The study of many religions has often been marked by a search for similarity, to find a semblance of commonality among what appear to be the various ways of approaching and understanding God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). The historian Jonathan Z. Smith has stated that human thought is fundamentally characterized by an urge to make comparisons. Even so, he cautions that comparison should not rest only on perceived similarities, but should also consider the value of exposing differences ([1978] , 240–64). Incongruous elements need not be overcome, but can be an “occasion for thought” (Smith [1978] , 289–309). In Smith's analysis, the idea of “religion” itself is an imaginative one, a scholarly creation set upon “imaginative acts of comparison and generalization” (, xi). The comparative exercise has often been predicated on contiguity rather than differentiation; yet it ought not be a question of identity, for “[c]omparison requires the postulation of difference as the grounds of its being interesting (rather than tautological) and a methodical manipulation of difference, a playing across the ‘gap’ in the service of some useful end” (Smith , 35; cf. Smith , 13–14). It is like models and metaphors, which “invite us to construe one thing in terms of another (most usually, that which is problematic in terms of that which is relatively better understood), so that we may see things in a new, and frequently unexpected, light,” enabling a “redescription” of Western “categories of religious experience and expression” (Smith , 36). Smith maintains that comparison is “unnatural” in that similarity and difference are not “given,” but are the result of mental operations, and so in this sense all comparisons are analogical (, 51; cf. 115). There is an attempt to map the territory of religions, but Smith argues that the mental map generated by scholarly analysis is not necessarily the same as the territory it is designed to represent. In both the natural and human sciences the unknown, or unfamiliar, is brought into relation to the known, or familiar, by the “relations of similarity and difference, relations of analogy and homology, relations of metonymy and metaphor,” and “[t]he process by which this is accomplished . . . is translation” (Smith , 208). He adds that a paraphrase, which is “perhaps the commonest sort of weak translation in the human sciences, . . . will usually be insufficiently different for purposes of thought” (209).

Smith was in the vanguard of the reassessment of the enterprise of comparative religion, and has exerted wide influence (Patton and Ray ; Braun and McCutcheon ). The so‐called “new comparativism” rejects the essentializing ontologies of some earlier approaches to studying religions (e.g., in phenomenology of religion), and accepts that religion is a culturally, historically, and socially determined practice; and while the category religion may be imagined as a rhetorical map in reference to defined human activities, it can nevertheless be analyzed under certain descriptive frames as a real objective phenomenon (Jensen ). It is enough that people ascribe to things a significance, for example, on the level of sacredness, and attribute special meaning to their experiences; such a composite understanding can be deemed religious by participants or observers (Taves ). The comparative study of religion is related to the cognitive science of religion (CSR), where scholarly analyses that employ the tactic of generalizing are based not on the metaphysical sciences, but on the human and natural sciences, building models, and theorizing with the data and methodologies in the disciplines inter alia of anthropology, computer science, evolutionary and developmental psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and physics (Lawson and McCauley ; Boyer , ; Drees ; Andresen ; Pyysiäinen and Anttonen ; Geertz ; Tremlin ; Pyysiäinen ; Barrett ). CSR deals with cognitive principles that constrain, motivate, and provoke religious conceptualizing and modes of behavior as cultural and symbolic representations. A main postulation is that our cognitive processes have evolved the tendency to overdetect agency in our environment, and actions are interpreted as intentional and purposeful. From this universal propensity, the concept that supernatural agents populate an other realm, an other place, is readily inculcated and transmitted: “Gods are common because of the operation of ordinary natural cognitive systems we use to make sense of the world and especially minded agents” (Barrett , 99).

In the following analysis, my point of departure is a comparative understanding that situates religion as a dynamic, embodied sociocultural discourse, which constitutes a world of meaning, a shared narrative that is constructed upon, but not terminated by, cognitive processes and products (Smith ; Geertz , ; Jensen ). As Jensen explains (, 299), religions can be “seen as worlds of meaning, as conceptual schemes or registers of discourse in and through which humans engage, the means whereby spheres of existence and action are made more or less understandable and socially acceptable (plus a lot more…).” I aim to show that recent developments in metaphor research can allow for a consideration of religions that does not privilege one over the other, and that acknowledges the validity of the multiple asseverations by religious followers in relation to conceptualizing the purported nature of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). To this end, I shall utilize conceptual metaphor theory, which is one model of cognitive semantics within the wider enterprise of cognitive linguistics (Evans and Green ). For reasons of space I shall have to confine my observations to some of the major “world religions.” Anecdotally, I believe these ideas can be applied to other extant religions, although perhaps not indigenous or tribal religions.

Metaphor

It was Aristotle who first proposed what would come to be known as the classical understanding of metaphor when he wrote in his treatise Poetics (22.1457b) that metaphor “consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.” Of these four kinds, metaphor as analogy (“proportional” metaphor) is the most popular, and occurs “whenever there are four terms so related that the second is to the first, as the fourth to the third; for one may then put the fourth in place of the second, and the second in place of the fourth.” For example, when old age is to life as evening is to day, one will describe evening as the “old age of the day,” and likewise old age as the “evening” or “sunset of life.” Aristotle goes on to say that to use metaphor masterfully is “a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars” (22.1459a). Elsewhere, in Rhetoric (3.4, 3.10), he opines that as a figure of speech, metaphor is only slightly different from simile, since both of these are to do with comparing things: similes are metaphors “with the explanation omitted.” While simile puts the connection in the form “this is like that,” metaphor puts it in the form “this is that.” Aristotle's various pronouncements on metaphor as a poetical and rhetorical trope were the benchmark for subsequent discussions on the subject. During the latter half of the twentieth century there was a proliferation of studies on the philosophical, psychological, and semantic implications of figures of speech—of which metaphor is often taken as the premier type (see, e.g., Ricoeur ; Sacks ; Johnson ; Ortony ; White ; and now Gibbs ).

