Why We Should Be Talking About God Diffrently

God Talk: How Do We Talk About God?

This is the first of three articles exploring the concept of "God Talk"—the ways in which people experience, understand, and communicate about God. This three-part series breaks down God Talk into three primary forms: talking about God, talking to God, and talk from God. In this article, we focus on how to talk about God—examining the sources, frameworks, and limitations that shape our conversations about the Divine.

What Is God Talk?

God Talk refers to the language, symbols, and interpretations we use when discussing the nature, character, and actions of God. Whether in everyday conversations, religious teachings, or theological debates, God Talk reveals how people conceptualize the Divine based on experience, scripture, and tradition.

How we talk about God is shaped by multiple influences: personal encounters, secondhand stories, and the teachings of organized religion. Our understanding of God forms from this rich tapestry of experience, and the way we speak about God reflects these accumulated beliefs.

How Experience Shapes the Way We Talk About God

Imagine trying to describe someone close to you—a parent, spouse, sibling, or best friend. You'd likely mention their habits, quirks, values, and shared memories. This information is born from your lived experiences with them. But others might describe this same person differently, based on their own interactions.

Just as we understand people more fully by hearing from multiple perspectives, we can better understand God by considering a broader range of experiences. Talking about God should involve not only our own insights but also the testimonies of others, sacred texts, and historical revelations.

Talking About God Through the Lens of Shared Experience

The act of talking about God mirrors how we talk about anyone else: through the lens of diverse relationships and ever-changing experiences. No single perspective is sufficient. Our understanding must remain open, dynamic, and evolving—because God, like a close relationship, continues to be revealed through new insights.

So where does our language about God originate? When two people are discussing God, are they even referring to the same being? Our conversations are often shaped by:

• Personal experiences with the Divine

• Sacred scriptures and religious traditions

• Cultural and communal interpretations

• Assumptions about God’s purpose, identity, and expectations

• 
  

Texts like the Bible, Qur'an, Torah, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita are frequently treated as sacred records of divine encounters. Their writers share revelations, spiritual visions, and transformative events. These experiences have shaped centuries of God Talk and continue to influence how we understand God's nature.

The System of Contrasts in Religious God Talk

A dominant feature in religious discussions about God is what I call the "system of contrasts." This framework relies on binary thinking—God is this, not that. Examples include:

• Holy vs. sinful

• Spirit vs. matter

• Creator vs. creation

• Immutable vs. changeable
  

This binary approach simplifies God by assigning opposites. It limits our understanding and confines God to rigid categories, removing nuance and spiritual fluidity. For instance, debates about whether God can change (immutability) reveal this contrast-based thinking. Scripture offers moments where God changes course—showing mercy, regret, or reconsideration. Yet traditional theology often insists God cannot change. Theologian Clark Hasker argues for a dynamic God:

"God exists and carries on His life in time; He undergoes changing states... God changes, not in His essential nature—His love and wisdom and power—but in His thoughts and deeds toward us, matching His response to the creature’s state at the time."

While this view is more flexible, it still operates within a system of opposites. God either changes or does not. What if there’s a better way to talk about God—one that moves beyond forced dualisms?

Multilocational God: A Broader Vision

Rather than confining God to spiritual vs. material, or temporal vs. eternal, we can embrace a multilocational view of God. Scripture gives examples of God appearing in both spiritual and physical forms:

• Burning bush (Exodus 3:2)

• Walking in Eden (Genesis 3:8)

• Wrestling with Jacob (Genesis 32)

• Throne room visions (Isaiah 6, Revelation 7)
  

John Hick suggests religious experience exists in two modes: the noumenal (reality as it is) and the phenomenal (reality as perceived). But even these do not exhaust the mystery of God’s presence. God transcends these categories and is not bound by opposites.

Christianity, like many religions, has constructed a spiritual world to house God—often treating the Divine as confined to that realm. But in doing so, we limit the ways God can be discussed, perceived, and encountered. True God Talk should acknowledge God's freedom to exist beyond, within, and between all realms.

A New Way to Talk About God

Let’s shift away from contrast-based thinking. Rather than asking if God is either unchanging or mutable, we might ask how God engages with a changing world. How does Divine wisdom interact with human experience? How does spiritual truth reveal itself over time?

Talking about God should:

• Embrace complexity and nuance

• Remain open to evolving experience

• Avoid binary constraints

• Be shaped by awe, curiosity, and humility

God Talk is not about arguing who’s right or wrong—it’s about sacred discovery. As we engage in conversations about the Divine, we should honor mystery, seek deeper understanding, and remain open to what is yet to be revealed.