The “Stuff” of Divinity

When recently speaking in the UK at various universities, churches, and retreats, the issue of God’s “stuff” came up. That is, what is the being, ontology, or stuff of divinity?

Some people think of God as personal, others as impersonal, some as a force, others as a concept or set of relations. I like to say God is spirit. But what does that mean?

Below is an excerpt from my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love. It addresses this issue.

God’s Spiritness

Theistic traditions speak of deity as Spirit or a spirit.[1] We find this true to varying degrees in Christianity (pneuma, ruach, spiritus), Judaism (ruach and shekinah), and Islam (ruh), although the meanings of “spirit” vary greatly in these traditions.[2] Those in Bahai, Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions also use spirit language to talk about deity, and many indigenous peoples and animistic traditions speak of the Great Spirit.[3] Theologian Jay McDaniel rightly concludes that “Spirit isn’t reducible to Christianity.”[4]

How each tradition understands “spirit” varies, of course, and this diversity increases when one looks at movements and figures within each religion.[5] But the fact that many religions think of God as spirit is highly significant for making sense of divine universality, incorporeality, and invisibility.[6] Conceiving of God as Spirit also orients us toward our experiences of the divine within history. A universally interactive Spirit can’t be contained by any person, any tradition, any creature, or even any universe.

Using “Spirit” as a word for God involves speculating about divine ontology or God’s being. Spirit language prompts us, says Sharon V. Betcher, to think of God “within the planetary and cosmic milieu.”[7] As a self-described “crip” theologian of disability, Betcher argues that emphasizing God as Spirit points us to present realities, including our suffering and embodiment.[8] This same Spirit, says Betcher, can be seen as an “ever newly emergent force for making the world go on” despite suffering, disability, empire, and more.[9] The language of God as a loving and wise Spirit supports diverse forms of flourishing here and now.

Many others speak of God’s spiritness.[10] Biblical scholar Marcus Borg says divine spiritness “stresses relationship, intimacy, and belonging.”[11] Feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson says Spirit “evokes a universal perspective and signifies divine activity in its widest reaches.”[12] Reformed Theologian Jürgen Moltmann says divine spiritness “means that God is present in creation and in history in the ungraspable, life-giving energy.”[13] Womanist theologian Deloris Williams says, “the Spirit is the sustaining presence of God who enables survival, giving Black women energy to endure and resist.”[14] And Amos Yong, the preeminent theologian of Spirit, says, “God is Spirit, and . . . ​the Spirit is the one who creates, renews, and empowers all cultures to respond to God in their own tongues.”[15]

In this chapter, I address these key dimensions of God as Spirit. Note I’m exploring God’s composition as a universal and incorporeal spirit. I’m not yet addressing what some Christians call the Holy Spirit as the third member of the trinity.[16] I’ll address trinitarian issues in a later chapter.[17] Here, I’m exploring the ontological “stuff” of which divinity consists: spirit.[18]

Jesus Describes God as Spirit

Although various scriptures call God “Spirit,” Jesus identifies the very stuff of the divine as spirit. The writers of John’s gospel record Jesus saying, “God is spirit” (4:24). I read this not as a reference to the third person of the Trinity but apparently a statement about the composition of the divine.

This statement comes in Jesus’ conversation with a woman from Samaria. The woman has come to this conversation alone, and she’d been married many times. Jesus’ disciples would have considered her a foreigner and a member of a false religion. In other words, in this story this Samaritan was of the “wrong” faith, at a place not considered holy, without community—and also female, while not maintaining the primary relationship of wife that society expected.

Jesus tells her that worshiping God isn’t confined to mountains or Jerusalem. He twice says believers “worship God in spirit and truth” (4:23, 24). Then Jesus says, “God is spirit.” The point seems to be that true worship will be possible anywhere and for anyone, because God is a universal spirit rather than a localized object or regional deity. The Spirit of Love, it’s implied, isn’t confined to sacred spaces, groups, genders, social expectations, or religions. God is uncontainable.

What is Spirit?