In an important step toward acknowledging the cognitive role of metaphor, the literary critic I. A. Richards (1893–1979) argued that metaphor is not just an issue of displacing or shifting the fixed meaning of one word on to another within a sentence, but rather it refers to the interpretative interplay of words in a sentence ([1936] , 47–86). Consequently, “when we use a metaphor we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a result of their interaction”; it is moreover “a borrowing between and intercourse of thoughts, a transaction between contexts.” As an interactive activity, metaphor in this respect is a cognitive matter from which the metaphors of language are produced (Richards [1936] , 93–94). The analytic philosopher Max Black (1909–1988) adapted Richards's ideas about the “interanimation of words” to argue that metaphor exploits a “system” of relationships between two distinct objects in a statement, which he called primary and secondary, the contrast of which is provided by the focus, the word or words used nonliterally, and the surrounding literal frame. The secondary subject predicates an “implication complex” and these “associated implications” are mapped to or projected upon the primary subject. By emphasizing some aspects, or features, and suppressing others, metaphor organizes the view that we have of reality. This activity discloses a creative intellectual operation, and when metaphors are understood as cognitive instruments it becomes meaningful to say that they may enable us to see aspects of reality that the metaphor's productive activity helps to constitute. In Black's “interaction theory” metaphor cannot be paraphrased without loss of cognitive content, and to do so is a failure of translation; it is to deprive the metaphor of its insightful character. It would seem that cultural factors qualify the understanding of metaphor, which means that it is only meaningful in context and in the ability to evoke similar associated implications (Black –1955, ).

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The historically sanctioned view of metaphor as a linguistic event, with its semantic promise based on analysis of the individual words or their relational activity in a sentence or statement, and the more recent view of metaphor as a pragmatic event, with its meaningfulness found in the context of discourse, have both been challenged from a cognitive viewpoint. This new approach became widely known after the publication in 1980 of a book by the cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By ([1980] ), which they then elaborated and supplemented in a series of major publications, both in collaboration (1999) and individually (Johnson , ; Lakoff , ). Conceptual metaphor theory (hereafter CMT), as it is called, now represents an influential model in the academic study of metaphor (Kövecses ; Gibbs ). The fundamental claim is that our conceptual system, by which we ordinarily think and act, is metaphoric in nature. On this basis, the essence of metaphor, according to Lakoff and Johnson ([1980] , 5), is experiencing and understanding one kind of thing in terms of another. Conceptual metaphor is realized as a technique for mapping thought across perceived distant and apparently dissimilar domains of knowledge, usually from familiar, concrete experiences such as body, food, machinery and tools, to vague, abstract concepts such as actions and events, emotions, and time. These correspondences are expressed creatively and systematically in language and can be organized at a general conceptual level. Psychologically, the cross‐domain mappings are stored in long‐term memory through childhood learning and retrieved as required; they are emergent properties of our sociocultural interactions with the world as mediated by the body. The usual distinction between figurative and literal language is called into question, and what may at one point in time have been conscious and novel uses of language eventually lose their figurative valence and become conventionalized in everyday language, whereupon they are entrenched in our thinking (Gibbs , , ). Consequently, rather than being dead or dying figures of speech, metaphors are alive in our established vocabulary, abiding with us through effortlessly unconscious cognitive processes (Lakoff and Turner , 128–31; Müller ). Metaphor cogently impresses itself upon our conceptualizing in the suite of our embodied artistic, cultural, intellectual, psychological, and social lives (Kövecses , 73).

One of the key points in CMT is that metaphor is conceptually meaningful; that is, it has cognitive import and is not just an emotive trope. Lakoff and Johnson have sought to develop a program of experientialism or embodied realism (“cognitive semantics”), which embraces the idea that the body and imagination have a genuine role to play in recognizing metaphor as a conceptual tool. They adapt Immanuel Kant's view of the productive role of imagination in conceptualizing percepts and embellish it by taking into account the dynamic nature of our perceptual interactions as we orient ourselves spatially and temporally, and as we manipulate objects. In effect, the forces that we enact and that act upon us in our day‐to‐day interactions with the physical world give rise to recurring patterns in our sensorimotor experience, and these “image schemas,” which are not concrete, or “rich” images, or even mental pictures, are worked by the imagination to organize and structure our mental representations, facilitating the comprehension of abstract concepts. There are dozens of such image schemas that have been noted, including attraction, balance, center‐periphery, containers, cycles, link, momentum, and source‐path‐goal. Image schemas are experiential gestalts that are basic to our reasoning and understanding since they generate definite patterns of inference that can be propositionally represented. These schematic structures can be figuratively extended and metaphorically elaborated from the physical to the nonphysical, and as such they make up our network of meanings (Johnson , ; Lakoff ; Gibbs , ). For example, the image schema for momentum serves as the embodied basis for metaphorically conceptualizing an utterance like “I was bowled over by that idea,” since we have had the experience of running into, or being run over by, other people or objects, and so can extend this to the abstract entities that are ideas (Gibbs , 94). The image‐schematic structure that is imposed upon experience is independent of the language that expresses it, and consequently image schemas have an important role to play in fitting language to experience (Dodge and Lakoff ). As Johnson puts it (, 144), “[i]mage schemas constitute a preverbal and mostly nonconscious, emergent level of meaning.” Moreover, as the recurring aspects of our interactions with the physical environment, image schemas are conceptual contours (“activation patterns”) that human beings follow in moving through the world; they are topological features of neural maps (see Johnson , 136–45).

According to CMT, metaphor basically involves conceptualizing a set of systematic correspondences between two domains of experience, namely the “source” domain and the “target” domain. The mapping that occurs between these domains is unidirectional, that is, from the physical to the abstract, as well as being nonreversible. The “source” is the conceptual domain from which we garner metaphorical expressions to understand the domain that is the “target” (Kövecses ). An often‐used example is the conceptual metaphor love is a journey, which is characterized by a set of ontological correspondences:

the love‐as‐journey mapping

The lovers correspond to travelers.

The love relationship corresponds to the vehicle.

The lovers’ common goals correspond to their common destinations on the journey.

Difficulties in the relationship correspond to impediments to travel.

