Concept of God and Personal Meaning: Investigating the Perspective of Older Adults

Faculty Supervisor:

Paul Lewis

Year of Project Completion:

2005

Student:

Elizabeth Rempel

Abstract

The positive effects of spiritual and religious belief and practice (e.g. church attendance or prayer) and the experience of personal meaning on older adults’ well-being are well documented. However, the associations between specific beliefs about God’s character and specific means of existential resolution have received little attention. The current exploratory study investigated associations between a God Concept Rating Form, generated from open-ended responses to the question “What is God like?”, and Wong’s seven subcategories of personal meaning. A significant negative correlation is found between salience of belief in a judgmental God and the Personal Meaning Profile subcategories of self-acceptance, self-transcendence and relationship with others. Salience of belief about God’s expectations for human behavior is positively correlated with self-transcendence at a near-significant level. Salience of traditional Christian beliefs is positively associated with meaning-finding through religion. Viewing God in relational terms is not associated with greater self-acceptance.

Related file

Elizabeth_Rempel2005.pdf