Dear John,

Right, so this one is clearly nonsense, isn’t it? There’s no way that God is autistic. And there’s no way that Jesus was autistic – he was notable for being able to read and speak massively between the lines.

Incidentally, there may well be some Biblical characters who are autistic. Lazarus is an example – it’s odd that he never speaks and he lives with his two adult sisters. Is he non-verbal and are they his carers? We don’t have the data to come to any firm conclusions, but they are interesting questions, and given the statistics it seems likely there are several. My personal pick would be Paul – he seems to have the combination of high written intelligence but lower speaking ability (2 Corinthians 10:10), ability to see to the heart of an issue without people getting in the way, which leads to him giving offense easily (Galatians 2:11), as well as some sensory issues (Galatians 4:15). We don’t have the data to come to firm conclusions, but I recognise some of my own strengths and weaknesses in Paul, and find that encouraging. There’s a Christian TV series at the moment that depicts Matthew as clearly autistic, and some people say they recognise a lot of autistic traits in him too.

But what about God? As I have already noted, your autism comes with some pretty big weaknesses, and also some compensating strengths, like language precision and a degree of immunity to charm. And it’s striking that Jesus has characteristic autistic strengths without having characteristic autistic weaknesses. God isn’t a “respecter of persons” for instance (Acts 10:34). He doesn’t show prejudice to people just because of their ethnicity or status.

One of the most interesting areas though where we see God having characteristically autistic preferences is the question of order versus chaos.

We see it for instance in the creation account in Genesis 1. In the first three days, God separates light from darkness, land from sea, and so on. In each case, God acts to create order; the more ordered domain is described as “good” and the less ordered one is not. In each case, the less ordered domain is later used as a picture for the domain of evil, and the inhabitants of that domain are treated as morally ambiguous at best. And in each case, the less-ordered domain is absent in Revelation 21-22. Adam and Eve are also commanded to expand the order into the realms of disorder, and to classify the animals. Human work before the Fall seems to consist of bringing order and classifying stuff.

There’s loads of interesting stuff here, but it’s worth noting that the Bible consistently shows that God is a God of peace and order, not of disorder (1 Cor 14:33). Even the tendency of autistic folk to value order so highly, which is itself a consequence of brokenness, reflects a bit of God’s image. God isn’t autistic, but some autistic traits can still reflect his image better than the neurotypical version.