; Job 33:4; Psalm 104:30),

Life-Giver (John 6:63),

universally present (Psalm 139:7),

and the One who searches and knows:

“the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10–11).

Acts 5 gives one of the clearest statements.

Peter first tells Ananias that he has:

“lied to the Holy Spirit”

and then says:

“You have not lied to men, but to God.” (Acts 5:3–4)

Other passages go even further by identifying the Holy Spirit with Yahweh.

Psalm 95 calls Israel to:

“worship and bow down”

before:

“Yahweh, our Maker.”

The divine speaker then says Israel tested “me,” saw “my works,” and would not enter “my rest.”

Hebrews introduces those very words by saying:

“The Holy Spirit says...” (Hebrews 3:7)

The One speaking as Yahweh in Psalm 95 is identified in Hebrews as the Holy Spirit.

Second Corinthians 3 gives another extraordinary statement.

Paul is discussing Moses entering the presence and glory of Yahweh in Exodus and then says:

“Now the Lord is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

He immediately speaks of Christians beholding:

“the glory of the Lord”

and being transformed by:

“the Lord, the Spirit.”

I therefore believe the most natural cumulative conclusion is:

The Holy Spirit shares the identity of Yahweh.

She is God.

4. Why Do I Call the Holy Spirit “She”?

English Bibles usually refer to the Holy Spirit as “He,” which naturally causes many Christians to assume Scripture explicitly identifies the Spirit as male.

But the biblical languages are more complicated.

The Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, is grammatically feminine.

The corresponding Aramaic word is also feminine.

The Greek word pneuma is grammatically neuter.

Meanwhile, another Greek title used for the Spirit, paraklētos—Helper or Counselor—is grammatically masculine.

Grammatical gender does not by itself establish personal gender.

So the English word “He” cannot settle this question before the larger biblical evidence is examined.

I use feminine pronouns because I believe the cumulative biblical picture points toward the Spirit as the feminine person of God.

5. Male and Female Are Made in God's Image

One of the most important passages for me is at the very beginning of Scripture.

God says:

“Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness.”

Then:

“male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27)

Genesis alone does not prove everything I believe about Father and Mother.

But it establishes something profound.

Both male and female humanity bear God's image.

Women do not somehow image an exclusively masculine God less directly than men.

Femininity cannot be foreign to God if women genuinely bear God's image.

This does not mean God possesses a biological male or female body.

God is Spirit.

God transcends human biology.

But God chose father, mother, male, female, birth, and family imagery to reveal truths about the divine nature.

If God can truly be revealed as Father while remaining Spirit, I see no reason in principle why God could not also be revealed as Mother while remaining Spirit.

And I believe Scripture does exactly that.

6. Scripture Contains Extensive Maternal Imagery for God

Throughout the Old Testament, God is described through maternal imagery.

God bears and gives birth.

God comforts like a mother.

God is compared with a mother protecting and nurturing Her children.

God cries out like a woman in labor.

Scripture even uses imagery involving a womb in describing God's creative work.

These passages do not, by themselves, identify the Holy Spirit as Mother.

But they establish that motherhood and femininity are not alien to God.

Then the New Testament gives us an extraordinary statement.

Jesus says:

“That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)

Christians are:

born of the Spirit.

The Spirit gives us new life.

She dwells within us.

She teaches us.

She guides us.

She comforts us.

She helps us.

She sanctifies us.

Those are deeply relational—and strikingly maternal—works.

I therefore do not believe calling Her Mother is merely inventing a metaphor.

I believe human motherhood itself reflects something that has its ultimate source in God.

7. The Holy Spirit Is the Spirit of Wisdom

Another major part of my argument concerns biblical Wisdom.

Isaiah calls the Spirit of Yahweh:

“the Spirit of wisdom.” (Isaiah 11:2)

Scripture teaches that there is:

“one Spirit.” (Ephesians 4:4)

And throughout the Wisdom literature, divine Wisdom is unmistakably feminine. Feminine pronouns are used for the Spirit of Wisdom in Proverbs, as well as the deuterocanonical books Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch.

