Your Child Asks: Is God a Boy?

Using spiral learning for complex questions

Q: Could use your help! I was referring to God as “He” because that’s the way I’ve always referred to God and my 3 year old daughter asked me if God is a boy. I tried to explain that God is the one who created all people in his image so he isn’t really a boy or a girl or maybe he is both or something. And my daughter just responded “maybe Daddy can explain it to me tomorrow”.

Clearly my theology is a little squishy on this anyways because it’s not something I’ve thought or cared that much about.. But how to answer 3 year old questions?

A: The key to answering this—and any other complex theological question for kids—is to remember spiral learning.

Spiral learning tells us that when there are complex ideas to learn, we make them simple and small on purpose, so that we can add layers of complexity, depth, and nuance over time. We circle around these ideas over and over, taking them just a bit at a time.

In other words, you answer with:

• something true

• at her level

• that you can build on later

Start here

So it’s key that your child is 3. The answer is not the same for all kids, it’s custom to the fact that she’s 3. You might say, “Great question! God is not a boy or a girl! God is God!” Or “God is just God—not a boy, not a girl. When God became a person, Jesus, he was a boy.”

Age it up

Now, for funsies, let’s spiral this idea: by age 7ish, you might add, “The Bible has lots of ways it describes God. A common one is ‘Father’, because that would have been a figure who protected and provided for a household like God can be trusted to protect and provide for us.* But God isn’t Father because God is a boy. And actually, at other times, God is described like a mother.”

*You could also swap ‘care’ for protect and provide to simplify now and layer those two specific features of care later too.

Even deeper

And then! You can talk to kids around age 10 (or whenever they know what a metaphor is) and say, “All language for God is metaphor. All the different ways God describes Themself* in the Bible —Father, bear, hen, shepherd, bread—they help us know something important and true about who God is and what God’s like.”

What we just did there is take an attribute of God—God’s holiness, being distinct from humanity, one aspect of which is being beyond gender—and applied spiral learning to make it smaller.

*I happen to use the singular ‘They’ to help me with this idea, FYI.

Bonus thought on God and gendered language: if you are someone untangling from complementarian/patriarchal Christian subculture, this question might feel big. You may hear the voice of a family member of friend who is so concerned for you, because they are sure that the use of God the Father in the Bible binds us to male pronouns for God only and always.

In the Bible, God is described and describes Themself with both masculine and feminine imagery and metaphors. Of course in first century Israel God would be Father—that’s the best image to convey very important truths about God’s character in that time and place, and Mother simply would not do that effectively. But insisting the triune God is male is like, actually heresy.

Let’s spiral a Bible story now!

To help us practice spiral learning principles, let’s try it with a Bible story, taking creation as our example.

Start here

At any age, the big idea in Genesis is God made a good world and God made people in God’s own image. Image-bearing is a complex theological idea. But you can start with something true, at a kids’ level, that you can build on later.

You might say, “God made a world full of amazing plants and animals! It was beautiful and so good. And God made people with so much care—people are God’s favorite!”

Age it up

You can add on the idea that the world was made diverse by design, saying, “God made all different kinds of plants, all different kinds of animals, all different kinds of people! God made things different on purpose because it makes God happy!” Help your child notice uniqueness in different parts of creation and enjoy that beauty.

Go deeper

The ideas of a good creation that is different on purpose feeds into an important piece of being made in God’s image: inherent dignity.

You might say, “The Genesis poem says every person is made in God’s own image. In other communities’ stories, someone is made in god’s image—just one person. Guess who? The king! Only the king was, and that let the king be bossy. But our God? Our God made every person in God’s image. How should we respond to people if that is what’s true of them?”

Spiral learning: make complex things small on purpose. Circle around them a lot, always taking just a bit at a time.

• Got another story or topic to make smaller?

• Questions about spiral learning and making faith ideas smaller and simpler

• Questions about gendered language and God?

  Drop ‘em in the comments! And check out Woven, chapter 3: Do Less on Purpose for more on all this.

FAMILY GRATITUDE JOURNEY GUIDE

Fall stirs up all the thankfulness vibes, so if you’re looking for some help fostering gratitude in kids, I have a Family Gratitude Journey Guide in the Resource Shop. It offer 3 family chats around 3 Bible verses, 3 gratitude practices to try together, and some other goodies to help your family grow gratitude together.

Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From has been out for 5 weeks now and I am so thankful for every kind note, every recommendation you post, every friend you’ve told about it!

FREE DISCUSSION GUIDE

There is now a FREE Woven Discussion Guide available for Woven, so grab some friends and yummy things and have a book group!

LEAVE A REVIEW?

If you’ve read Woven, it would be amazing if you’d review it on either Amazon or Goodreads. And if you haven’t bought Woven yet, doing so would also be amazing.

Reviews - writing a sentence or two about what you thought or why the book is valuable—help a ton in a book keeping its life after launch. (Ratings—giving stars—are not as ‘rewarded’ by the algorithm that helps your book find potential readers.)

May our holy God who boggles our minds in the best ways give you grace and creativity as you help your child to know Them more and more. May the Spirit give you wisdom as you share what is true, at the level of the kid in your life, and faithfuless to keep building on it later. Amen.