Like “love,” biblical writers use the Hebrew and Greek words we translate “spirit” in diverse ways. The two most common words for spirit are ruach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek). Each word occurs about 400 times in scripture. Later, the Latin spiritus was used for both words.

Biblical writers often use “spirit”’ when referring to God,[19] but sometimes they use it for air, wind, or breath.[20] Other times, “spirit” refers to a spiritual being[21] other than God, such as angels, demons, or other deities. Sometimes “spirit” refers to minds, hearts, or souls.[22] Other times, it denotes a general way of thinking, an attitude, or pattern of living.[23] The diversity of meanings can be bewildering!

Unfortunately, the context of the biblical word translated “spirit” doesn’t always indicate clearly which meaning applies. Consequently, biblical translators make choices when rendering the ancient languages. Wise people can nevertheless disagree on how to interpret the biblical passages in which we find the word for “spirit.”[24] The word is slippery.

The diversity of meanings should remind us that biblical writers are grasping to give an account of themselves, the world, and God.[25] Their accounting has always been influenced by various experiences, cultures, theologies, and more. Accounts of God and reality will never be perfect—even in the Bible. We have license, therefore, to draw from ancient descriptions without being wholly constrained by them.

Although analogies and metaphors can’t ever account for God fully, I turn to four analogies I believe help make sense of God as an invisible, incorporeal, and universal spirit.

God is like wind or breath

We find comparing God to wind or breath typical in scripture, and this analogy has several advantages. A common word for God in the Hebrew scriptures, yahweh, is pronounced as if breathing in and out. Jesus compared God to the wind and said it influences us without our knowing from where it comes (Jn. 3:8). We can see the wind’s effects, because we observe tiny particles whisked about, see trees swaying, or feel a gust. These effects point to the fact that wind and breath have causal force and a physical dimension.

Just as we can’t directly see wind and breath, however, we can’t see God. In fact, we seem unable to perceive God with any of our senses. People of faith typically say at least some events reflect divine causation. But most can’t articulate well how God’s causal influence works, even though they perceive themselves as affected by an unseen Friend, Comforter, Presence, or Force. The Spirit influences.

We can find at least two downsides to comparing God to wind or breath. First, airy entities don’t typically have intentionality. We don’t think of breath and wind making free choices, thinking, or acting purposively. And they don’t love. I will argue that the Spirit does all of these activities and more.

Second, we don’t usually think of wind and breath as universal. We inhale or exhale air in a particular place, and we feel a gust in a specific locale. Every atom comprising a rock, for instance, isn’t present to air. By contrast, the universal Spirit is directly present to all.

The breadth of divine Breath is ubiquitous.

God is like a personal mind

Greek and Hebrew words translated “spirit” sometimes refer to minds. Thinking that God might be like a mind has advantages, because minds have intentions, make decisions, plan, and learn. Minds typically have a subjective unity and are aware. To give an account of ourselves as experiencing subjects, in fact, it makes sense to say we are or have minds. Denying the reality of creaturely minds would be self-refuting; only minds are capable of the psychological activity of denying!

Talking about God as a Mind also has the advantage that minds both influence and are influenced. Creaturely minds are affected by bodies, events, and creation, and they show affect in response. We can’t perceive creaturely minds with our five senses. A scientist can’t cut open a human cranium and see a mind mingling amongst the brain and neurons. Likewise, we can’t see the invisible Spirit.

To say God is mind-like,[26] therefore, aligns with saying the Spirit is an experiencing subject with subjective unity. The Spirit is affected by creaturely others, and it affects them. And just as we can’t see minds when we cut open heads, we can’t perceive the divine Mind with our five senses.

But there’s a downside to comparing God to creaturely minds: our minds aren’t omnipresent. We typically think of minds as residing in a person’s head. They’re localized. Creaturely minds also apparently have a beginning, but, by contrast, an everlasting Spirit has no origin. To talk about the Spirit as mind-like, therefore, we have to be careful to add that God is universal and everlasting.

