Exploring Quaker Experiences: That of God in Everyone

Photo by Eddi Aguirre.

Trying to recognise ‘That of God in everyone’ is an important part of Quakerism. But what do we mean when we talk about acknowledging, ‘that of God in everyone’ and how are we meant to respond to it? As with many aspects of Quakerism, we are not told what to believe but instead make sense of our own experiences.

The origin of the phrase comes from a letter from George Fox, which he sent in 1656 when he was in prison in Launceston in Cornwall. It was written down for him by Ann Downer, who had walked from London to help him. Fox writes:

“Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.”

Quaker Faith and Practice, Chapter 19, 19.32.

In this article three Quakers share what 'that of God' means to them.

Cathy Eglington shares her thoughts on the challenges of loving that of God in everyone:

“I think it’s important when you’re looking for that of God in someone to look for the good, and to remember to look for the good in yourself, for that of God in yourself, as well as in others.

When you’re recognising that of God in someone, you have to respond to it. I can remember going to a workshop where we discussed the good in bad people, and how you have to ignore the bad. It’s easy to get on with people you love, but people you don’t like—it’s much harder. You have to look past the things that annoy you and respond to the good things. It’s about giving the time and space for people to express their feelings.”

Ruth Tod opens up about her understanding of that of God in everyone, and questions how to respond to the anger and fear of others:

“I see God as life, force, spirit, power, and presence. It's an energy which we can connect to in others and in ourselves. So it's beyond good and bad. For me the core of this energy and presence, is love and wisdom, which hopefully leads to good actions, certainly good intentions.

When we reach out to that of God in somebody, that involves listening to them and understanding them, and acknowledging them in their whole self and me in my whole self. So if people say to me, "Where can we find that of God in somebody who we have issues with?', I say it's about the potential in them, the potential for love and wisdom. When people are angry and do dreadful things out of anger and fear, to just say, "well, it's bad," is to deny their experience. Why are they like that? How can we change that relationship? How can we connect to them?”

Keith Braithwaite’s response touches on how we can attempt to understand that of God within us and the duty we hold to share that good with others who need it:

Photo by Tabitha Turner.

“There's this idea that it is the divine aspect in others that pulls the love from us, pulls the good intentions from us. Friends will even talk sometimes about it being the justification for our testimony of peace, that we're against capital punishment, because that means extinguishing an aspect of the divine and the person who's being executed. We're against war, because when one soldier shoots another, they're harming the aspect of the divine in the other and I think that doesn't work for me. I think that paints us into corners that are very difficult to escape from. In my experience, and I think this is more aligned with what Fox was talking about, is that there is that of God within me. There is my desire to connect with the divine. There is my capacity to respond to it, and that pushes the love from me out to others or it should. I'm as imperfect at doing that as anyone else, at least as imperfect as anyone else, but it's a push from within me. It's not this other thing that's pulling the good intentions from me. It's that of God. It's the capacity to respond to the Divine, the desire to connect to the Divine within me, that pushes the good, builds up the good within me, and pushes it out into the world, if I pay attention to it, and that works much better for me. That doesn't seem to suddenly tie us in knots, trying to understand what's going on in other people, it's what's going on in me. I might be in with a chance of understanding that I'm not in with a chance of understanding what the Divine is doing in somebody else.

My favourite Gospel passage is the story of Zacchaeus, who was one of the hated class of tax farmers, the publicani, who were seen as organised criminals pretty much, certainly traitors. They were collaborators with the hated, aggressive imperial power that was dominating the region at the time of the Gospels. Just reviled individuals. Some people read the story today as suggesting that perhaps he was disabled as well, or maybe had some physical characteristics that might have led him to be maybe a figure of ridicule, maybe a figure of contempt. He climbs a tree so that he can see Jesus above the crowd. And Jesus sees him up in the tree, and he says, "Zacchaeus, I must come stay at your house tonight. Come down, come down out of the tree and take me with you, because I need to stay at your house. I need to stay at your house tonight", and the crowd are scandalised. Why would Jesus be going to stay with this reviled, traitorous criminal extorter? You could read that as Jesus somehow looking into Zacchaeus's soul and seeing that little spark of goodness within him. I read it the other way around. It's because of the immense goodness within Jesus that he reaches out to the person who needs it most, not because they're good, because the opposite. That, I think, is answering that of God in everyone, as demonstrated by at least a very great moral teacher, whatever else you may think he was or not. And as far as good and evil goes, whom amongst us is going to claim to be able to tell the difference perfectly in every case, not me. I'm not that brave, and everyone does good things from time to time, everyone does bad things from time to time, it's where the balance lies. 

When we think about people like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, early friends would recognize them as having what they call a "seared soul". Early friends thought that you could, by consciously choosing evil again and again and again and again, you could take that of God in you, that thing that reaches out and seeks the divine and can respond to it, and you could burn it out of yourself. They talked about it like a burn, like a scar, like a hard charred shell that goodness could not penetrate through. So they were quite clear eyed about that, quite clear eyed and quite severe in their thinking about that. We've lost that willingness to be clear about what people have done to themselves in respect of that of God within them, and also what has been done to them. How did these people get to be the way they are? Well it's because of how they were treated, and that's why it's really important we push out the good from ourselves to people who really need it, to try and head off the next generation of people like that. I think that's what resist not the evil doer means. Don't resist them, that just winds them up, that gives them more energy, they thrive on being resisted. If you extend the love to them, that kind of trips up the cycle of evil, reinforcing evil.”