Personifications of God
Jonathan Edwards wrote during a time in which monarchs reigned supreme. Writing from this perspective, he argued that the universe is a cosmic society organized under the leadership of a King of kings, a society against which humans have rebelled and, as a consequence, humans are at risk of annihilation except for the mercy of the King. Judgment day will come, according to Edwards, and those who have failed to meet their moral responsibility to the directive of the universe face eternal isolation. Clark Gilpin notes that by conjuring up a personified God — a God with emotions, intentions, and the capacity to act — Edwards instilled great fear and trembling in his listeners that presumably motivated them to change their behaviors in the desired direction. It is hard to imagine that Edwards would have had comparable success had he resorted to simple instructions or exhortations to engage in certain behaviors and avoid others. The innate tendency of people to understand divine entities in terms of what people do understand, namely their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, provided the leverage on which Edwards relied to drive his message home.
Tanya Luhrmann also discusses a personalized construction of God — a God with whom one can consult and who intervenes in one’s daily life. People are intrinsically motivated to form social connections, and very little in life is more rewarding to people than their social relationships. Luhrmann, who adopts the perspective of a participant observer, finds that a new evangelical Protestant movement, the Vineyard Church, appeals to this
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motivation to depict God as one’s personal guide and friend, well within one’s sensory reach. By conjuring up an anthropomorphic God with loving emotions, intentions, and actions, the Vineyard Church creates a desire for a personal relationship with God. But developing a relationship with an invisible God defies rationality. People must learn how to transform an abstract concept of an invisible God into a concrete sensory presence in their lives. Just as the social brain can perceive nonhuman objects as human, the social brain is also capable of selectively attending to sensory experiences and interpreting these sensations as God’s presence.
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