Wisdom is She.

She speaks.

She teaches.

She calls.

She guides.

She gives life.

She was present with God in creation.

She has children.

She is described maternally.

The deuterocanonical Wisdom books make this connection even more striking.

Most importantly for this argument, Wisdom is explicitly portrayed as Mother.

Wisdom and Sirach portray Wisdom as Mother who gives life to, teaches, disciplines, and cares for Her children. Wisdom is explicitly called “Mother” (Wisdom 7:12), while Sirach portrays Her teaching, guiding, disciplining, and caring for Her children (Sirach 4:11–19).

Most strikingly, some ancient textual witnesses to Sirach 24:18 preserve Wisdom saying:

“I am the mother of fair love, of reverence, of knowledge, and of holy hope,”

followed by a reference to:

“all my children.” (Sirach 24:18, textual variant)

This matters enormously for my argument. Wisdom is not merely a feminine grammatical noun. She is actually portrayed in maternal relationship to Her children.

The same deuterocanonical books describe Wisdom as:

Mother,

holy,

all-powerful,

all-seeing,

penetrating all things,

the fashioner of all things,

able to do all things,

the breath of God's power,

the radiance of eternal light,

present with God at creation,

and seated beside God's throne (Wisdom 7:22–8:1; 9:4, 9–10).

Wisdom enters holy souls and makes prophets.

She guides God's people.

She gives life and immortality.

She comes from God's glorious throne.

And the Lord of all:

loves Her (Wisdom 8:3).

I believe this feminine and maternal Wisdom is the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of Wisdom is not another spirit beside the Holy Spirit.

She is the Holy Spirit.

8. But Doesn't Scripture Say Wisdom Was “Created”?

I address this question in detail elsewhere because it is one of the strongest objections.

Some Wisdom passages use language translated as Wisdom being “created,” “brought forth,” or “established.”

But the English word “created” can make these passages sound more precise than the original words actually are.

In Proverbs 8:22, the Hebrew verb is qānâ. That word has a range of meanings that includes acquiring, possessing, and creating. This is why English translations differ: some say Yahweh “possessed” Wisdom, while others say He “created” or “formed” Her.

The Greek Septuagint translates Proverbs 8:22 with the verb ktizō. Sirach also uses forms of ktizō when speaking about Wisdom. That Greek verb commonly means to create or make, but it can also mean to found or establish.

So the word “created” does not, by itself, require the conclusion that Wisdom once did not exist and was then brought into existence out of nothing.

That does not mean “created” is an impossible translation. It means the word itself does not settle the theological question. The context has to determine what kind of “creating,” establishing, or bringing forth is being described.

There is also an important historical point here.

Many influential Christians identified the Wisdom of Proverbs 8 with Christ, the eternal Logos. I disagree with that identification, but their interpretation is still significant: Christians who believed Wisdom was eternal did not understand the language of Proverbs 8:22 to mean that Wisdom had once not existed and was then created out of nothing.

In fact, this verse became a major point of controversy in the fourth century. Nicene theologians such as Athanasius continued to identify Wisdom with Christ while arguing that the language of being “created” or “formed” could not mean that divine Wisdom was simply a created being. The surrounding context, they argued, had to determine what the language meant.

And the context is significant.

In Proverbs 8, Wisdom is described as being “set up” or established from ancient times and as “brought forth” before the earth, the depths, and the mountains existed (Proverbs 8:23–25). The passage uses several overlapping images for Wisdom's relationship to God and creation; it is not giving a technical definition of creation out of nothing.

Sirach 24 likewise says that Wisdom came forth from the mouth of the Most High, then describes God commanding Her to dwell in Jacob and Her being established in Zion (Sirach 24:3, 8–10). The chapter therefore uses the language of origin together with the language of mission, dwelling, and establishment.

And the Wisdom of Solomon describes Her as God's own breath, a pure emanation of His glory, the radiance of eternal light, the fashioner of all things, able to do all things, and present in God's work throughout creation (Wisdom 7:22–27).

