Perceptions of Spirituality and of God: A Psychological Qualitative Study
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
2.1. Historical Theorists’ Perspectives on Spirituality
2.2. Subsequent Theorists’ Perspectives on Spirituality
2.3. Purpose of the Present Study
3. Methods
3.1. Procedures
- What are your beliefs about the existence of a Supreme Being, Creator, or God? (If they believed in the existence of God, then the following three questions were also asked):
- What is God like? (attributes/character?)
- How does God view you?
- How would you describe your relationship with God?
- How would you describe spirituality?
- What role, if any, does spirituality play in your life?
- What things do you do, if anything, that you consider spiritual?
- What aspects of spirituality, as you understand it, are least appealing?
- What do you believe are the primary reasons that you hold the spiritual beliefs you do?
3.2. Participants
3.3. Data Analysis
Understanding is not, in the first instance, a procedure or rule-governed undertaking; rather, it is a very condition of being human. Understanding is interpretation. […] Second, in the act of interpreting (of “taking something as something”), sociohistorically inherited bias or prejudice is not regarded as a characteristic or attribute that an interpreter must strive to get rid of or manage in order to come to a “clear” understanding […] understanding requires the engagement of one’s biases. Third […] meaning is negotiated mutually in the act of interpretation; it is not simply discovered. […] Finally […] understanding is “lived” or existential.
3.3.1. Peer Review
3.3.2. Reduction of Analytic and Interpretive Bias
4. Results
4.1. Perceptions of Spirituality
- Participants used abstract language when defining spirituality.
- Participants viewed spirituality in terms of their own or others’ religious beliefs.
- Participants held either all-encompassing or limited views regarding the role that spirituality plays in their lives.
- Participants described spirituality in terms of extraordinary experiences, rather than in terms of day-to-day living.
- Participants’ descriptions of spirituality frequently involved relational language.
- Christian participants described spirituality in terms of doing rather than being.
4.1.1. Abstract Descriptions of Spirituality
Spirituality. Hm, I guess-I guess I don’t know if I really understand what spirituality really is. I guess, maybe in my feeble way of thinking about it, it’s probably prayer, uh, it’s-it’s-it’s acknowledgment of God being there, a Supreme Being, and the acknowledgment that uh, He needs to be honored and glorified, uh. That’s as much as I can determine what spirituality is, in my way of thinking.
Spirituality is, it’s like the air in the sky, it is like the wind on a day that is windy and you cannot see it but it’s there, you see the grass and the green trees and you see things growing, like, but you don’t necessarily understand how and why all those things are green or grow or why the ocean is...looks a certain color on a certain day or another day it looks a different color. To me, spirituality is like an inner essence and it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can understand it all.
I know a lot of people go to church and believe God says this, Jesus said this, and da-da-da, but spirituality for me is being aware of the energy and living life, the belief that the love I give is the mark I make of my life, this is what matters. And basically, all the other stuff is necessary to survive in this physical place that we are, but uh, you know, it’s like wearing your shoes outside if the cold gets to you, you know, it’s-it’s a necessary thing, but it isn’t what it’s really about.... I guess paradox, if you want to call-call it that, the more I’ve learned about that, the less I understand, and I guess it doesn’t bother me anymore.
4.1.2. Based on Religious Belief
Spirituality, that’s a tough one. Number one, it has nothing to do with religion. Religion I believe is man’s way, it’s just a vehicle to help us to be spiritual. Spirituality is a personal, and yet a growth process, but it’s not a personal overview of living a bad day’s life. My spirituality is my relationship with my Lord; it’s my education process, learning what He expects of me and how He expects me to live and is based on my relationship. I think it’s based on scripture.
4.1.3. Views About Spirituality Tended to Be All-Encompassing or Distanced from Personal Experience
4.1.4. Spirituality Is Exemplified by Extraordinary Experiences
- Spirituality gives additional strength to overcome life’s difficulties.
- Spirituality is a higher journey or pathway to something greater.
- Spirituality involves enriched feelings.
- Spirituality is connection with God at a higher level.
I can tell you the day and the time when I had my conversion experience. It was a Thursday evening about 6:45, 26 October 1986, and I heard the words, “Jesus Loves You”, and they were as clear as the words you’re speaking right now. It’s what they call an interlocution, it’s like a voice, an inside voice, it is loud, it’s spoken, human conversation, and along with it came an incredible love, it’s just a peace that transcends everything. I remember looking at the people around me, I was in a group of about 12 people at the time, and I just had so much love for each person I was in tears, and I saw the beauty of each person. For a couple of weeks after that I was walking about 3 feet off the ground. It was amazing.
4.1.5. Relational Descriptions of Spirituality
I want to feel that connectedness with all essential beings and to feel that connectedness even to those who are, you know, being really cruddy to me, and those who are harming other people and have seen suffering, even those who are the cause of suffering I would still like to be able to see my connectedness with it.
Spirituality is the degree with which you have a oneness with God; it’s the ability of human being to grow closer to God and to emulate those good qualities that God has and to, you know, to develop a communication with God so you can have that oneness.