(Lakoff , 207)

Such a metaphor is prevalent in Western culture and undergirds a conventionalized understanding of love relationships, which is realized linguistically in expressions such as “We're at a crossroads,” “It's been a long, bumpy road,” and “The relationship isn't going anywhere.” It is a principal claim of CMT that metaphorical expressions like these actively structure our conceptualization of the experience of love. The correspondences enable the mapping of knowledge about journeys—the source domain—onto knowledge about love—the target domain (Lakoff , 206–08; Lakoff and Johnson, , 63–65). In this case, the accumulated knowledge that we have about what is involved in journeying is carried over to the concept of love. For example, if the relationship is understood as being like a vehicle in which the lovers travel on a journey, then, should the vehicle break down or be stopped, the couple is faced with some choices, which might mean (1) trying to fix the vehicle or moving around an obstacle in the way, or (2) staying put in the vehicle and giving up on reaching the destination, or (3) abandoning the vehicle and looking for an alternative means of transport. This knowledge structure then entails that the lovers might (1) try to reconcile their differences, or (2) remain in a nonfunctioning relationship and give up on achieving their goals in life together, or (3) break the relationship and get separated or divorced. Lakoff takes from this that there is a pattern of inference that is being mapped from one domain to another (, 208).

The love‐as‐journey metaphor is a special case of the structural metaphor a purposeful life is a journey, which connects ideas about how a journey requires planning a route to a destination, scheduling an itinerary (especially if one is going to another country), equipping oneself as necessary, and anticipating and overcoming obstacles along the way, to what is commonly regarded as the need to have goals and purposes in one's life. The entailments that arise from the metaphor that we are traveling on a journey can offer us guidelines for life (Lakoff and Johnson , 60–63). The question of how “complex” (or “compound”) metaphors such as these are determined has been addressed by the proposal that they are grounded in correlations in our experiences, that is, in interactions between sensorimotor activities and subjective judgments. These “primary” metaphors,” so called, include, for example, more is up, which is expressed in “Prices are high”; categories are containers, as in “Are tomatoes in the fruit or vegetable category?”; knowing is seeing, as in “I see what you mean”; and understanding is grasping, as in “I've never been able to grasp complex math” (Lakoff and Johnson , 45–59; Gibbs , 116–18; Johnson , 178–79). The primary metaphors purposes are destinations and actions are motions motivate the cultural belief that people are supposed to have destinations in life that they move toward, and when combined with the fact that a long trip to a series of destinations is a journey, this gives rise to the complex metaphor a purposeful life is a journey (Lakoff and Johnson , 61). A primary metaphor builds into a complex metaphor through conceptual blending, that is, the integration of various inputs from mental spaces to conceptualize new associations (Grady et al. ).

The germane question to be asked in light of the argument outlined in this article is whether or not metaphor as a general principle of conceptualization can be applied across cultures. There is evidence that it can be, at least in some respects (Kövecses ). Lakoff has hypothesized that the image‐schematic structuring of bodily experience is the same for all human beings (, 302). Since primary metaphors (e.g., affection is warmth, intensity is heat) emerge from bodily interactions with the physical environment, they may be universally assimilated, with a common projective mechanism at work, while the concepts that develop metaphorically, and manifest linguistically, are likely to be culturally specific. The kinds of metaphors that people will appeal to and use are contextually determined by the sociocultural environment in which they live, in addition to the historical circumstances (Kövecses , 195–229). At any rate, there is likely to be a “cultural filter” at work in the way that recurring bodily experiences can produce a different set of metaphors (Yu ). Kövecses argues (, 70–79) that metaphors can have a range and scope in various languages or language varieties. In respect to range, a given target domain is associated with different source domains; for example, where life can be conceptualized as a struggle/war, precious possession, and game. In respect to scope, a given source domain is associated with different target domains; for example, concepts to do with buildings can be applied to theories, relationships, and economic systems. If the realization of abstract concepts is sustained by metaphor what relevance does this have to cultural models (e.g., marriage) as coherent organizations of human experience? It has been argued that metaphors do not simply reflect cultural models but rather that they constitute cultural models (Kövecses , 193–228). This applies to our ethical and moral systems, which arise from embodied experience and the nature of human well‐being. Lakoff and Johnson (, 290–334) argue that nearly all of our abstract moral concepts, such as empathy, justice, and rights, are defined by metaphors, and that we are able to conceptualize, reason about, and communicate our moral ideas through metaphoric mappings originally occurring in the cognitive unconscious; for example, moral strength is associated with being balanced and upright.

Conceptually and figuratively, metaphor has affinity with another prominent trope, metonymy (from Greek meaning “change of name”). Indeed, it has been argued that there is a continuum between these two, and that many conceptual metaphors may even derive from conceptual metonymies (Kövecses and Radden ; Dirven and Pörings ; Kövecses , 171–94). Traditionally, metonymy refers to the substitution of a word for another “on the basis of some material, causal or conceptual relation,” and it depends on “contiguity” or “proximity”; as an alternative, though, this relationship “can be accounted for by knowledge structures defined by ‘domains’ or ‘idealized cognitive models’ (ICMs)” (Kövecses and Radden , 39). For example, in the metonym, “I'm reading Shakespeare,” the actual reference is to reading one of Shakespeare's many works, and this suggests that the term Shakespeare here is being used to indicate, or provide access to, another thing, namely the idea of Shakespeare's canon. Conceptually, the specific relationship is given by the producer for the product. It is part of the production ICM, which includes the writer as producer, the literature as product, the circumstances and place of the writing, and so on, which all together form a coherent whole in our experience of the world of Shakespearean literature (Kövecses , 171–73). Metonymy, then, can be characterized “as a stand‐for relationship (through‐connection) between two elements within a single conceptual domain and metaphor as an is‐understood‐as relationship (as‐if‐connection) between two conceptually distant domains” (Kövecses , 267). While both metonymy and metaphor are cognitive processes, they have been demarcated on the basis of whether or not correspondences are made within or across domains of experience. However, because the distinction between conceptual domains is often gradual or transitional, the distinction between metonymy and metaphor in terms of intra‐ and interdomain mappings is also gradual; that is, it is not clear‐cut and discrete (Barcelona , 232). Since the mapping in metonymy occurs within a single conceptual domain, or domain matrix, the connection between the entities, or (sub)domains, is such that one entity, or (sub)domain, is mentally activated or highlighted by or through another entity, or (sub)domain (Lakoff and Turner , 103–04; Barcelona , 223–226; Croft ). In addition, “[u]nlike metaphorical relationships, metonymic relationships are in general reversible” (Radden , 411). Another metonymic variant, part of a thing for the whole thing, such as in the ballot for “democratic voting,” has traditionally been given special status and is called synecdoche (Kövecses , 179).