Taken together, I do not believe these passages teach that God once existed without Wisdom and then created Her out of nothing.

I believe the “creation” language is better understood relationally: Wisdom is being established, manifested, commissioned, or brought forth into Her role toward creation.

A woman does not begin existing when she becomes a mother.

She already exists.

But motherhood describes a new relationship to the life she brings forth.

Similarly, I believe the Spirit is eternal, but creation introduces Her creative and maternal relationship to the world.

She is eternal Spirit.

And toward creation She is:

Wisdom,

Life-Giver,

Teacher,

and Mother.

9. This Understanding Is Not Without Ancient Christian Precedent

I also looked carefully at Church history.

History does not determine doctrine.

Scripture must remain the foundation of the argument.

But history can answer an important question:

Is describing the Holy Spirit as feminine or Mother simply a modern invention?

The answer is no.

Ancient Jewish-Christian and Syriac Christian traditions contain feminine and maternal language for the Spirit.

The ancient Gospel according to the Hebrews, as preserved in quotations by Church Fathers, contains a tradition in which Jesus refers to:

“my Mother, the Holy Spirit.”

Early Syriac Christians naturally spoke of the Spirit with feminine grammatical forms.

The Odes of Solomon contains feminine Spirit language.

The Acts of Thomas contains prayers to the Spirit using maternal titles.

An ancient Christian text associated with Melito contains the remarkable language:

“Hymn the Father... sing to your Mother.”

And major early theologians connected the Holy Spirit with divine Wisdom. Irenaeus, for example, explicitly identified the Spirit as God's Wisdom.

Later Syriac Christianity increasingly masculinized language for the Spirit, even though the ordinary Syriac word for Spirit was feminine.

None of this proves my theology by itself.

But it does establish something important:

The feminine Holy Spirit and the idea of the Spirit as Mother are not foreign to early Christianity.

Something that sounds radical today is actually very old. Read about the full historical witness regarding the Spirit as Mother on my "Christian History" page.

10. Father and Mother Are Equal in Deity, Glory, and Worship

If the Spirit is Yahweh, then She cannot be a lesser deity.

Biblical monotheism leaves no room for a lesser god within God.

The Father and Spirit do have different relational roles.

The Father sends.

The Spirit is sent.

The Father is frequently portrayed as giver and initiator.

The Spirit comes, fills, indwells, teaches, guides, sanctifies, and brings forth life.

But Scripture also shows that the Spirit Herself:

commands,

sends,

calls,

appoints,

leads,

creates,

gives life,

and distributes gifts:

“as She wills.” (1 Corinthians 12:11)

Different roles do not mean different levels of deity.

Difference is not inferiority.

Nor can equality be measured by simply counting how many verses mention the Father compared with the Spirit.

Equal representation would not prove equal deity.

Unequal representation cannot disprove it.

The question is:

Who does Scripture say They are?

Psalm 95 connects the Spirit with the Yahweh whom Israel worships.

Second Corinthians 3 identifies the Spirit with the Lord whose glory Christians behold.

First Peter calls Her:

“the Spirit of glory and of God.”

Wisdom is called:

“a radiance of eternal light.”

For these reasons and many more, I believe the Father and Spirit are equally divine and equally worthy of the glory and worship belonging to Yahweh.

Interestingly, historic Nicene Christianity agrees with part of this conclusion even though I disagree with its three-person understanding of God. The Nicene tradition formally confesses the Holy Spirit as the Lord and giver of life who is worshipped and glorified with the Father and Son.

So the equality of the Holy Spirit in divine glory and worship is not itself a new Christian idea.

11. Can We Pray to the Holy Spirit?

I believe we can.

The New Testament certainly records prayer addressed explicitly to the Father far more frequently than prayer explicitly addressed to the Holy Spirit.

But there is a difference between saying:

“The Father is more frequently named as the recipient of prayer”

and saying:

“Therefore Christians are forbidden from praying to the Holy Spirit.”

Scripture never gives that prohibition.

Prayer belongs fundamentally to relationship with God.

