Images of God
- Liz Little
- Aug 5
- 9 min read
Introduction
In an attempt to understand the mystery of the divine and the presence of the sacred in our lives, scripture and religious teaching have personified God and presented God as judge, puppeteer, rewarder and punisher, someone who controls the world and what happens in it. God is also presented as someone who loves and forgives. The changing images of God can lead us to wonder if we have been created in the image and likeness of God or if we have manoeuvred God into the image and likeness of ourselves.
This paper seeks to explore some of the ways that God has been understood and described by religion, scholars and scientists in order to challenge readers to explore their own images of God and the implications for their own attitudes and behaviours.
One of the difficulties humans have always had in describing and understanding God is the limitations presented by language. Attempts to fully understand and describe God tend to reduce the experience of the divine presence to simple human concepts. As St Augustine said if you comprehend, it is not God.1 This issue has coloured attempts to define God over time.
Old Testament
The Old Testament God is generally thought of as a very human-like deity whose key characteristics are anger, jealousy and wrath; a cruel commander of armies who took the side of the people of Israel as they battled enemies whom they were told to hate.2
For example, Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden upon their first misdemeanour. God sent a plague when King David enraged God. God selected one man, Noah, his family and some animals and then drowned everyone and everything else. God prevented Moses from entering the Promised Land because of his disobedience in striking a rock twice instead of once. 2
Richard Dawkins, atheist and anti-religion campaigner, describes the God of the Old Testament as arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.2
In contrast, as the Old Testament progresses it also describes God in gentle and loving terms. Expressions such as I have carved you on the palm of my hand, and Does a mother forget her child? I will never forget my own3 are among the many tender words the prophets attribute to God. The Song of Songs paints a picture of a lover who woos his beloved. 4
It can be argued that the Old Testament exhibits an evolution of thinking, moving from the tribal God who must be appeased to the universal God of love, forgiveness, grace and tenderness. 4
New Testament
Jesus, the human face of God, preached a message of love, compassion, forgiveness, and salvation. His ministry described a God who will always and forever love us. The God of the Gospels is one of nonviolence who demanded repentance but did not dispense punishment.4
But the Gospels also teach that, at the end of the world, Christ, as King, will pronounce judgement, saying to some, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.5 Their evil was a failure to provide for the needy, or a failure to proclaim Jesus as Saviour, even if they had never heard of Jesus.6
If interpreted literally, the image of God portrayed in the gospels is a mixture of mercy and punishment. 6
For readers of the Bible, an inconsistency is presented here. Can the same God judge harshly and punish cruelly, yet also love unconditionally and forgive tenderly? Many a human has stopped believing in God after a trauma or tragedy for which they blame an all-controlling God.
God – A Tainted Word?
Some contemporary scholars suggest that our images of God reflect the culture of the time; 6 or that images of God have been used as justification for human control, manipulation and destruction.7 In addition, the personification of God implies that God is a separate entity, apart from human beings and apart from the world.8
In some ways these images have tainted the word god. They are concepts that no longer seem to serve us adequately. This has led scholars and the faithful alike to seek out useful images of God and, sometimes, to avoid the word at all, choosing instead, The Divine, The Sacred, The Beloved, the Source of all Being, or something else less personifying.
Lloyd Geering – Presbyterian Minister and Scholar
Lloyd Geering claims that God the creator was once a useful way to explain the natural world, the seasons, the rains, the floods, crop growth, etc.9 Over time, God the creator became God the controller, God the judge, God the puppeteer. As scientific knowledge developed, so did our understanding of the workings of the natural world and the traditional images of God became less and less convincing. Some people felt they had to choose between God and science.
Others have attempted to re-imagine the Divine with fewer human characteristics. See for example:
Reimaging God by Robert van Mourik
Ecological Spirituality by Diarmuid O’Murchu, and
The Not-Yet God by Ilia Delio
The Invention of God by Raisini
Albert Einstein – Physicist
Einstein wasn’t a person who felt the need to choose. He rejected the notion of a personal God who listens to prayers, intervenes in human lives and judges human actions. Einstein had a deep appreciation for the harmony and order of existence as science reveals it. He spoke of the harmony of nature as the closest thing to divinity that he could conceive of.10
He was also fascinated by the mysteries of existence and spoke of God in a way that conveyed his deep respect for the unknown aspects of the universe. It seems that he did not think that science could explain absolutely everything.10
For Einstein, the experience of the mysterious was at the core of both scientific inquiry and spiritual awe. It was this mystery—the vast, intricate, and often incomprehensible nature of the universe—that he chose to call God. 10
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Philosopher
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that God is not the maker of nature but is the very essence of it.11 God is not the external puppeteer controlling the universe, but God is the universe, God is the beauty, God is the wonder. God is the process that enables the elements of the natural world to fit together and to work. God is the unity of the universe.12
Carl Jung – Psychiatrist
Carl Jung said that unity and wholeness are what humans seek, that God is the name we give to that quest for that wholeness.13 Geering advances that idea to say that God is the name we give to our highest ideals, like love, justice and compassion,14 the ideals that will bring us to the wholeness and unity that we seek; the wholeness and unity that is actually God. This doesn’t make God any less powerful, but it does make God less controlling.
