Why Is God Referred to as Male in Both Christianity and Islam?

Judaism's use of masculine language for God is, at its core, a grammatical inheritance rather than a theological statement about divine biology. The Hebrew word Elohim and the Tetragrammaton are grammatically masculine, and biblical Hebrew defaults to masculine forms when gender is unspecified or mixed. Yet the Torah itself complicates any simple equation of God with maleness: both sexes are said to bear the divine image Genesis 1:27, which many rabbinic commentators read as evidence that God transcends gender categories altogether.

The Talmud reinforces this indirectly. Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, notes that the Torah routinely "spoke in the language of people" — that is, it uses ordinary human idiom without intending every grammatical choice to carry theological weight Arakhin 3a:5. This principle, dibra Torah kilshon benei adam, is frequently invoked by medieval and modern authorities to explain why masculine pronouns appear without implying God is literally male.

Maimonides (12th century) argued strenuously in the Guide for the Perplexed that any physical or gendered attribute applied to God is purely metaphorical. More recently, feminist Jewish theologians like Judith Plaskow (20th century) have pushed denominations such as Reform and Conservative Judaism to introduce gender-neutral or feminine God-language in liturgy, precisely because the tradition itself acknowledges the language is conventional. Genesis 5:2 underscores the point: God blessed both male and female and called them collectively "Humankind" Genesis 5:2, suggesting the divine creative act encompasses both sexes without being reducible to either.

Christianity's masculine God-language flows from at least three overlapping streams: inherited Hebrew scripture, the Greek of the New Testament, and — most distinctively — the doctrine of the Incarnation. Jesus consistently addressed God as Abba (Father), and the second person of the Trinity is called the Son. These relational titles locked masculine grammar into the heart of Christian theology in a way that went beyond mere convention.

Still, mainstream Christian theology has never claimed God the Father possesses biological maleness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) states explicitly that God "is neither man nor woman" and that human fatherhood is itself only an analogy for the divine. Protestant theologians like Karl Barth (20th century) similarly argued that "Father" is a proper name revealed by Jesus, not a gender descriptor. Genesis 1:27 — which Christianity shares with Judaism — is routinely cited to show that both sexes image God, making a strictly male deity theologically incoherent Genesis 1:27.

The tension is real, though. Feminist theologians such as Elizabeth Johnson (She Who Is, 1992) argue that the dominance of masculine imagery has had concrete social consequences, and that the tradition's own resources — including feminine biblical metaphors like God as mother hen or nursing mother — have been systematically underused. The debate remains live across Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox communities, with no single resolution. What virtually all parties agree on is that God's use of masculine pronouns in scripture reflects the patriarchal cultural context of the ancient Near East and the grammatical conventions of Hebrew and Greek, not a claim about divine anatomy.

Islam is arguably the most explicit of the three traditions in denying that God has gender, even while Arabic grammar forces masculine pronouns onto Allah. The Quran directly mocks the polytheist notion that God could have daughters while humans get sons, calling it an absurd and insulting division Quran 53:21. The implication is clear: assigning biological sex to the divine is a category error. Allah is the creator of the male-female distinction Quran 92:3, and therefore cannot be contained within it.

Classical Islamic theology (kalam) holds that Allah is beyond all human attributes, including sex. The 99 Names of Allah include both "forceful" and "nurturing" qualities that cut across human gender lines. Scholars like Ibn Taymiyya (14th century) and, in the modern period, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, emphasize that Arabic's grammatical masculine for Allah is a linguistic necessity, not a theological statement. Arabic has no neuter gender; the masculine is the default unmarked form.

The hadith literature uses masculine pronouns throughout when speaking of Allah, reflecting standard Arabic usage Sahih al Bukhari 4714, but classical commentators consistently warn against inferring corporeality or biological sex from such language. The Ash'ari theological school, dominant in Sunni Islam, holds that God's attributes are real but utterly unlike their human counterparts — a position that forecloses any literal reading of divine masculinity. In short, Islam uses masculine grammar for God because Arabic requires it, while simultaneously insisting more forcefully than perhaps any other tradition that God transcends the male-female binary entirely.

Jewish scripture states that God created humankind in the divine image, “male and female,” a formulation many take to mean that divine reality transcends human sex categories even if Hebrew uses gendered grammar when speaking about God Genesis 1:27Genesis 5:2. Rabbinic tradition further cautions that the Torah “spoke in the language of people,” a rule often invoked to interpret gendered or anthropomorphic expressions as idiomatic rather than literal Niddah 44a:5Arakhin 3a:5.

Christian readings of Genesis emphasize that humanity, male and female, is made in God’s image, which many understand to imply that God is not a male being, even though biblical language can be grammatically or metaphorically masculine in places Genesis 1:27Genesis 5:2. Some Christian interpreters therefore treat masculine references as accommodated language directed to human listeners rather than a statement about divine biology Genesis 1:27.

The Qur’an repeatedly affirms that God created “male and female,” which Muslims cite to show that sexual differentiation belongs to creatures, not to the Creator Quran 92:3. It also rejects assigning a sex to God in polemical contexts, highlighting that such attributions are human constructs and not descriptions of Allah’s essence Quran 53:21. Classical reports stress that even exalted beings like angels or Jesus are worshippers of Allah, reinforcing that no creaturely category—including sex—applies to God’s uniqueness Sahih al Bukhari 4714.