What If God Was Never Meant to Be Taken Literally?
There’s a perspective about God and human existence that has been fascinating me more and more lately: what if “divinity” is less an external omnipotent being and more a symbol of what human beings can reach internally?
When someone truly recognizes their strengths, flaws, virtues, contradictions, fears, and potential, they almost enter a transcendental state. Not in the literal sense of “becoming a god,” but in the sense of moving beyond automatic existence and unconscious living. Maybe that’s what brings us closer to what we call “the divine.”
I increasingly see Jesus Christ more as a powerful symbol of the relationship between humanity and the absolute than necessarily as literal proof of an omniscient and omnipotent God. The death and resurrection can represent something deeply human: the ability to psychologically die and be reborn through suffering, to transform pain into meaning, and to find purpose even within chaos.
In that sense, the Bible can be viewed as a collection of existential symbols. Many of its stories seem to address questions that humanity still struggles with today:
Why is life unfair?
Why do we suffer?
Why do we seek validation?
Why do we judge others?
Why are we afraid of loneliness and death?
Maybe the human mistake is comparing ourselves vertically: either wanting to feel superior to others, or feeling inferior to them.
But rarely do we see ourselves inwardly — as fundamentally comparable in the shared human condition.
Every person sees us through a partial perspective. Our actions will always be interpreted differently depending on the experiences, values, emotions, and beliefs of the observer. Perspective is relative. We will never please everyone. So we often try to please the majority because it gives us a sense of moral security — as if consensus automatically defines what is “good.”
But what if goodness begins first with inner honesty? If we genuinely believe we are acting from the best part of ourselves, maybe that is the closest thing to authentic morality.
For example:
someone may leave a stable career to pursue art, and some will call them irresponsible while others will call them courageous;
someone may distance themselves from family to protect their mental health and be seen simultaneously as selfish and mature;
a highly rational person may appear cold to some and wise to others.
Everything depends on the lens through which we are perceived.
And maybe that’s why I struggle to fully believe in the literal idea of an omniscient and omnipotent God who directly inspired every word of scripture through the Holy Spirit. When we study religions historically, we can see how they were shaped by cultures, fears, hopes, symbolism, politics, and deeply human needs.
That does not necessarily mean God “doesn’t exist.” Maybe it simply means that God is symbolic language for something greater:
consciousness,
transcendence,
truth,
unity,
meaning,
or humanity’s attempt to make sense of suffering and existence itself.
So perhaps the question stops being: “Does God exist?” and becomes: “What does it actually mean to move closer to God?”
Could it mean:
deeper self-awareness?
empathy?
humility?
inner transformation?
integration of suffering?
the ability to face reality without needing absolute certainty?
Maybe “God” is not something entirely outside us, but the highest form of consciousness, truth, and being that humans are capable of conceiving.
I’d genuinely love to hear different perspectives on this.