Ask A Priest Anything: Does God have gender and colour?

The short answer is: God doesn’t have a gender or a colour like we do.

Sometimes we call God “Father,” and sometimes the Bible uses words like “He,” but that doesn’t mean God is actually a man. The Bible describes God like a mother who cares for her children. In other places again the Bible describes God as Creator, Potter, Light, Bread, Shepherd… even a rock! It doesn’t mean God is literally any of those things, but it does mean that each of those things tells us something about what God is like.

So really, God is bigger than both “male” and “female.” It’s a bit like if you tried to say whether love is a boy or a girl - it wouldn’t quite make sense. God is like that—bigger than all the words that we have.

The same goes for colour. God isn’t one colour, like skin or paint or a rainbow. But you could say that all colours come from God—every person, every culture, every part of creation. I do like the parts of the Bible in which people describe God as shining with light—bright, dazzling - because light is ultimately made up of every colour of the rainbow all at once. Instead of thinking God is one gender or one colour, we could say: God is the source of every person, every colour, every beauty we see.

The really important part to remember is that the Bible says that every person is made in God’s image. That means you and me, and everyone we meet — each person reflects something that is true about God.

So here’s my question for you — when you think about the people in your life, or the colours you love most, what do they show you about God?