# Theists: do you refer to God as "He," "She," "It," or "They"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 2, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705 "2010-06-02T23:15:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/1 "2010-06-02T23:15:52Z")
And, of course, tell us why.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/2 "2010-06-02T23:34:34Z")
All of the above. Gods are he, goddesses are she, a gaggle of god/desse/s is they, and the Divine without anthropomorphic form or reference to an unspecified portion of Divinity is It.
Why? Cause it only seems logical. If I’m working with, say Brigid, she’s a specific facet of the Divine, created in my mind to explore or exploit a specific set of characteristics, which include femaleness.
(Agnostic neo-pagan, for the record. There isn’t a god/dess I don’t believe in, but I believe in the exclusivity of none. I believe any manifestation or imagination of an aspect of Divinity is given power through its symbols and followers, from Jesus to Krishna to Yoda.)
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/3 "2010-06-02T23:59:20Z")
“He”, out of force of habit. If I were really paying attention, I would use some gender-neutral pronoun like “E” (the Spivak forms).
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/4 "2010-06-03T00:54:05Z")
That person called, “God,” aka “JHVH,” as a given idea in monotheism or popular Christianity, is “He,” per the traditional English use of the masculine gender for persons of undefined sex (& God is arguably sexless, being a Prime Mover in some constructions & thus preceding sex itself).
The actual gods, being a motley bunch, vary. 😉
(Granted, I’m not a strong theist.)
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/5 "2010-06-03T03:36:44Z")
He, but then again I call most cats ‘she,’ for no good reason.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/6 "2010-06-03T03:43:46Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#):
>
> He, but then again I call most cats ‘she,’ for no good reason.
All felines are female, even the toms. That is the dirty secret of The ThunderCats cartoon. Well…one of them.
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### Author:  [@Dostoyevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dostoyevsky)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/7 "2010-06-03T03:59:25Z")
…because it’s kinda hard for a pantheistic world soul to be anything but.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/8 "2010-06-03T05:18:16Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> All felines are female, even the toms. That is the dirty secret of The ThunderCats cartoon. Well…one of them.
Another is, I found out in [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com), that James “Actors Studio” Lipton wrote the theme.
To answer the OP, “He”- because if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/9 "2010-06-03T05:29:54Z")
I generally use He, but if someone else uses She, I have no problem doing so. However, if someone uses It, I tend to think they are talking about a different God than I am, as It implies an impersonal force.
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### Author:  [@PsyXe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PsyXe)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/10 "2010-06-03T11:05:19Z")
He, for **FriarTed** ’s reason mainly, and occasionally _think_ She if thinking about the Holy Spirit in particular; thinking about it now I’ve never used “she” in conversation unless it was a conversation particularly about God and gender. “It” feels like you’re talking about the Force 😛
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### Author:  [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/11 "2010-06-03T11:06:28Z")
Whenever it comes up in day-to-day conversation I use “he”, just of out of habit. But I really think of god as being an “it”; assigning gender to a transcendent deity doesn’t seem to make sense, even analogically.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/12 "2010-06-03T12:10:33Z")
I use WEME3.
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/13 "2010-06-03T12:35:13Z")
He, because that is the default neutral pronoun for things or persons of an unknown or indeterminate or irrelevant gender. Using “it” or “she” would make a point of it.
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### Author:  [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/14 "2010-06-03T13:52:28Z")
I try to avoid pronouns if I can. My wife’s family is Lutheran and they have a formal prayer for grace which uses “He.” When we say it, we just change it to “God.”
If we absolutely need to use a pronoun, we try and alternate between he and she. Both male and female were made in God’s image, so God’s image should include both genders. My wife is trying to fight for a deistic pronoun that is used _only_ for God to avoid this predicament. She hasn’t really settled on anything yet.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/15 "2010-06-03T13:56:25Z")
> [@Rune](#):
>
> He, because that is the default neutral pronoun for things or persons of an unknown or indeterminate or irrelevant gender. Using “it” or “she” would make a point of it.
How does _he_ not make a point of it?
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/16 "2010-06-03T14:04:53Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> How does _he_ not make a point of it?
Well, I think the poster was saying that ‘he’ is the pronoun most commonly used for indeterminate gender. Much as we would use the pronoun to describe an infant the gender of whom was momentarily unknown.
But I could be wrong.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/17 "2010-06-03T14:07:20Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> Well, I think the poster was saying that ‘he’ is the pronoun most commonly used for indeterminate gender. Much as we would use the pronoun to describe an infant the gender of whom was momentarily unknown.
>
> But I could be wrong.
I would reply to Rune that using _he_ as the default pronoun is just another way of asserting that _male_ is the default gender; it is inherently dimissive of other possibilities. It’s like treating _white_ as the default race.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/18 "2010-06-03T14:15:59Z")
I try to avoid pronouns altogether but sometimes it just becomes too cumbersome to write/say things like “God shows us what God wants us to do for God’s self.” Blech. So I usually end up resorting to “He” because “It” is too impersonal. I don’t have a problem with “she” except that it tends to draw attention to the pronoun itself instead of the thought behind the sentence.
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/19 "2010-06-03T14:16:55Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> How does _he_ not make a point of it?
Using “it” or “she” stress the point that the God is neuter/not-gendered or female. Same as using “god” does not mean that the god must necessary be male or that gender is something of relevance, but saying “goddess” means that the god is definitively female. This works the same in both Danish and English.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-do-you-refer-to-god-as-he-she-it-or-they/541705/20 "2010-06-03T14:28:28Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> Well, I think the poster was saying that ‘he’ is the pronoun most commonly used for indeterminate gender. Much as we would use the pronoun to describe an infant the gender of whom was momentarily unknown.
Most people I know use “It” or “They” for babies of unspecified gender. Maybe it’s a generational thing?
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