Within the god-image literature, there is semantic ambiguity surrounding god-image-related terms. For example, some authors have written of the God image and the God concept (referring to the former as the emotional experience of divine attachment figures such as God, Allah, or Jesus; e.g., Lawrence, 1997), whereas others have written of God images and God concepts (referring to the former as affect-laden mental/neural representations of divine attachment figures; e.g., Davis, 2010). For the god-image literature to continue growing and maturing, definitional consensus and conceptual clarity are needed. Therefore, in this article, we present working definitions of the terms god images and god concepts, with proposed conceptual contrasts. We also summarize the four attachment-based conceptualizations of god-image development and dynamics, highlighting the implicit-relational-knowing correspondence hypothesis (Hall, Fujikawa, Halcrow, Hill, & Delaney, 2009). Last, we propose a model of the schematic activation of god images, based on Cognitive-Affective Processing System theory (Mischel & Shoda, 2008).

No abstract

No abstract