4.1.6. Christians Tended to Describe Spirituality as Doing Rather than Being
4.2. Perceptions of God
- Reported experiences with God led to more concrete perceptions of Deity, whereas descriptions without a personal sense of experience were more abstract and characterized by adjectives.
- Participants’ religiosity clearly influenced descriptions of God.
- Participants’ descriptions allude to a gap between themselves and God that created dissonance.
- God is more personally relevant in times of need.
- God is viewed in gender specific terms.
- God is viewed in mostly favorable terms.
4.2.1. Experiences with God Led to Richer Perceptions of Deity
Growing up as a youth I used to think of Him as being not really a person, just something of Deity that was everywhere, you know, that oversaw everything that was in charge of everything that happened. Now that I’ve grown older, now that I’ve put more purpose and meaning and understanding into my religious beliefs, I believe that He is a Human Being such as you or I, Someone who is probably very Fatherly or Grandfatherly, when, someone I can go to and know is on the other side listening to me as if I were speaking face to face. I feel that He answers my prayers, not always in the way that I want Him to, but that answers do come, and that if I’m in-tune with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that I realize and recognize those answers. And I think of Him as a Person and Human Being who probably experienced, definitely experienced somewhere along His life things very similar to what I’m experiencing here on earth and gives purpose to why I’m here and where I’m going.
I believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing. I believe that God knows my thoughts, my intents, I know God knows me better than I know myself. And I truly believe that He loves me and He is concerned about me because since I am, since I believe that I am literally His son, see, I can’t comprehend the love that He has for me, I know He loves me more than I love my son, which is hard for me to comprehend, because the love that I have for my son is tremendous and the way I want my son to succeed in life is the way that God the Heavenly Father wants me to succeed.
He’s loving, He’s forgiving, He gives us free-choice of wanting to believe in Him or not. He doesn’t demand of us, so He gives us some free-rein there. Um, He’s sacrificing in the respect that He gave His only Son for us, and I think about that with our own children. He gives us many gifts. I mean, He’s a very giving God. He gives us many gifts of our children, whatever possessions we have, things like that. I do think that um, He hurts when we do wrong, I think that we can’t even begin to understand what that’s like, the pain He must feel when we sin against Him.
4.2.2. Religious Beliefs Influence God Image
Based on things that I’ve learned or read from a Holy Book, you know, you can’t, because like for the most things, you, God is not, it’s not like a Christians where, you know, they have a lot of movies about God and they show you that God is a Male and all that, so you can tell, you can picture what It is, based on the Muslim religion, you just read in the book about God, where you just kind of believe, your belief is built on what you read and you know… so you know God is forgiving, is the Almighty, He knows everything, you know, it’s just anything, a mixture of everything.
4.2.3. Perceived Gap Between Participant and God Creates Dissonance
- Perfection and works.
- Perceived personal deficits.
- God cannot be known.
- God is good, so why is there suffering?
It’s probably not as well as it should be, or could be. I probably could go to church and learn more or sit you know, and read a Bible and stuff like that, to learn more about this type thing. […] If I were to go to church on Sundays and stuff, I feel like I would have more of a personal relationship with Him.
It’s kind of hard to say. Sometimes I think He’s fair and just and everything, and sometimes it’s kind of hard with all the problems in the world and sicknesses and diseases and what have you that it’s, it’s kind of hard to really believe that He’s a true and loving God if He does let everybody suffer from diseases and the different problems in the world. A lot of the problems in the world are man-made but there’s … it’s a hard question.
4.2.4. God Was Perceived as More Personally Relevant in Times of Need
4.2.5. God Was Viewed in Gender-Specific Terms
4.2.6. God Was Viewed Favorably
4.3. Associations Between Perceptions of Spirituality and Perceptions of God
- Participants found it easier to describe God than spirituality, although both were difficult to describe
- Perceptions of spirituality were uniquely different when God is not viewed in anthropomorphic terms or is not viewed as relevant
- Participants’ perceptions of spirituality and perceptions of God were consistent within an integrated belief system
- Greater abstract views of God led to less personalized descriptions of spirituality
- Participants viewed religion as the culprit for any negative perceptions rather than spirituality or God
- Superficial exploration of beliefs in God and perceptions of spirituality were often deemed sufficient.
4.3.1. Participants Described God with Greater Facility than Spirituality
Description of God: “I believe that there is a God, that He is aware of us and that we are children of God. I believe that He is an actual Personage, that He is a higher being, more knowledgeable than we are and He is loving and just”.
Description of spirituality: “To me it’s something that is a part of your life, it’s not something…lifestyle is something that influences you, choices, how you act and how you behave, you do something that needs to be kindled”.
4.3.2. Differences Based on Anthropomorphism
4.3.3. Consistent Perceptions of God and Spirituality Reflected Overlapping Beliefs
4.3.4. Abstract Descriptions of God and Impersonal Descriptions of Spirituality
(1) Description of God: I believe that God knows my thoughts, my intents, I know God knows me better than I know myself. And I truly believe that He loves me and He is concerned about me...I know that He’s there for me and He hears and answers my prayers.