God is like invisible gravity

To my knowledge, nothing in scripture compares the Spirit to gravity. Neither Jesus nor the biblical authors were conscious of gravity in the modern sense, although they felt its effects. Many people today also function with no cognitive knowledge of gravity, and yet it influences them moment by moment. Most scientists consider gravity universal, although this universality can’t be measured and gravity’s pull varies in intensity.[27]

Similarly, an invisible Spirit influences even those not cognitively aware of its existence.[28] That includes those who deny the reality of God. Like gravity, the Spirit exerts causal or attracting influence, despite not being able to see it.[29] Like God, gravity appears to be universal.

The downsides of comparing God to gravity prove similar to the downsides of comparing the Spirit to wind and breath. Gravity as an active force doesn’t have intentionality, make free choices, think, or act purposively. Gravity can’t love, if one thinks love involves acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being. Deity is like gravity in some ways, but God is unlike it in others.

God is living

Biblical writers often say God is “living.”[30] And we sometimes identify “spirit” as active life or a life-force, either when talking about creatures or Creator. According to the biblical witness, the Spirit is dynamic, animated, and organism-like.[31] Rather than dead or static, the Living Spirit affects creation, and creation affects deity. God is a dynamic actor.[32]

Combining the Spirit as living with the Spirit as breath, various biblical writers say divine breathing is a creative force in the universe. In the book of Job, for instance, Elihu says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives me life” (33:4). The Living Spirit enlivens others; Life creates life.

We can see one disadvantage in this way of thinking in the tendency to imagine a Living God having the same limitations as creatures. Living creatures have limited influence, for instance, because they’re always located in a specific place. Living creatures are also typically embodied (ghosts being a possible exception), whereas the Living Spirit is universal and doesn’t have a divine body. And living creatures are born and die; God remains everlasting.

In sum, saying the Spirit can be compared to wind, breath, or air points to the causal force of an invisible deity. Saying the Spirit is like gravity acknowledges God’s invisible but universal influence. Saying the Spirit lives indicates that deity is a dynamic, relational actor. And saying the Spirit is like a mind supports the intentionality and relations necessary for love. Rightly understood, these various claims and images trying to capture the universal, incorporeal, and living Spirit support the notion that God acts intentionally, in relational response, to promote overall well-being.

More

For more on how I think about God as the universal Spirit who loves, see A Systematic Theology of Love.

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^[1] For a classic exploration of God and/or ultimate reality as Spirit or spiritual, see Ninian Smart’s book, The Religious Experience of Mankind (New York: Scribner, 1969).

^[2] Grace Ji-Sun Kim explores the relation between spirit and chi in The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

^[3] See, for instance, JoJo M. Fung, “The Great Spirit in Indigenous Peoples’ Lives and The Future of Pneumatology,” Asia Pacific Mission Studies: Vol. 6: 1.6 (2024). Available at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/apms/vol6/iss1/6; Vine Deloria, Jr., God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (New York: Fulcrum, 1992); Randy Woodley, Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonialized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2022).

^[4] Jay McDaniel, Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism (St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2000), 5.

^[5] Amos Yong has done immense work in applying pneumatology to interreligious dialogue, especially with Buddhism. See Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003); The Cosmic Breath: Spirit and Nature in the Christianity-Buddhism-Science Trialogue (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow Through the Middle Way? (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

^[6] Many Hindu and Indian religions speak of God or ultimate reality as spiritual consciousness. On this, see Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969); Swami Padmanabha, Evolution in Divine Love: The Eternal Becoming of God, Soul, and Matter (Inword, 2025); Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927).

^[7] Sharon V. Betcher, Spirit and the Politics of Disablement (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), 2.

^[8] Ibid., 3.

^[9] Ibid., 24.

^[10] In some ways, my work is an example of what LeRon Shults and Andrea Hollingsworth say is the 21st century task of “interpreting the experience of the Spirit of the biblical God.” See The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 89.

^[11] Marcus Borg, The God We Never Knew (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 71.

^[12] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 83.