Over the years, CMT has received some strong criticisms by researchers in a number of disciplines (e.g., Jackendoff and Aaron ; McGlone , , ; Rakova ; Haser ; Pragglejaz Group ; Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Pérez Hernández ; Steen , ; cf. Johnson and Lakoff ; Kövecses , ; Gibbs ). Among the complaints is that the methodology is unsound with for example the use of circular reasoning, and that there is a reliance on introspection and intuition rather than on objective analysis in identifying metaphor. Psychologists have disputed the attempt to expand the jurisdiction of metaphor into deep‐seated cognitive processes and have questioned the adequacy of the psycholinguistic research that has been marshaled in support of the theory. Three of the problematic issues raised against CMT are particularly related to this article; first, the extent to which our representation of abstract concepts is metaphorically structured and dependent on or motivated by our knowledge of concrete concepts (see Murphy , ; cf. Gibbs ; Steen , 257–60); second, the claim that since the meaning of metaphor is expressed indirectly and nonliterally it cannot be defined by means of similarity (see Steen , 61–64, 66–70); and third, the ambiguity around what counts as a domain and the possible insufficiency of just two knowledge domains for understanding metaphorical expressions (see Steen , 177–81). These concerns impact on the proposals I make in the next section, where I seek to apply notions of conceptual metaphor and metonymy to the comparison of religions. In sum, first my contention that the abstract concept of supernatural agency is metaphorically represented by embodied religious behaviors and experiences; second, that it is commonly conceptualized that there is an extraordinary ontological realm or epistemological level which is apart from what is routinely perceived and which is construed metaphorically; and third, that there are two experiential domains, often delineated as “spirit” and “matter,” which can be paralleled in thought and objectified in special terminology. There is a further point that can be made in that the “two‐dimensional map” of metaphor in discourse—covering the conceptual and linguistic dimensions—ought to be supplemented by a third dimension, namely that of communication, which would acknowledge that metaphor is often used consciously and deliberately to elicit a change in the interlocutor's perspective of the target domain (see Steen ).

Metaphorical Speculations on Reality

Metaphor of course has often been invoked by theologians to manage talking about God. For example, Janet Martin Soskice () has drawn on the work of I. A. Richards in questioning how to depict the referential reality of God through the use of metaphoric language as it is based on a model or models. However, the dense issue of the applicability of analogy and metaphor to speaking of God is not one I can investigate here (see e.g., DesCamp and Sweetser ; White ); rather, I am interested in the general role that metaphor and metonymy plays in conceptualizing the human position vis‐à‐vis what is generally understood as the divine or enlightened space, where the various religious schemas express the underlying correlative idea of God or the Way. The connection between religions need not be thought of as being to each other, but rather to a third thing, that is, they each have in common a belief that their epistemological and ontological schema facilitates a discerning awareness, a capacity for seeing into the appearance of reality an ultimate force or state of beingness—or not‐beingness (no‐thingness). If all religious outlooks have one goal, which we could take, for the sake of argument, to be the realization and recognition of the place of being or becoming with God or Ultimate Reality (Truth), then nevertheless different facets are displayed by those different traditions. In other words, they choose for cultural and historical reasons to focus on certain entailments. From a conceptual metaphorical standpoint, religious thought attempts to reach across or through practical and idealized domains of experience, and this consciousness is then expressed in the language of aesthetics, doctrine, liturgy, ritual, and so on.

Religious traditions provide a contextual environment that selects for how adherents classify the nature of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). Clearly, in the varied religions there are a range of metaphors for these conceptions; that is to say, appeal is made to more than one source domain in construing the single target domain of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). For example, there is: god is beauty, god is emptiness, god is good, god is light/darkness, god is love, god is mystery, god is power, god is wisdom. The source domains given here are abstractions from embodied experience and the metaphoric linkages can be considered as subdomains of the conceptual metaphor god has attributive (qualitative) characteristics. Put another way, the concept of divine aspectual, phenomenal elements, or entities, is a subjective realm (representational space) that is profiled in a complex domain matrix known as God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). This idea of an absolute awareness of divinity or truth has been deliberately worked out in metaphysical, philosophical, and theological systems, and realized in manifold ways, so it is not surprising that numerous source domains are available for explicating it. The various religions may choose to use one rather than another, or to use them at different times or in different situations. The correspondences that are mapped derive from culturally agreed upon conceptual material. On the basis that the mapping is partial, then according to a pluralist perspective each religion emphasizes or deemphasizes some aspect of the target concept God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). Besides the possible range of source domains, it could be said (again building on Kövecses’ idea), that there is scope within a religious schema to discriminate the target concept of God in different ways; for example, theistically, pantheistically, or panentheistically (or even a‐theistically in the case of Buddhistic intellectual conceptions of ultimate reality/truth).

At an overarching level, the major religions of the world and their particular expressive conceptualizing of the truth of ultimate being or reality illustrate an ontological metaphor that relates human beings to society, God, and the universe. I am referring to the suggestion by Lakoff and Turner that there is a cultural model, the Great Chain of Being, in which the kinds of beings and their properties, from humans to animals, plants, and inanimate objects, are placed vertically on a scale. This great chain metaphor of hierarchical ordering can be extended out to the cosmos (Lakoff and Turner , 160–213). We can use this idea of a superintending metaphor to gather the diverse religions under an umbrella concept, for example, that god is an encounter with the theme of mystery or ultimate reality (truth) is realizing the theme of wisdom. The religious outlooks mentioned in this article expedite their thematic understanding of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) through a spatial orientation to ideas of holiness and salvation or enlightenment and liberation. The knowledge that is acquired by questing for a deep consciousness proceeds upon a judgment that God is a distinct other (as in classical theistic models), or that God is an indistinct other (as in pantheistic models), or that God is an ingrained other (as in panentheistic models). The primary metaphor categories are containers can fairly be applied to the theological model of panentheism, “all‐in‐God,” since it means that the cosmos is “in” God, or that God is “in” the universe: the cosmos is either the embodiment of God, or God pervades the universe (see Clayton and Peacocke ). On the former view, it is applicable to the idea of typically situating oneself in relation to the category of God, which is often expressed by the idea of the microcosm‐macrocosm (about which I shall have more to say later). On the latter view, the divine reality is evaluated as indwelling the category of universe and is expressed, for example, in Jewish philosophy and theology by the concept of Shekhinah, which is the fiery or amorphous divine presence; in Jewish mysticism, she is a personified and reified power in the Godhead (Scholem , 140–96). Besides this, the primary metaphor categories are containers may plainly relate to the idea of being involved in the “house of God,” with the corollary of going to a place of worship—church, synagogue, temple, or the like.