(1) Description of Spirituality: I don’t think you can be spiritual without having a relationship with God. So, I think being spiritual is something that is an action word. I think you’ve got to be actively engaged in spiritual things like prayer, would be something that would be an action, reading scripture is a spiritual experience, or help you to have a better spiritual aura. I think also, things like giving service or following the example of Jesus Christ, anything like that, serving others.
(2) Description of God: I just believe that there is a God and if you follow the right path, if you go down the wrong road and do something wrong and you know it, you should be asking for forgiveness and confess your sins or whatever. It’s not necessarily in church; you can be home alone and stuff.
(2) Description of spirituality: Everybody has their own beliefs. There is not one certain set of, or one certain type of church. Every church is basically kind of different. Every church has their own beliefs.
4.3.5. Any Negative Perceptions About God or Spirituality Were Attributed to Religion
4.3.6. Uncritical Exploration
5. Discussion
5.1. Review of Main Themes
5.2. Comparisons of Themes with Psychological Theorists’ Ideas
5.3. Implications for Practice
5.3.1. Individuals’ Worldviews Often Include God and Religion
5.3.2. One Size Does Not Fit All
5.3.3. Perceptions of Spirituality and Perceptions of God Are Often Inherently Relational
5.3.4. Perceived Dissonance in Relation to God May Impact Identity, Scrupulosity, Perfectionism, and Anxiety
5.3.5. Facilitation of Spiritual Self-Awareness and Values Clarification Can Enhance Therapeutic Outcomes
5.4. Limitations of the Present Study
5.5. Directions for Further Research
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Theorist | Perspective of Spirituality | Underlying Assumptions |
---|---|---|
Sigmund Freud | Mystical sense of oneness with the universe is a projected yearning for oneness with parents | Intrapsychic |
Carl Jung | Wholeness; realization of self; connection to God | Multidimensional |
William James | The healing of the divided self; relationship to the divine | Relational, experiential, contextual |
Erich Fromm | Realization of human power and transcendence of ego | Pragmatic |
Gordon Allport | Intrinsic religious sentiment | Humanistic |
Abraham Maslow | Peak experiences | Transcendental |
Victor Frankl | Responsibleness to God; transcending self | Existential |
Category | Author/Year | Description of Spirituality |
---|---|---|
Connectedness/relational | Armstrong (1995) | The presence of a relationship with a Higher Power that affects the way one operates in the world. |
Benner (1989) | The human response to God’s gracious call to a relationship with himself and our response to a deep and mysterious human yearning for self-transcendence and surrender, a yearning to find our place (p. 20). | |
Dollahite (1998) | A covenant faith community with teaching and narratives that enhance the search for the sacred and encourage morality (p. 5). | |
Humanistic/existential | Doyle (1992) | The search for existential meaning (p. 302). |
Hart (1994) | The way one lives out one’s faith in daily life, the way a person relates to the ultimate conditions of existence (p. 23). | |
Introspective | Vaughan (1991) | A subjective experience with the sacred (p. 105). |
Hill et al. (2000) | The feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors that arise from a search for the sacred. The term “search” refers to attempts to identify, articulate, maintain, or transform. The term “sacred” refers to a divine being, divine object, Ultimate Reality, or Ultimate Truth as perceived by the individual (p. 66). | |
Clark (1958) | The inner experience of the individual when he senses a Beyond, especially as evidenced by the effect of this experience on his behavior when he actively attempts to harmonize his life with the beyond (p. 22). | |
Fahlberg and Fahlberg (1991) | That which is involved in contacting the divine within the Self or self. (p. 274). | |
Multidimensional | Richards and Bergin (1997) | Those experiences, beliefs, and phenomena that pertain to the transcendent and existential aspects of life [i.e., God or a Higher Power, the purpose and meaning of life, suffering, good and evil, death, etc.] (p. 13). |
Tart (1975) | The vast realm of human potential dealing with ultimate purposes, with higher entities, with God, with love, with compassion, with purpose (p. 4). | |
Elkins et al. (1988) | A way of being and experiencing that comes about through awareness of a transcendent dimension and that is characterized by certain identifiable values in regard to self, life, and whatever one considers to be the ultimate (p. 10). | |
Transcendent | Shafranske and Gorsuch (1984) | A transcendent dimension within human experience…attempts to place the self within a broader ontological context (p. 231). |
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Peck, C.E.; Smith, T.B.; Mastny, J. Perceptions of Spirituality and of God: A Psychological Qualitative Study. Religions 2025, 16, 723. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060723
Peck CE, Smith TB, Mastny J. Perceptions of Spirituality and of God: A Psychological Qualitative Study. Religions. 2025; 16(6):723. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060723
Chicago/Turabian StylePeck, Christopher E., Timothy B. Smith, and Jamila Mastny. 2025. "Perceptions of Spirituality and of God: A Psychological Qualitative Study" Religions 16, no. 6: 723. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060723
APA StylePeck, C. E., Smith, T. B., & Mastny, J. (2025). Perceptions of Spirituality and of God: A Psychological Qualitative Study. Religions, 16(6), 723. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060723