Is God merely a person’s subjective projection?

Good and evil angels struggling for possession of a child - William Blake 

How do you respond to the skeptic who says that God is merely a subjective projection? was a question asked of professor Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University, where she teaches anthropology and psychology, when she took part in a video discussion on the publication last year of her book How God Becomes Real.

She started her answer by affirming that her research did not aim to prove the existence of God, but it “reveals how people learn to experience [their] God more vividly”. In this she seemed at pains to espouse an impartial or objective viewpoint:

“Whatever social science can say about [God] is perfectly compatible with the view that God is nothing more than the way that humans imagine this invisible being.

“But it is not incompatible with the question whether an external presence can be made more vividly present in an ordinary human’s life.”

Her research goal was to “get to the core of this human experience of interacting with invisible others”.

 As my previous post illustrates, Luhrmann found that people used their imagination extensively to “interact with invisible others”.  She states that this might be frowned upon in the rationalistic, materialistic West, but that that experience is more natural  where our "inner and outer senses" have not been corrupted (my word) by the governing mentality of “seeing is believing”.

In preparation for your look at Luhrmann’s ideas in the following post I provide here two samples relating how Christians have traditionally used their imaginations to pray.  The texts refer to the insights of Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order of priests and brothers in 1534.

The first description of the Ignatian style of prayer comes from Grace Institute of Luther College, Iowa:  

Ignatian Contemplation is prayer with Scripture. It is meeting God through story. The prayer develops as you “live into” a Scripture story with all your senses and imagination. You become a participant in the story, and you continue in the story in your heart, mind, imagination, spirit and body after the reading ends. You let the Spirit guide the prayer - you don’t force anything to happen - you let it happen to you, within you, around you. You may pray with the same story for many days in a row before you feel the prayer is complete, that God has spoken to you, that you have heard God, and worked through what it means for you. It is a wonderful, rich experience.

Ignatian Contemplation is a prayer form developed by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500s to help people come to know Jesus through imaginative interaction with Scripture. Through the story God meets and interacts with each listener personally and differently. That interaction of our spirit with God is prayer. The difficult part of the process is relaxing into it and letting God be in control, rather than trying to force your response or reaction.

Second, the Ignatian Spirituality website has this description of how to pray using the imagination:

Put yourself in a Gospel story.

Just choose which character you’re going to be, and walk right into the scene where Jesus heals someone, delivers a teaching, or feeds thousands. You can be a main character in the story, or you can be a bystander or friend that you simply invent for this prayer. Don’t get distracted by trying to be historically accurate—this is not about you interpreting Scripture in a scholarly way. The point is to encounter Jesus. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide this very spiritual function, the human imagination, to where you need to go.

Pray as though you are having a conversation across the dinner table or in your living room.

In the Spiritual Exercises, this is called a colloquy, but it’s just conversational prayer. You speak to Jesus as you would a close friend. You speak to Mary, his mother, or to God the Father/Creator, or to the Holy Spirit who is comforter, or to one of the saints, who can be part of this conversation with the Divine. Sometimes, when we pray the way we talk, it can enable us to be more honest. Probably the only danger is that we become flippant or casual, but this isn’t much of a temptation when we remember who it is we’re talking to.

Finally, as a general matter of interest, here is a snippet of information about Ignatius of Loyola from History.com:

The Jesuit movement was founded by Ignatius de Loyola, a Spanish soldier turned priest, in August 1534, with 6 companions. The Jesuits have 16,000 priests and brothers and in training.

Under Ignatius’ charismatic leadership, the Society of Jesus grew quickly. Jesuit missionaries played a leading role in the Counter-Reformation and won back many of the European faithful who had been lost to Protestantism. In Ignatius’ lifetime, Jesuits were also dispatched to India, Brazil, the Congo region, and Ethiopia.

Education was of utmost importance to the Jesuits, and this has been especially true in the United States with several universities established. When Ignatius de Loyola died in July 1556, there were more than 1,000 Jesuit priests.

Another view of the man, who might be regarded as an unlikely promoter of imaginative prayer: 

St. Ignatius of Loyola’s passion to become a dashing courtier, a courageous and celebrated soldier, and an advisor to royalty became, under the influence of grace, a passion to serve Christ—all the way, holding nothing back.

He effected this influence first through the establishment of the Jesuit order, which even in Ignatius’ lifetime had become a powerful force in Europe and beyond and which today spans the globe; and second, through his masterpiece the Spiritual Exercises, which for the past five centuries has taught people how to commune with God and to find true freedom. (Word on Fire.org)

Of course, the use of art and the outpouring of creativity have been notable features of religion throughout history, as part of the "human experience of interacting with invisible others". This continues with the practice of sharing uplifting photo and quote cards on Facebook and the like. 

William Blake used the image of a tiger to explore the power of God:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And to see heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hands,
And eternity in an hour.
If the doors of perception were cleansed
Everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

LitCharts has this to say about the poem and introduces the artist Blake:

The Tyger is a poem by visionary English poet William Blake, and is often said to be the most widely anthologized poem in the English language. ... At the same time, however, the poem is an expression of marvel and wonder at the tiger and its fearsome power, and by extension the power of both nature and God.