The panentheistic model of God is a gainful one, and lends itself to the theories of conceptual metaphor and metonymy (as well as conceptual integration). The meaning assigned to consciousness of the divine is derivative of the correspondent dealing with what is of “ultimate concern” in life, which is measured on an idealized plane of existence as the ground of being. This correlative structuring of the relationship between God and humanity suggests a mathematical analogy: the degree of understanding of divinity can be plotted on a grid of similarity. It can be realized metaphorically: god is the mathematical ground of reality; or metonymically: the human for the divine. As an example of the first, consider the views of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) in his treatise De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance). Although he demarcated a two‐domain approach in respect to conceptualizing God and the universe he did so while acknowledging the need for a connection. He posits God as the “absolute maximum,” which subtends the universe as the “contracted maximum,” with Christ as the “coincidence of opposites.” Moreover, while the finite human intellect strives to comprehend the infinite truth that is God, it can realize its potential to do so only by actuating the divine Word. Nicholas's analogy of reaching this limit of understanding is instructive: the angles of a polygon inscribed in a circle can be endlessly multiplied yet it will not equal the circle unless it is resolved into identity with the circle (Nicholas of Cusa , 85–206). An example of a metonymic realization is seen in the work of the Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–1327) who utilizes a single domain in his contention that the ground of the soul is a fused identity with the ground of God; it is a union of indistinction in the “simple One” (einvaltigez ein) (see McGinn , esp. 35–52). Both of these approaches can be interpreted as revealing a mathematical conceptualization at work, such that it admits of a “mathematical panentheism.” It is mathematical in the sense that human beings can be referenced as points in a vector space in relation to God, who is at the center or pole, and as they move through life their understanding of reality can be mapped as a set of coordinates. In time, a curve of recognition is generated by the attention to religious or spiritual thought, in which knowledge of the divine is asymptotic.

If it is granted that the conceptual metaphor a purposeful life is a journey indicatively maps knowledge across domains of experience to manifest a cohort of linguistic expressions, then it might equally be said that there is a conceptual metaphor a religious or spiritual life is a journey in which ideas about journeys—the source domain—are mapped onto ideas about religious or spiritual life—the target domain. In short, the inferential structure associated with traveling is potentially activated in conceptualizing religious or spiritual life. The implicit assumption here is that religious activity is motivated by a desire to find purpose in life; hence, the primary metaphor purposes are destinations is still relevant. A life lived in accordance with religious or spiritual ideas is reckoned to involve a journey; in this case, a journey toward divinity, or divine consciousness (consciousness of the divine), or a realization of the truth of how things really are. The aim may be to meet with God postmortem or at least know the presence of God antemortem, or to confront the ultimate nature of reality (“realness”) through living an excellent and meritorious life. Religions may conceptualize the journeying in different ways and therefore expound it within particular social–cultural milieus. It may be expressed in terms of traveling to a special, holy place; that is, going on a pilgrimage. As Coleman and Elsner () explain, there is a structural similarity in cross‐cultural pilgrimage behaviors and practices as a specified effort to foster the understanding of sacredness. More abstractly, it may be envisaged as traveling to an otherworldly or utopian place. For example, in early Jewish speculation on the merkavah (“chariot”) the mystic undertakes a visionary journey to the seventh heaven, where he passes through the seven “palaces” or “halls” in order to gaze at the throne of glory on which God sits (Schäfer , 243–330). In some Buddhist schools of thought devotees visualize a Pure Land (a “Buddha Domain,” or “Buddha Field”) where the sambhogakāya—the “body of communal enjoyment”—of a particular favored Buddha appears seated on a lotus throne imparting teachings (Williams et al. , 127–41). There is a prevailing religious belief that to attain a complete or divine understanding involves contemplative or meditative practices. For example, the Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (ca. 1217–74) in his concise guidebook Itinerarium mentis in Deum (The Mind's Journey into God) charts the progress of the mind in its apprehension of God (Bonaventure ; Harmless , 79, 85–104). Overall, the movement is from a factual mundane realm to a putative spiritual realm, which may be perceived as full or empty of content; it is a gift of superordinate consciousness (knowingness), a traversal of existential or experiential space, which may have physical consequences.

It would be worthwhile to explore a little further the metaphor a religious or spiritual life is a journey. It has the following entailments (among others):

1. A religious or spiritual journey means following a way that leads to God or Ultimate Reality (Truth).

2. A religious or spiritual journey may take one to new frontiers through a force of awakening.

3. A religious or spiritual journey involves preparatory activity through ritual.

4. A religious or spiritual journey has physical and moral demands.

The divine sojourn centers on an aspirational ideal, which can lead to seeing new vistas of reality, allowing insight into the nature of being and self (or not‐self, as the case may be); it usually means engaging in the practice of religious rituals and adhering to a set of commands or instructions within a disciplinary framework. In effect, the movement from a mundane life actively traces a path to a world of spiritual living that is realized by inspired conceptions and speculations. Let me look at each of these in turn.

1. . A characteristic of many kinds of religious and spiritual life is the endeavor to reach beyond the apparent limitations of the isolated self (ego) to be involved in that which is supposed to be grander and greater—a transcendent reality which may or may not touch, incorporate, or enter into, physical reality. It is intended to be a route for driving into a state of being that reflects the named qualities of compassion, justice, love, wisdom, etc., which are geared as divine or perfect attainments. In truth, the wayfarer must ride upon the spiritual tracks that pass through the stations of existence alighting at the names of God (see Chittick , esp. 263–70, 278–83). Broadly speaking, religious perspectives often posit two realms, separable to an extent, and signified by the idea of a material and spiritual reality; for many people, the aim is to move from one to the other, by a transposition of consciousness (note that the relocation may be deferred to an afterlife). These then are construed as two ontological domains, and to conceptualize one in terms of the other is to map correspondences between them. As such, it betokens a metaphorical activity, which is expressed in the language gleaned from “special” experiences consistent with knowing God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). In religiously minded belief, the spiritual (supramundane) realm as an abstract concept is experientially grounded through its relation to the physical (mundane) realm; and the correlation is pinned by attention to the conditions of being with God or of being awake to the ultimate truth. The journey to that realization is an aspirational goal in religious traditions. For example, Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, advised walking the middle road as he propounded the four noble truths, namely the existence of sorrow or suffering (), its origin, and its cessation through following the Noble Eightfold Path, which will lead to a state of , or further, Bodhisattva and Buddha (Gethin ). So far as the voyage presumes a transformative trip of consciousness it can be navigated by conceptual metaphor, where the imagination gives figurative (symbolic) expression to an ontological state. In moving from a peripheral consciousness to a central consciousness of God, or real Absolute, the sense of reality is transmogrified. Masters and sages, saints and yogis, are living a metaphorical life, as they actively realize the truth of being aware of both domains of experience.

