Friendly Freethinker: Could Letting Go of the Word “God” Lighten the Load?

Have you ever tried to carry too many suitcases? (What did we do before they put wheels on them?) How often do we attempt to carry too much baggage around? Great energy goes into our efforts to “bear the burden” of things. Consider how we carry heavy concepts, ideas and beliefs.

Christians may be surprised, if not shocked, to hear that the word “God” does not appear in the Bible. Those of us who’ve studied the scriptures in the original languages know this. In the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”) “LORD” is an English word that translates the unpronounceable name—that is, YHWH, sometimes made to sound like “Yahweh”—the “I AM” who speaks with Moses on Sinai. Jews believe that NAME (ha Shem) is too sacred to speak, so Hebrew scripture substitutes the word “Adonai” (Lord) for LORD which is a substitution for the Name that cannot be named.

The term “God” is a translation of the Hebrew word “Elohim” which can be understood as plural (gods). Though Christian doctrine claims to be “monotheist” (one god), the Hebrew Bible presents a form of “henotheism” (one god above all other gods). We might think of the command to “have no other gods before me.”

The Greek word normally translated as “God” is “Theos” (the origin of the word Theology). It might open up more interesting thinking and discussion if we would use “Theos” more often. Yes, this is ancient Greek, but it raises the question what the term actually meant to Greek-speaking, Greek-thinking people. Was it anything like our concepts today? I doubt that.

This leads me to wonder what would happen if we dropped or let go of the word “God”? I’m not suggesting a believer stop believing in God (whatever that means to each believer), but maybe the word has so many confusing notions attached to it, we might lighten our load a bit by letting it go.

Pausing the term “God” can potentially be quite liberating. What I mean is that we can get stuck on a word that already has too much stuck on it (mental baggage). I often say this about the slippery word “spiritual,” but here I want to emphasize that dropping the term “God” might help some people drop poor theologies that have gone viral through history. What has been passed along with the letters G, O and D? One way to test this for yourself is to think right now of “God.” What or Who comes to mind? Does an image rise up? A feeling? A passage of scripture? We may get stuck on an image, which is one reason Jews and Muslims don’t accept any images of the divine. How would it feel, or affect faith, to set aside a word weighed down with so many attachments?

The Greeks and Romans offered a whole scrabble game of choices when it came to divinities. Of course, there were many deities to serve and reverence. From Zeus (Jupiter) to Hera (Juno), Apollo, Athena and all the rest, each individual could choose which one to pray to for daily assistance in life decisions. From our vantage point we might say these were human projections on the “face of Nature.” That could be an invitation for us to consider letting go of the word “God,” especially if the image in our mind looks a little too much like us.

In ancient philosophy, Theos was the rational principle of the universe, the creative force of Nature coupled with “Providence.” The universe “provides” all we truly need. We don’t have to personify (put a human face and personality) on Theos to respect that which is greater than we are. Stoics like Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius had great respect for Nature/Reason/Zeus/Theos, yet they thought that the more we used our rational minds, the more we could do good for the “world city.”

Think about the name “Jesus.” From Sunday School on, most people raised in the Church have a very clear picture of the Man/God. I wonder what would happen if we accepted the fact that no one knows what he looked like, and his name was not Jesus but “Yeysoos” in Greek or “Yeshua” in Hebrew or Aramaic (if someone called him “Jesus” he wouldn’t have known who that was).

Though I’m inviting some serious reflection about “God,” and suggesting a more reasonable “Theos,” I’m also uncomfortable with “theology”—“words about or study of god”. What can be said about Theos? What could someone study? Maybe all the different images, concepts, ideas, beliefs about Theos? How would that be helpful, useful for our time?

If you believe in God (or Theos), can you let go of “God”?

Chris Highland

2026

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Chris Highland was a minister and chaplain for many years. He is a writer and teacher in Asheville, NC. www.chighland.com, (chris.highland@gmail.com)