LAUSR

A variety of evidence suggests that individuals vary in the images they hold of God, and that this variation correlates reliably with religious attitudes and behaviors. But how do individuals psychologically organize their images of the divine? Most work on this topic is factor-analytic in nature, finding that God-images vary in the degree to which God is seen as loving, judgmental, and engaged. However, few studies look at how individuals spontaneously combine these divine dimensions into composite images of God. To fill this gap, we subject data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey to latent class analysis and find evidence for five key images of God: (1) a poorly-defined, uninvolved deity; (2) a loving, nonjudgmental deity who is engaged with humanity; (3) a nullity or nonentity; (4) a loving deity who is neither judgmental nor engaged with humanity; and, (5) a loving deity who is also both judgmental and engaged. We then present evidence that individuals holding these images vary in their denominational background, religious attitudes and behaviors, and general traits.