2. A Mystical Journey. The idea of religions as metaphorically involving a cross‐over of ontological domains and of liminality is perhaps most evident at the site of mysticism, where the divide between spiritual and mundane realms is regularly seen as blurred. The mystical adventurer is seeking to travel to new lands in the country of the mind. A limited, but convenient definition of “kataphatic,” or positive, mysticism is that it refers to the short‐lived (temporary) or long‐lived (enduring) consciousness of the perceived presence of God (cf. McGinn , xiii–xx), which may happen to be articulated in aesthetic and artistic ways (Martin ). At least for the kind of outlook demonstrated by exponents of kataphatic mysticism plentiful use of imagery and figurative language is made, including unsurprisingly metaphor. It is undoubted that the enunciations by mystics are dependent on ordinary cognitive processes; and, as one observer has aptly remarked, “mystical language is merely a part of daily language that utilizes complex metaphors” (Timalsina , 141). Similarly, mystical language can make use of poetic conventions, and while poetic language is commonly believed to be removed from ordinary language, Lakoff and Turner argue (, 158) that “poetic language uses the same conceptual and linguistic apparatus as ordinary language.” In contrast to image schemas, which map structure, poetic and literary language often use “image‐metaphors,” where a mental image from a source domain is mapped to a target domain, which may itself contain an image or which may be imbued with an image (Lakoff and Turner , 89–96; Lakoff , 229–31). This approach is surely expressed in kataphatic mystical literature. For example, the beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1208–1284) wrote of Mary's soul as a flower on which the water droplets of the Trinity fell; or, the writer of the Saundaryalaharī when he eulogizes on the beauty of the Goddess Tripurasundarī, comparing her features with natural elements (vv. 42–91; in Śaṅkarācārya , 64–84).

   The gamut of human perceptions encompasses a profusion of information, which linguistic expressions may not adequately convey, and this is evident in chromatic experience where not every perceivable color (hue) is matched by a name (Gage ). In a similar vein, one of the marks of mystical consciousness as it is reported by those who experience it is the inadequacy of language; yet at least in the case of those who walk the via positiva the analogical and metaphorical “spiritual senses” offer a means for communicating such knowledge (Gavrilyuk and Coakley ). Writers of mystical texts resort to a series of creative or poetic ideas to convey their allusions, and it is necessary to know the associated implications in order to comprehend them, especially in esoteric texts where knowledge is encoded and given secretively. In “apophatic,” or negative mysticism, writers will sometimes stretch the bonds of language to breaking point (see Sells ). It would seem that mystical language is a prime candidate for Black's assertion that a metaphor cannot be paraphrased without loss of cognitive content, for in the reduction of mystical meaning to literal meaning the insightful character may be clouded over and the hermeneutic expanse dimmed. The perspective of majestic consciousness of divinity, or sapiential awareness of ultimate reality (truth), is schematized through metaphoric projection, as human beings follow the conceptual contours of their embodied interaction with the world. The spiritual path is mapped to the topological realizations of being‐in‐the‐world. The ineffable fit here is not a phenomenal one between the mind and the appearance of physical reality (even perhaps in “nature mysticism”), but between the mind and the mathematical ground of reality, an infinity of consciousness for which there is no (adequate) linguistic expression. The mind manufactures the conceptualization of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth). Just as electromagnetic radiation—oscillating electric and magnetic fields—of a certain frequency and wavelength is perceived as colored through retinal and neural processes (Lakoff and Johnson , 23–26), so by analogy God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) is akin to an electromagnetic field, which is registered as “colored” (attributed, personified, etc.) by the human mind.

3. . To embark on a religious or spiritual journey requires suitable preparation and then appropriate responsiveness throughout so as to ensure reaching the desired destination. This might be achieved by engaging in ritual activity. Smith has observed that ritual has a basic role in building religions, and that it “represents the creation of a controlled environment,” one in which the enactment of otherness makes ordinary practices extraordinary by the power of seeming realizable, although in actuality not so (, 63; , 109). Ritual is made routine and produces a “ritualized social body,” with a culturally bound “sense of ritual.” This sensibility is enculturated in a social context that projects schemes of belief onto a reality that is structured at a nondiscursive and nonpropositional level. It is communicatively revealed through metaphor and metonymy (Bell [1992] , [1997] ). Lakoff and Johnson agree that ritual performs a significant role in structuring the natural dimensions of human experience, and religious rituals as repeated, coherently structured, and unified aspects of our experience are “typically metaphorical kinds of activities, which usually involve metonymies—real‐world objects standing for entities in the world as defined by the conceptual system of the religion” ([1980] , 233–34). The latent idea of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) may be brought to conscious recognition by rituals, by the manipulation of objects and words, and by the practice of recurrent activities that can involve kinesthetic movement; as seen, for example, in institutional attendance, contemplation and meditation, song and dance, and prayer. These embodied actions, which make use of image schemas such as and , are understood as meaningful ways to structure abstract concepts like radiant consciousness and tranquil awareness. Religious ritual is a metaphoric projection that is experientially motivated, which basically seeks to establish a relationship between the nominal human and divine arenas; while the form of understanding it takes is culturally variable and determined. This relationship is transacted by the activity of agents—natural and supernatural. Human beings have a tendency to personify natural phenomena, metaphorically granting them the status of agency, in line with the metaphors and . This is apparent, for example, in sentences such as “The wind open the door,” and “The waves the boat to pieces” (Lakoff and Johnson , 212). As Stewart Guthrie has argued (; , 177–204), the human inclination to operate by pattern recognition means that we perceive the world in a cognitive process of “seeing‐as,” and religious outlooks are the fulfillment of this attitude, such that anthropomorphism is at the core of religion. Religious ceremonies and rites can portray the sense of the sacred, with its affectivity and sublimity, as the extramural face of the ordinary that is painted by the imagination.

