God is the Creator and Origin of all. Leaving out of address the Problem of Evil, there is nothing good which does not issue from him.
That stated, God does have the power to create something which is both new and good, a good which is not in himself. That is an implication of the extent to which he is the Creator.
I would point to the material, physical world as a prime example of this. We are created as carnal creatures, and that is good. It is a gift given to us, and any spirituality which shuns or disdains the physical is a lie.
The physical, though, was wholly created. In history, after the Creation in Eden, God the Son became incarnate by the virgin Mary, but now (God the Father and God the Holy Spirit) and then in the three persons of God, God (was) an aphysical spirit.
When I speak of God as being masculine and not feminine, I am not asserting that femininity is an evil characteristic, or unreal, or something else of that order. Femininity was created as good. I am simply speaking of God as being masculine and not feminine.
I think that the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang (although not perfect for this purpose — look far enough in writings, and you will find lots of weird mysticism that wanders from truth) is capable of illuminating the matter a great deal. (I will, rather than refute, simply leave out what is inconsistent with Christian teaching)
First of all, the thought of Yin and Yang is greatly present. Something highly similar is embodied in that the structure of most languages intrinsically speaks of masculine and feminine; if I were writing this in French, at least half of the words would be masculine or feminine. It is not another superficial detail; it is a manner in which the world is seen.
Yang is the masculine, active principle; Yin is the passive, feminine principle. In a landscape, Yang is the great mountain which thrusts out and stands because that is the nature of its solid presence; Yin is the flat land or the valley whose quiet nature is there. Yang is rough and solid, the might and majesty of an organ played sforzando, the deep echo of tympani, the firmness of a rock. Yin is the soft and supple, the peacefulness of an organ (key of F) played gedekt, the sweet resonance of a soprano voice, the pliancy of velvet and water. Yang is constant and immutable; Yin is conformant and polymorphic. Yang gives; Yin receives.
The relation between God and man is the relation between Yang and Yin.
God is HE WHO IS, the rock and foundation. In God is such power and authority that he commanded, "Let there be light," and it was so. It is God whose mere presence causes mountains to melt like wax, at whose awesome presence the prophet Isaiah cried out, "Woe is me, for I am destroyed."
God created a garden, and placed man in it, telling him to receive; he forbade eating one of the two trees in the center of the garden (the other was the Tree of Life) only after telling them to enjoy and eat freely of the trees.
Again to Noah, God gave salvation from the flood.
Abraham, God called.
Moses, God bestowed the Law.
David, God promised an heir.
Israel, God sent prophets and righteous men.
In the fullness of time, God sent his Son.
"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth. Yahweh Sabaoth is with us; The God of Jacob is our fortress."
Righteousness is not something we earn; it is something Jesus earned for us when he offered one perfect sacrifice for all time. Works come because "we are sanctified by faith and faith alone, but faith which sanctifies is never alone." The forgiveness of sins is a pure and undeserved gift; the power to obey, by the motion of the Spirit is a gift. All who accept and abide in these gifts will be presented spotless before God the Father, as the bride of Christ to feast with the bridegroom in glory, joy, and peace for all eternity. Christ, like the phoenix who dies only to shoot forth blazing in new glory, afire with the power of an indestructible life, offers this life to us, that we also may receive it.
The thread running through all of these things, through the words "Ask and receive, that your joy may be complete," indeed through all of Scripture from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, is, "I love you. Receive."
To ask if God is more like a man or more like a woman is a backwards question.
The answer instead begins by looking at God.
God is the ultimate Yang.
"All creatures embody Yin and embrace Yang."
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Man, next to God, is Yin. It is only in comparison with each other that the human male is Yang and the human female is Yin; both are very Yin in the shadow of God.
It is something of this that is found in the passages that most explicitly speak of the imago dei:
"God created man in his image; In the image of God he created him; Male and female he created them."
Gen. 1:27
"With [the tongue], we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in God's image."
James 3:9
"...[the man] is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.... In the Lord, however, man is not independant of woman, nor is woman independant of man. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God."
I Cor. 11:7-9, 11-12
Now, before I proceed, let me issue a clear statement that this does not bear an implication of murder of a woman is no big deal, men are moral entities but women are chattels, or some other such nonsense. The Golden Rule is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," not "Do unto other males as you would have them do unto you;" indeed, the Sermon on the Mount, Paul's letters, etc. were addressed to women as well as men. I could devote space to a detailed explanation of why it is wrong to treat women as subhuman, but I do not think that that particular problem is great enough now (at least here/in formal thought) to need a refutation, although it certainly merits a sharp reproof when it does appear.
The picture painted is one of the male being a Yin-reflection of God, and (here in a manner which is not nearly so different, and is essentially equal) the female being a Yin-reflection of God and man.
It is all humanity to which obedience means being Yin to God's Yang, being clay which is pliant and supple in the hands of the potter. It is, in my opinion, one of the great graces, along with becoming the sons and daughters of God, that the Church is/is to be the bride of Christ. (Note that in the Old Testament and the New Testament alike, the metaphor is quite specifically bride, not 'spouse' in a generic sense and never 'husband'.)
The relation between God and man is the relation between Yang and Yin; God is more Yang than Yang. The difference dwarfs even the profound differences between human male and female. There is a sense in which the standard is the same; even in the passages in which Paul talks about this order, there is nothing of a man having a macho iron fist and a woman being a nauseating sex toy. Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as if to the Lord," comes immediately after some words that are quite unfortunately far less cited: "Believers, submit to one another in love," and the following words to husbands make an even higher call: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up to her." Elucidation elsewhere ("Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them," Col. 3:19) speaks at least as plainly; the passages addressed to wives telling them to submit are quite specifically addressed to wives, and not to husbands. The words, "Husbands, here is how you are to impose submission on your wives and keep them under control," do not appear anywhere in Scripture.
To have a man who is macho and dominant, whose ideal of the ultimate form of manhood is Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying around a Gatling gun, or to have a woman who is wishy-washy and insubstantial, who is "so wonderfully free of the ravishes of intelligence" (Time Bandits), is disagreeable. It is, however, not at all disagreeable because "All people are essentially identical, but our phallocentric society has artificially imposed these unnatural gender differences." It is not anything close to that.
It is rather that macho and wishy-washy both represent an exceedingly shallow, flattened out (per)version of masculinity or femininity. It is like the difference between an artificial cover of politeness and etiquette over a heart of ice, and a real and genuine love.
The solution is not to become unisex, but to move to a robust, three dimensional, profound, and true masculinity or femininity. There is a distinctly masculine, and a distinctly feminine way to embody virtue. It is like eating a hot casserole as contrasted to eating a cool piece of fruit: both are good and solidly nourishing, but they are different.
[note: I handwrote this document, and decided to type it later... a part of this next paragraph will have the same effect as Paul's words, "See what large letters I am using as I write with my own hand," in the tiny print of a pocket NIV... I am choosing to leave it in, because its thought contributes something even when the script is lost]
I know that I am not the perfect image of masculinity — there is a good deal of both macho and effeminacy in me — but there is one little thing of myself that I would like to draw attention to: my handwriting, the script in which this letter is written. It should be seen at a glance by anyone who thinks about it that this was written by a male; rather than the neat, round letters of a feminine script, this script bears fire and energy. I draw this to attention because it is one example of (in my case) masculinity showing itself in even a tiny detail.
A good part of growing mature is for a man to become truly masculine, and for a woman to grow truly feminine; it is also to be able to see masculinity and femininity.
Vive la différence!