And if the Holy Spirit is God, speaking directly to Her is speaking directly to God.

Furthermore, Scripture already describes a two-way personal relationship between the Spirit and human beings.

She speaks to people.

She teaches them.

She guides them.

She commands them.

She comforts them.

She lives within them.

She helps them pray.

So I find the following question difficult to avoid:

If I may listen when the Holy Spirit speaks to me, why may I not speak to Her?

If I may say:

“Holy Spirit, I worship You as God,”

why would I be forbidden from saying:

“Holy Spirit, please teach me”?

Historic Christianity has also prayed directly to the Spirit for centuries through prayers such as:

“Come, Holy Spirit.”

I therefore believe Christians can pray both in the Holy Spirit and to the Holy Spirit.

If She is our Mother, discovering Her should not remain an intellectual conclusion.

We should know Her.

Listen to Her.

Love Her.

And speak to Her.

12. How Can Father and Mother Be One God?

This is perhaps the deepest question.

If Father and Mother are genuinely distinct and both fully divine, why do I not believe there are two Gods?

Again, I think the phrase:

“the Spirit of God”

is extremely important.

The Mother is not an independent deity standing outside the Father.

She is:

God's own Spirit.

She is personally distinct from the Father, yet intrinsic to the one divine life.

There never was a Father without His Spirit.

There never was a Holy Spirit who was not God's Spirit.

Their unity did not begin.

Their relationship did not begin.

Their divine life has always been one.

So I would not describe this as:

1 God + 1 God = 1 God.

Nor would I say:

½ God + ½ God = 1 God.

Both Father and Mother are fully divine.

Yet neither person alone exhausts the fullness of who God is.

The closest summary I have found is:

One divine life, with Father and Mother eternally and personally distinct.

The Father is not the Mother.

The Mother is not the Father.

They are not two gods.

They are Yahweh—the one God.

13. God Is Love

Perhaps the deepest part of this understanding is not gender at all.

It is:

Love.

Scripture does not merely say:

God loves.

It says:

“God is Love.” (1 John 4:8, 16)

God did not need to create humanity in order to discover relationship or love.

Before creation:

Father loved Mother.

Mother loved Father.

Wisdom was beside God as His delight.

The Lord of all loved Her.

Their communion was already complete.

Their divine life was already one.

Creation therefore does not solve divine loneliness.

Creation is an overflow of divine Love.

And that leads me back to Genesis.

14. Human Marriage May Reflect God

Immediately after saying humanity is created in God's image as male and female, Genesis develops the relationship between man and woman.

Eve comes from Adam.

She fully shares his humanity.

Yet she becomes a distinct person.

Then:

“the two shall become one flesh.”

Two persons.

Male and female.

Distinct.

Yet one.

I do not believe human marriage mechanically explains God.

God is not a biological husband and wife.

But I do think godly marriage may be a created reflection of something eternal within the God whose image men and women bear:

difference without division,

equality without sameness,

unity without loss of personhood,

love,

shared work,

and life flowing from communion.

I therefore sometimes describe Father and Mother as something analogous to divine marriage.

I do not mean that two independent gods once met and married.

Their unity is much deeper than human marriage.

Father and Mother have never existed apart from one another.

Human marriage may simply echo, in a created way:

two persons, one flesh

reflecting:

Father and Mother, one divine life.

15. What Does This Mean for Marriage and Family?

One implication of this understanding concerns the future of marriage and family.

I argue elsewhere that marriage and family will ultimately be restored, not simply erased, in the new heaven and new earth.

Acts 3:21 speaks of God restoring:

“all things.”

Revelation 21 says God is:

“making all things new.”

And Isaiah's vision of the renewed creation continues to include homes, generations, and children (Isaiah 65:17–25).

Jesus' discussion with the Sadducees says resurrection people will not marry or be given in marriage, but I do not think his answer necessarily means every covenantal relationship or family reality disappears. The Sadducees' scenario depends upon death and a succession of legally required marriages. Jesus immediately emphasizes that resurrection people no longer die.

