Growing in grace: how the experience of divine grace cultivates humility

ABSTRACT

The perception that one is a recipient of divine grace is a salient spiritual experience and is one that lies at the heart of Christianity. This qualitative study sought to address a gap in the psychological literature regarding how the perceived experience of divine grace enacts internal change. For the sake of this study, grace was defined as God’s undeserved gifts to believers. Thirty adult, self-identified evangelical Christians were interviewed to explore the perceived relationship between God’s grace and the cultivation of humility. Using grounded theory data analysis, themes emerged to reveal that participants expressed a dynamic relationship between receiving God’s grace and three dimensions of humility related to (a) a grounded view of oneself, (b) an orientation toward others, and (c) an overall dependence on God. These findings expand the current body of literature regarding religiosity and humility by highlighting how divine grace acts as a mechanism of transformational growth.

KEYWORDS:

• Humility
• grace
• Christian
• spirituality
• religious experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Grant 61304 from the John Templeton Foundation to Peter C. Hill, PI.