4. . I would suggest that a common principle among religions is the effort by people to reflect the moral qualities exemplified by some individual or individuals. Each inaugurator of a religious schema changes, consciously and deliberately or not, people's perceptions. These leaders’ actions serve as a template for modeling one's life, and it connotes adherence to a defined way of being, to a doctrine, or to a set of ethical guidelines, often with concomitant physical and mental regimens. The Jewish tradition is founded on the Law, as promulgated by Moses, which includes the instruction to fear and love God, with precepts on acting in accordance with right action, most conspicuously in the Ten Commandments (Schechter [1909] ). The Christian tradition likewise favors a code of conduct, with prescribed rules incumbent especially on clerics, monks, and nuns. Christians are enjoined to abide by the will of God and live righteously and to love one another, so that when Christ comes again “we will be like him” (1 John 3:2 [NRSV]). The presentative figure of Christ provides a manifest and paradigmatic model for human beings since God is essentially imperceptible; in fact, Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). In his epistle to the Church of Colossae Paul reminds the Christians there that they have now been stripped of their old venial ways, “and have clothed [themselves] with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10 [NRSV]). Muslims are directed to obey the religious law, Sharia, the will of Allah as articulated in the Qur’ān, and the deeds and sayings of the Prophet as set down in the Sunnah, with the intention of becoming servants of God (Waines , 63–102). For the Sufi order, the rules for proper moral conduct mandate that one should follow an internal and external discipline that mirrors the Prophet's life, since he embodied perfect consciousness of God (Schimmel [1975] ; Huda ). In the various Hindu systems devotees are expected to follow the , a term that can variously be translated as “duty,” “ethics,” “justice,” “law,” “principle,” “religion,” “religious merit,” and “right,” embracing both moral and ritual behavior (Flood , 51–74). As far as Buddhism is concerned moral virtue is requisite for enlightenment, and is formulated in the eightfold way, namely as the “appropriate,” “perfect,” or “right” concentration, conduct, effort, intention, livelihood, mindfulness, speech, and view (Gethin , 81–82).

If a religious or spiritual journey habitually involves contemplation and meditation as a prelude to arriving at a realization and recognition of divine or perfect awareness, then a religious/spiritual life is constituted by reflection, hence the metaphor a religious/spiritual life is a reflection. Here the idea of reflecting can be applied objectively or psychologically, and both are to be seen in religious thought. To take the psychological view first: When free to do so, human beings frequently engage in self‐reflection about their role in society and life, even their place in the universe, and this may be corresponded with ideas about what makes for a religious or spiritual life. Taking it objectively (literally), ideas derived from the reflective nature of mirrors are mapped to the concept of religious or spiritual consciousness, and may draw on the primary metaphors beauty is symmetry and the mind is reflective (or the mind is a reflective medium) to give a complex metaphor divinity/perfectibility is mirrored in the soul. (I understand the term soul as a nexus of body and mind.) This in turn can be understood realistically or speculatively. A realistic interpretation would suggest that people can reflect in the way of living a spiritual life by following paragons of virtue (see previous paragraph). A speculative interpretation may affirm, at least in some theologies, that the human mind reflects the mind of God, as it does for the Church Father Augustine (354–430), for whom the mind is a mirror image of the Trinity since it functions in a triune way, as a substantial unity of memory, understanding, and will or love (Augustine , 10.11.17–18, 14.8.11, 15.20.39). The Hindu philosopher Shankara (788–820) comments that the individual soul, as the locus of I‐hood, is a delimited and diversified reflection of the absolute consciousness (Śaṅkarācārya , 2.3.17, 2.3.50, 3.2.18–20). The appeal to reflectivity seems to be universal among religious views, but this is not to exclude other sensory associations besides vision. The idea of symbolic correspondences is ubiquitous in Western esoteric currents—alchemy, hermetism, and theosophy—from the Renaissance through the modern period, where the entire imaginary is axiomatic of mirroring and reflectiveness (Faivre , ). In short, there are a host of correspondences between earth and heaven, visible and invisible, which the esoteric inquirer must uncover. The metaphoric relationship of human consciousness to designated supernal levels of reality is widely expressed in the idea of microcosm‐macrocosm, and may be held up as a cultural model.

Ideas about reflectivity are realized in religions as metaphoric and metonymic concepts, where God may be known as if present and through the mind‐body. It is conceptually metaphoric in that it attempts to reach over the two domains of mundane and supramundane, where these may be experienced as distant and dissimilar realms, or as distant yet similar realms. The symbolic foundation of God becomes available through the imagination or intellect acting as an interfacial medium. This boundary may be considered a permeable one, or even as an artifact; and God is made available or known through the elevated resources of the mind, rather than needing to transcend it, if such is even possible (MacDonald , esp. 231–63). It is conceptually metonymic where these domains—mundane and supramundane—are understood as being parts of a single idealized cognitive model, which may be posited as the religiosity or spirituality ICM, in which beliefs and/or practices highlight the concept of supernatural agency. The transcendent relationship of the human mind to the divine mind here denotes one of immanent contiguity or proximity. Whether it is regarded metaphorically or metonymically, the human is often thought of as imaging the divine, as being a part of the whole that is located within the cosmos of God's being. Figuratively speaking, the human mind is a synecdoche of God's mind. In ontotheological terms, the consciousness of a theistic representation of God (Absolute) conceptually structures the separate domains of transcendent and immanent, but the consciousness of a pantheistic representation of God (Absolute) conceptually structures these domains as unified in a universal matrix; and consequently, the theistic notion is metaphorical, while the pantheistic notion is metonymical. Total reality is conceptualized either as divergent ontological domains or as convergent ontological domains. From a panentheistic standpoint, the experience of the two domains is graded and inclined; it is both metaphorical and metonymical. Whatever it may be, the goal is to translate oneself through the power of reflection, by passing through the portal of consciousness into divinity (MacDonald et al. ). In all the religious schemas under review here the reconfiguration and reorientation of the self is realized either metaphorically or metonymically, and is advanced by the conception that the earthly (“this‐worldly”) plane images or reflects the spiritual (“other‐worldly”) plane.

