God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that. — Joseph Campbell

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Author: Joseph Campbell

Insight: There's something liberating about this idea, especially if you've spent time wrestling with whether you "believe in God" the way you're supposed to. Campbell isn't asking you to choose between faith and reason—he's suggesting they operate in completely different lanes. Some of our deepest experiences—awe at a sunset, the feeling of connection during loss, inexplicable moments of clarity—don't really translate into logical arguments. They just exceed what our thinking mind can grasp. The modern friction here is real. We're trained to trust only what we can explain and verify, so when something moves us beyond explanation, we often dismiss it or feel embarrassed by it. But Campbell's point flips that around: maybe those untranslatable moments are exactly where the sacred lives, not despite their mysteriousness, but because of it. Whether you call it God, the universe, or just "something bigger"—the label barely matters. What matters is recognizing that your rational mind has limits, and that's not a flaw in you. It's actually where meaning often begins.

Source: The Power of Myth, p. 55, 1988