Imagined Conversations with God during Divine Struggles: Relationships with Global Views of God and Struggle-Specific Interactions

ABSTRACT

In a sample of undergraduates who reported divine struggles (N= 290), we coded imagined conversations with God about the struggle for salient themes. We examined how these themes related to global views of God and struggle-specific responses to God. As hypothesized, participants with more positive global God concepts included more communal themes in their imagined expressions to God (e.g., gratitude) and responses from God (e.g., unconditional love), and they were also less likely to envision themselves complaining to God. More communal expressions and fewer complaint expressions, in turn, predicted more positive emotions, behaviors, and coping responses focused on God.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious/spiritual struggle
• divine struggle
• views of God
• attitudes toward God
• religious coping

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge funding support from the John Templeton Foundation, grants #36094 and #59916

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John Templeton Foundation [36094; 59916].