The Jewish tradition espouses the idea that human beings are made in the image of God, as according to Genesis (1:26–27, 5:1, 9:6). In the rabbinic literature this imaging is an anthropomorphic relationship, which would allow God a corporeal body—at least the existence if not the function of a body; or it is a luminescent relationship where Adam has a body of light, with his physical body a diminished reflection of that astral body (Gottstein ). The idea of the human as microcosmos and God as macroanthropos is a standout motif in the Kabbalah, where the decadal aspect of God (Ein Sof), enumerated as the collective sefirot, comprises the Divine Man (Adam Kadmon), which is mapped to the human being—or more particularly to the Jewish male (see Scholem , 122–28). Christian theology follows the lead of the Hebrew Bible in the belief that human beings are made in the image of God, except that here the icon is Christ as the divine Adam (Tanner ). According to the famous locution of Paul: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 [NRSV]). Although the Qu'rān does not explicitly stipulate the idea of imago dei, and only briefly mentions the creation of Adam (7.11, 15.26, 28–29), according to a hadith (saying attributed to Muhammad), “Allah created Adam in his ṣūra [image, form],” although it is a matter of theological debate whether the “his” in “his image” refers to Allah—who is regarded as transcendent and unbounded—or to Adam such that “Allah created Adam in Adam's image” (Sells , 65). Islamic cosmology inscribes the analogous formation of human beings to the universe, as a part of the unified whole in the chain of being (Nasr , 66–74, 96–104). In the Philosophy of Illumination, the Light of Lights unendingly reflects upon the soul, and as it visionly moves from a distance to a proximity of knowing the presence of God, the soul shines with greater luminosity (Ziai ; Suhrawardī , 76–163).

The Hindu tradition supports a range of philosophical and religious views (Gupta ), and a whole separate study could be devoted to elucidating the applicability of conceptual metaphor (and metonymy). Suffice it to say for my purposes here, according to the cosmogony of the early revelations recorded in the Vedas, the divine, natural, and human worlds fit together as an ordered harmonious whole, and are cohered by the power of brahman. Universal manifestation is woven by the thread of divine speech (vāc), which is invested in the sacred words hymned by poets and chanted by priests in the sacrificial ritual (yajña) (Mahony ). In the speculative teachings of the Upanishads the human self (ātman) definitively instantiates the universal Self (Ātman), which is equated with Brahman as the ultimate real (Olivelle [1996] ). The praxis and theory of Yoga deals with transcending the dichotomy between the manifest realm (prakriti) and the higher self (purusha), by cultivating an absorptive awareness (Chapple ). Many tantric systems valorize the human body and see it as an empowering device for spiritual liberation (Flood ). The microcosm‐macrocosm correspondence is important in the philosophical tantras of Kashmir Shaivism, where it is said that the thirty‐six principles of reality (tattvas), which encapsulate the physical body through to the most subtle nature of divine being, are like mirrors, and everything is an epitome of everything else. The pervasive light of Shiva is a universal consciousness that illumines all reality, and the accomplished yogin recognizes that particular self‐consciousness is the resplendent mirror image of the cosmic sentience (Alper ; Dyczkowski ; Lawrence ). In Theravāda Buddhism, with the doctrine of no‐self (anātman) and the absence of a creator god, the concept of imago dei is redundant. Nevertheless, in Buddhist cosmological schemes there is an equivalence of cosmology and psychology, with the various realms of existence reflected in experienced states of mind (Gethin , 119–26). Besides that, as an alternative, imago dei might be understood as imago rectitudinis, where the intention is to achieve a high fidelity, as confirmed by generosity (dāna), ethical conduct (sīla), and meditation (bhāvanā). Elsewhere, in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the microcosmic declaration is given by polishing the mirror of the mind so that it reflects the bodhisattva ideal, and thus the practitioner would become the stainless advocate of compassion and wisdom. This viewpoint is attested in the Yogācāra (or Vijñānavāda) school, which understands that the intrinsically pure mind is defiled by wrong attitudes, just as a mirror might collect dust (Wayman , ).

Conclusion

I have explored how the conceptual theory of metaphor (and metonymy) might usefully be applied to the comparison of religions, where these territorial outlooks are plotted as narratives about the human relationship with another realm of being or level of knowing. Metaphor in this model is to do with mapping knowledge across domains of experience, as we imaginatively project image‐schematic representations emerging from our dynamic bodily engagement with the world onto a realm of abstract thought. These subjective correspondences may be based on correlations, or perceived or real similarities, and they motivate particular linguistic expressions, the communication of which is relayed within sociocultural contexts. I proposed that the so‐called “world religions” (at least those surveyed here) all conceptualize the nature of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) by means of such domain mapping; in other words, they do so through a metaphoric or metonymic realization. The particular understanding is framed and shaped by embodied experiences, and qualified by systems of belief and/or practice. The various religious outlooks model their conceptions in differential ways, on the basis of the conceptual metaphors god is an encounter with the theme of mystery or ultimate reality (truth) is realizing the theme of wisdom. Human beings tend to conceptualize their way to divine consciousness, enlightenment, or liberation (salvation), as a journey to a singular place of mystery or wisdom. The conceptual metaphor a religious or spiritual life is a journey entails the aspiration to reach a state of perspicacious awareness, where insights are delivered into existence or reality; it is facilitated by ritual practices, and exemplified by codes of conduct. Arising from an intuited and situated consciousness, the experience of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) is conventionalized and verbalized in the praxis and scriptures of the various religions, and culturally transmitted. The metaphor a religious/spiritual life is a reflection is generally observed, and the aim is to see discerningly that which is construed as beautiful and/or true, a recognition that may juxtapose or encapsulate the domain (matrix) of the world. In some religious schemas, the gap between God or Ultimate Reality (Truth) and human beings is reckoned to be wide, while in others the gap is narrowed or eliminated. The access between these realms may be bridged metaphorically or metonymically, but in any case the domain of the abstract (divine, supramundane) is structured in terms of the concrete (physical, mundane). In this process, there is a comparative conceptualization that human beings in some manner image or instantiate the nature of God or Ultimate Reality (Truth).

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the anonymous referees for their critical comments, and I should like to thank Ron Krumpos for his encouraging observations on a previous version of this article.