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Although most Christians would affirm the importance of having a relationship with God, they often struggle to apply the things they know to be true about God to their daily lives. Part of the difficulty stems from the subjective nature of how one relates to God — an experience that tends to be more intuitive than theological. Dr. John Poston, associate professor of psychology, considers the latter phenomenon in his most recent research on the correlation between a person's intuitive concept of God and their psychological well-being. 

For his research, Poston sampled a total of 139 seminary students from five Christian seminaries across the United States to test how the congruence between God image and God concept may relate to psychospiritual functioning. Poston defines “God image” as a person’s implicit, emotional representation of God, and “God concept” as a person’s explicit, theological representation of God. Poston’s research found that those with a more positive God concept experienced less shame, less depression and greater existential well-being.

Read more from Poston on God concept and his research findings.

What inspired your research on the relationship between God concept and psychological well-being?

A. W. Tozer famously began his book The Knowledge of the Holy by stating, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” From my clinical work, my service in the church, and my own spiritual life, I’ve been curious about how we come to develop our subjective sense of our relationship with God. Even across believers, there is quite a bit of variability in how people tend to organize their relational experience with God. For instance, some people may experience God as loving and close. Others may experience him as cold and aloof. Some may approach him readily, while others may do so with anxious insecurity. These subjective experiences of God are quite varied.

Importantly, these more automatic, implicit, emotional experiences of God do not always correspond to what someone thinks about God in a more conscious, explicitly theological sense. For instance, a person may hold a conscious theological perspective that God is loving and gracious, yet their more implicit relational experience of God (e.g., in prayer) reveals insecurity about his love and fears of being rejected by him. From my clinical work as a psychologist and my involvement in the local church, I have become particularly interested in this disconnect between one’s head knowledge and heart knowledge of God, and how it impacts us, which has prompted me to explore it in my research program. It has been a joy to collaborate on this project and others with doctoral students at Rosemead who share this curiosity and are a part of my lab.

What surprised you about this project?

Our sample consisted of seminarians studying at multiple institutions across the United States. Given this sample, it is not surprising that virtually all participants reported quite positive explicit views of God. However, it was interesting to note that, on average, participants reported less positive and more varied experiences of God at the more implicit level. While not entirely surprising, this data highlights that many people may experience a disconnect between their head knowledge and their heart knowledge of God, even among those who may be highly motivated to pursue their relationship with God and who have access to higher levels of theological training.

What are the implications of these results for your field, our culture and the church?

These results highlight how our relationship with God is much more complex than just our conscious, theological views of him. While our theology and doctrine are vitally important, we must also consider the more implicit, automatic, relational frameworks people bring to their relationship with God. This means that in addition to focusing on theological training and biblical literacy, we must also be deeply concerned with issues of spiritual formation and relational/emotional health, as these issues notably impact how people relate to God. Additionally, given the importance of our human relationships for shaping our implicit relational models – such as our attachment styles – this line of research suggests the redemptive role that loving relationships can play, not only for our emotional healing, but for how we bring ourselves to God as well.

How do you hope to further your research on this topic? What are the next steps?

I would love to see more research helping us understand ways to enhance secure attachment to God and to modify the negative, implicit relational frameworks that many people bring to their relationship with him. While personal therapy is an excellent resource for working through attachment issues, I am especially intrigued about research that could help us identify methods for promoting secure attachment to God that extend beyond formal counseling and may be implemented by believers in community with one another in the context of the local church. For instance, there are students in my lab who are currently researching aspects of various spiritual disciplines and prayer practices as they relate to this issue.

Read Poston’s full research published in the .

Rosemead School of Psychology is a top psychology school for Christians who want to integrate their faith with their field. Learn more about receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Biola.

Interview conducted by Katelyn Ho, strategic communication assistant. For more information, or if you would like to be included in a faculty highlight, email media.relations@biola.edu.