^[13] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, Margaret Kohl, trans. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 9.

^[14] Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 127.

^[15] Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 18. For others who equate God and Spirit, see Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996); Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995); Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990).

^[16] Blair Reynolds addresses the Holy Spirit from a process theology perspective. See Blair Reynolds, Toward a Process Pneumatology (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1990).

^[17] Pneumatology. I am grateful to Amos Yong for his conversations and writings on pneumatology. I consider him to be the expert on the spirit. Among his many books on pneumatology, see Spirit of Love (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012). Sallie McFague explores the advantages and disadvantages of calling God “Spirit.” I find none of her disadvantages convincing. See Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 169-71.

^[18] Among those who have written well on the spirit, see Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture, and Community (Cleveland, TN: CPT, 2009); Michael Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012); Bradley Shavit Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2013); Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996); Joshua D. Reichard, Pentecost, Process, and Power (PhD diss., University of the Western Cape, 2010); Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God-Christ-Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006).

^[19] See Gen 1:2; Exod 31:3; 2 Chr 15:1; Matt 28:19; Mk 1:8; 3:29; 12:36; Lk 1:15, 35, 41; 2:25–26; Jn 20:22; Acts 1:2, 5, 8, 16; 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Thess 4:8.

^[20] See Gen 3:8; 6:17; 7:15; Exod 15:8, 10; Num 11:31; Job 1:19; 9:18; Ps 1:4; Prov 25:23; Eccl 1:14, 17; Isa 11:4; Ez. 37:7-10; Jn 3:8; Heb 1:7.

^[21] See Mt 8:16; Mk 1:26; Lk 24:37; 4:36; Acts 19:12.

^[22] See Gen 7:22; Gen 41:8; Gen 45:27; Deut 2:30; Job 7:11; Ps 51:10; 51:17; 77:6; 78:8; 143:4; Prov 15:13; 17:22; Isa 26:9; Lam 4:20; Mk 2:8; Lk 23:46; Rom 8:16; 1 Cor 2:11; 1 Cor 5:5; Col. 2:5.

^[23] See Isa 29:10; Rom 8:15, 11:8; Eph 2:18; 2 Tim 1:7.

^[24] Jack Levison notes that a theologian’s presuppositions incline her toward particular pneumatologies. “With so many references to spirit in scripture, a plethora of possible starting points present themselves, each of which will lead in a distinctive direction . . . ​The choice of a starting point therefore determines the sort of pneumatology a reader cultivates.” John (Jack) R. Levison, “The Spirit in the Christian Bible,” St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, Brendan N. Wolfe, et al., eds. (https://www.saet.ac.uk/ Christianity/TheSpiritintheChristianBible Accessed: 19 December 2024).

^[25] Michael Lodahl explores Jewish and Christian understandings of Spirit in Shekinah/Spirit (New York: Paulist, 1992).

^[26] In his writings, Keith Ward often compares God to a mind. For an example, see Sharing in the Divine Nature (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020). See also Wm. Curtis Holtzen and Roberto Sirvent, eds., By Faith and Reason: The Essential Keith Ward (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2012).

^[27] Jay McDaniel compares the Spirit of love to plasma in “Felt, Not Grasped: The Spirit as Plasmatic Love,” in Renewing Faith, Sheri Kling, ed. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[28] Among those who compare God to gravity, see Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being (New York: Orbis, 2014); Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, Bernard Wall, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1960); Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, Emma Craufurd, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952). Bradford McCall brings together a collection of Philip Clayton’s writings under the title, God and Gravity (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018).

^[29] Philip Clayton explores the action of the Spirit in a collection of essays called Adventures in Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2008).

^[30] E.g., Deut. 5:26; Ps. 42:2; Matt. 16:16; Acts 14:15.

^[31] “When spirit is understood as pure, undifferentiated consciousness, it fails to express the personal character of God.” John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Scribner, 1966), 152.

^[32] Rory Randall makes a strong argument for the compatibility of open and relational theology with Spirit-oriented theologies. See An Open Theist Renewal Theology (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2021).