Conclusion on the Changing Images of God
In spite of the world’s amazing progress in science and medicine, for people of faith, there remains a dimension of life that is spiritual, a part of us that is inspired by the awe and the wonder of the universe, that is touched by the goodness of our fellow human beings; that senses something life giving in the human experience; that seeks to understand our place in the universe and our purpose in life. In all these dimensions of life we experience the sacred.
Somehow, in trying to find the language to describe and to understand God, we have managed to contain God and diminish the awe and wonder of the sacred. Perhaps we need to learn to live with the not-quite-knowable, to respect the mystery and to cherish the experience of all that is good, of all that is God.
Footnotes
2. Savage, Les, Portraits of God, July 2023
3. Isaiah 49:15-16
4. Savage, Les, Portraits of God, July 2023
5. Matthew 25:41
6. Savage, Les, Portraits of God, July 2023
7. Dick, John Alonzo, Perspectives on God, 6 May, 2026, Another Voice – Reflections about Contemporary Christian Belief and Practice
8. Geering, Lloyd, 2014, Reimagining God, Polebridge Press, Salem, USA.
9. Ibid, page 121
11. Geering, Lloyd, 2014, Reimagining God, Polebridge Press, Salem, USA, page 10
12. Ibid, page 128, Kaufman in Geering
13. Ibid, page 84
14. Ibid, page x
Reflection questions
1. How would you describe your own characterisation of God?
2. How do you reconcile a God of unconditional love with the final judgment and possible punishment?
3. Where is God?
4. Have developments in science and human knowledge changed the way you think about God?
5. If God chooses not to control events in the universe, what are the implications for prayer?
FAQs
How does scripture traditionally portray God in the Old and New Testaments?
Scripture often portrays God in highly personified terms, as a judge, rewarder, punisher, and puppeteer who controls events, but also as one who loves, forgives, and shows tender care. In the Old Testament, God is frequently depicted as a tribal, human‑like deity marked by anger, jealousy, and wrath, yet over time the text also reveals a God of love, forgiveness, grace, and tenderness, suggesting an evolution from a God who must be appeased to a universal God of compassion. In the New Testament, Jesus presents the human face of God as nonviolent, loving, and forgiving, yet apocalyptic passages portray Christ as a judge consigning some to eternal fire, producing an apparent tension between unconditional mercy and severe judgment.
Why do some scholars see the word “God” as tainted, and what alternative language do they propose?
Some contemporary scholars argue that many images of God simply mirror the culture and power structures of their time, and have been used to justify human control, manipulation, and even destruction. They also note that personifying God as a separate, controlling entity can reinforce a view of God as distant and external to the world and to human beings, which no longer serves many people’s spiritual experience. In response, scholars and practitioners increasingly turn to less personifying language such as “The Divine,” “The Sacred,” “The Beloved,” or “the Source of all Being” to name the sacred without the baggage attached to the traditional word “God.”
How do thinkers like Geering, Einstein, Teilhard de Chardin, and Jung re‑imagine God?
Lloyd Geering suggests that “God the creator” once functioned as a useful explanation for natural phenomena, but as science advanced, images of God as controller, judge, and puppeteer became less convincing, prompting some to feel forced to choose between God and science and others to seek new images of the Divine. Albert Einstein rejected a personal, interventionist God, yet spoke of the harmony, order, and mystery of the universe as the closest thing to divinity, locating “God” in the profound sense of wonder at existence that science cannot exhaust. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin describes God not as an external maker or puppeteer, but as the very essence, beauty, wonder, unity, and dynamic process of nature itself—the energy that holds the universe together and enables its unfolding. Carl Jung, developed by Geering, sees “God” as the name we give to our quest for unity and wholeness and to our highest ideals such as love, justice, and compassion, so that God becomes the wholeness we seek rather than a remote, controlling being.
What conclusion can one draw about living with the mystery of God?
The article concludes that despite immense scientific and medical progress, people of faith still recognise a spiritual dimension in life—seen in awe at the universe, the goodness of others, a sense of life‑giving presence, and the search for meaning and purpose—all of which are experiences of the sacred. It argues that in our efforts to define and contain God with language, we have diminished the awe and wonder that belong to the divine mystery and suggests that we may need to learn to live with the “not‑quite‑knowable,” respecting mystery and cherishing the experience of all that is good as participation in God.
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Images of God
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About the Author - Liz Little
Liz Little is a retired teacher and an active member of the St Mary’s in Exile Progressive Faith Community in Brisbane. She has qualifications in Theology and Religious Education, as well as Geography, Education, Leadership and Public Administration. Her fields of teaching have led her to have special interests in Scripture, Theology, Social Justice and the Environment. In her retirement she also enjoys a wide variety of activities including bushwalking, swimming and community volunteering.
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