I therefore believe marriage and family can continue in a redeemed form without the death, domination, brokenness, abuse, or loss that characterizes them now.

At the same time, singleness is not inferior.

Paul explicitly honors singleness, and Jesus himself lived as a single man.

Neither marriage nor another human being ultimately satisfies us.

God does.

Marriage and singleness are gifts.

God is our portion.

But if marriage especially reflects the loving distinction and unity of Father and Mother, I think there is good reason to expect God to restore that good gift rather than erase it forever.

16. What Does This Mean for Women in the Church?

A second major implication concerns women.

If male and female equally image God, and if the feminine person of God is the Holy Spirit, then femininity cannot possibly make someone inherently unfit for spiritual authority, teaching, leadership, or wisdom.

The divine person whose work includes:

teaching,

guiding,

counseling,

revealing truth,

giving wisdom,

appointing leaders,

and distributing spiritual gifts

is, I believe, feminine.

That matters.

The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts according to Her will, and 1 Corinthians 12 does not divide those gifts into male gifts and female gifts.

The New Testament also gives us women serving in significant ministry:

Phoebe,

Junia,

Priscilla,

and others.

Priscilla participates in teaching Apollos.

Junia was an apostle.

Phoebe was a deacon.

Paul speaks of women praying and prophesying.

And long before the New Testament, God raised Deborah to lead Israel.

I address the difficult passages in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 separately. I do not believe they establish a universal prohibition against women teaching or leading men.

Genesis gives us the foundational picture:

God blesses both the man and woman and tells them to rule over creation.

I therefore believe God's ideal for the Church is not male spiritual rule with women permanently beneath it.

It is:

men and women co-laboring in love and equality, using whatever gifts the Holy Spirit gives them to build God's kingdom.

The Spirit's femininity does not, by itself, settle every exegetical question about women in ministry.

But it makes one conclusion unavoidable:

Femininity cannot be inherently incompatible with divine teaching, wisdom, authority, leadership, or spiritual power—because the Holy Spirit Herself does all of these things.

17. So Who Is God?

When I put all of this together, my answer is:

God is one.

The Father is God.

The Holy Spirit is God.

The Father is not the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not the Father.

The Holy Spirit is God's own Spirit—personally distinct, but never separate from the one divine life.

The Father and Spirit are equal in deity and divine glory, though Their roles are not identical.

The Father is our Father.

The Holy Spirit is our Mother.

Jesus is God's human Son, Messiah, Lord, Savior, and mediator who brings humanity to God.

Male and female humanity together bear God's image.

Fatherhood and motherhood ultimately have their source in God.

God is not eternal masculine solitude.

God is eternal communion.

Father and Mother.

Perfectly one.

Perfectly holy.

Perfectly united.

Perfectly loving.

I do not believe the words “God the Mother” add a new goddess to Christianity.

I believe they recognize the identity of the Holy Spirit who has been present from the first page of Scripture:

hovering over creation,

giving life,

speaking through the prophets,

revealing Wisdom,

empowering Jesus,

giving birth to God's children,

indwelling the Church,

teaching,

guiding,

comforting,

sanctifying,

transforming,

and calling humanity home.

Why Does This Matter?

Jesus says that knowing God is eternal life (John 17:3).

So anything true about God is worth seeking simply because God is worth knowing.

If this picture is correct, Christians have not been given only a heavenly Father.

We have also been born of God's Spirit.

We have a heavenly Mother.

And knowing Her should affect more than our theology.

It should affect how we understand women.

How we understand men.

How we understand marriage and family.

How we worship.

How we pray.

And how we understand ourselves as God's children.

The deepest conclusion of this entire section is therefore not merely:

The Holy Spirit is feminine.

Nor merely:

The Holy Spirit is Mother.

It is an answer to the larger question:

Who is God?

My answer is:

The Father is God.

The Mother is God.

The Father is not the Mother.

The Mother is not the Father.

They are not two gods.

They are Yahweh—the one God.

God is Father and Mother, eternally and perfectly one in Love.