What do we mean when we say "God"?
Who or what is this anyway?
All language is symbolic. Let's go ahead and begin there. When I write the word "chair," what happens in your mind is that an image emerges. Without further description, that chair could be imagined as anything from an old wooden kitchen chair to a modern La-Z-Boy recliner. The word "chair" is not the actual chair you might be sitting in right now; it is a symbolic representation of your grandmother's favorite chair, the chair at your office, or even, I suppose, the chair on the ski slope chairlift. We use words to attempt to describe a reality we may have witnessed or imagined. We are trying to communicate with others something of the essence of the truth of what we experienced in the chair.
Describing a chair is one thing, but the challenge grows substantially when discussing less concrete items. Thus, the difficulty of speaking about God arises.
I often run into people who do not participate in religious activities. When they inevitably learn about my background as a minister, the topic of God or religion comes up. Once I've dispelled their suspicions that I might belong to some extremist fringe Christian sect that dances with snakes and promotes pre-enlightenment ideas, we usually have a good conversation. Sooner or later, they will say something like, "I don't believe in God" or "I'm not religious but…," followed by any number of statements suggesting it's not so much God they have a problem with, but a particular idea of God.
So, what do we mean when we talk about God? The author, Rob Bell, wrote an excellent book titled What We Talk about When We Talk about God. The gist of Bell's book is that the world is humming with spirituality (I love that phrase: humming with spirituality). God is present in this world and the universe, far from being distant and removed. We need to be reawakened to God; we need the eyes to see God's active nature. Bell contends that doctrines get in the way of truly experiencing God. What once helped us now harms us and holds us back. But God is ahead of us, beckoning us forward to a new world that is being born.
Bell guides the reader through the scientific, cultural, and anthropological movements of the past 600 years, illustrating how these have altered our perceptions of God. For instance, very few people in the Western world still believe that God resembles the figure painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's work is magnificent, particularly when he painted it while lying on his back for months. However, most of us no longer envision God as a bearded old white man micromanaging every activity in the known universe.
So, what do we mean when we say God? If I gather 100 people in a room, I suspect we'll get 100 different answers. Yes, there would be patterns and some overlap, but further probing would reveal distinctions even among the most similar.
This suggests that within each human being, there exists a God-image. This was Carl Jung's idea: the human psyche contains an intrinsic God image and possesses an innate religious function. Therefore, religion is an essential and inevitable part of human existence. However, translating that impulse into a modern worldview struggles to find its way. Many traditional forms of religious expression no longer suffice. But that does not mean the God-impulse does not need expression. Throughout the years, as I've spoken with many religious and non-religious people, I've rarely encountered a confirmed atheist. Some dismiss and despise the concept of the old man in the sky micromanaging life. Yet, as the conversation evolves, it's not unusual to hear people describe some vague, hard-to-define form. They use words and phrases such as "a kind of magnetic field," or "an essence that interconnects," or "something spiritual that touches us all." The theologian Paul Tillich tried to assist people in this struggle. "Many confusions in the doctrine of God and many apologetic weaknesses could be avoided if God were understood first of all as being-itself or as the ground of being." (Systematic Theology vol.1)
God is existence itself rather than just a being, as in the supreme being.
The title of this essay, "What do We Mean when We Say God," creates a problem. I can't answer that question for the collective “we,” so I'll sidestep it and provide my perspective.
After years, maybe decades, of wrestling with this idea of God, I've come to conclude that God is much bigger than any word could capture. However, I’ll try out a little God definition. For me, the word symbolizes an all-encompassing sacred dynamic immediately present to each of us while simultaneously being beyond the here and now. I'd love to have that reduced to a bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan, but all my efforts have failed so far. I have learned that there is a word for my views: Panendeism in philosophical circles. How did I not know a club would be willing to have someone with my ideas as a member?
The word could easily be mistaken for its cousin Panentheism, but there is a slight difference. Panentheism and panendeism are both theological concepts that explore the relationship between God and the universe; however, they differ in their views on God's existence and role in the cosmos. Panentheism suggests that God's being encompasses and includes the universe while remaining distinct from it. Conversely, panendeism posits that God is both immanent within the universe and transcendent beyond it, potentially encompassing a supernatural realm.
I've also come to view Jung's idea of the God-Image as more than what some Jungian psychologists wish to reduce it to. They leave it as something within the psyche alone, almost as if it is an individual and isolated concept. In my view, this God-image exists in the psyche; however, it is also present because the entirety of life is imbued with the sacred, namely God. We know God through the God-image within. Could this be what Jung meant in his famous BBC television interview? When asked if he believed in God, he said, “I know. I don’t need to believe. I know”
All of this is symbolic chatter; even these words written on a computer screen are symbols attempting to convey an understanding. As I wrote in my book Ordinary Mysteries, "A symbol is a mark, sign, or even a word that is understood or represents an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to consciously go beyond what is known and comprehend meaning and connections between otherwise very different concepts and experiences."
What makes this intriguing is our collective desire to connect with others. A deep-seated yearning for intimacy within us fuels my passion for writing about these themes. It feels like that diving image is reaching out for connection and understanding with its different aspects, which can only be discovered through other people.
"At the core of Carl Jung's perception is intimated the expression 'the symbolic life.' There is a very deep, autonomous process at work in each of us which reaches the surface in metaphor or in symbol." Dr. James Hollis
And yet, as I look back k on this essay, I see there is something missing. I sense an incompleteness. I’m compelled to add the caveats that appear moments before pushing send. This piece is unfinished, it needs something concrete, tangible…an incarnation.
More to Come,
James Hazelwood is an author and photographer living in Rhode Island. His website is jameshazelwood.net. His new book, “Through New Eyes” chronicles twelve years of visits to the Holy Land through photography and reflections by fellow travelers. It will be released on May 13.
This is a great reflection James, one that resonates deeply me. I recently explored this very idea in my Desert and Fire essay, The God Who Does Not Exist (https://steveherrmann.substack.com/p/the-god-who-does-not-exist). There, I explore a paradox like the one you raise here: that when we speak of God, we are never naming an object, never capturing a being among beings, but pointing toward what cannot be possessed by language at all. Not the “Supreme Being” perched atop the metaphysical chain, but Being itself. The Ground, not the thing grounded. Or as Tillich wrote, the depth of the depth.
You’re right to say that all language is symbolic. And yet there are symbols that still burn. Not because they explain, but because they pierce. In my piece, I suggest that perhaps God must first "not exist" - that is, not exist as an idol or concept we can carry in our mental pockets - so that the true and living God might be born again in us through encounter, through mystery, through flesh.
This, I think, is where the yearning for incarnation leads... symbols ache for substance. Words long for embodiment. And in Christ, the Word becomes flesh not to end symbolism, but to fulfill it... to show us that even the infinite can wear skin and still remain infinite.