Can "God" substitute for "Spirit"?

This is the companion piece to an earlier post in which I took well known references to God and substituted the word "Spirit.” The idea was to “test” what happened to meaning by the substitution. Are the two words equivalent and interchangeable? When I speak of “Spirit,” do you understand that to mean “God”? Are we talking about the same thing?

I’m holding off sharing my impressions, but the post has drawn considerable attention, if little comment.

In that post, I promised to flip the exercise and substitute “God” for “Spirit” in a number of “Spirit” quotes.

But which quotes to use? I found that, like “God,” “Spirit” is used in a variety of contexts which morph its meaning. Some meanings are clearly non-religious, tending to the political or commercial. Consider just one, “The Spirit of ’76,” which turns out to be both. Think of this nation’s independence and the gasoline company, Union Oil.

I found too that the word can be personal in that each of us has a “spirit to survive.” Hence “his spirit was broken” or “her spirit was lifted.” It didn't seem to be spiritual, or at least as spiritual as other references.

“Spirit” or “Great Spirit” is also at the heart of Native-American religious belief, so some quotations are from Native-American historical figures.

Countless passages of Biblical text refer to "The Holy Spirit" as God. Could this be the answer to my questions? Do Christians automatically consider references to "Spirit" as being references to God? Frankly, that hasn't been my experience among my fellow Quakers, as I noted in my first post.

With that, here are some “Spirit” quotes, many from THIS site. They are followed by the “God” substitutions.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. —Khalil Gibran

Life without liberty is like a body without God.


I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. —Khalil Gibran

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is God.


In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. —Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the God of God moved upon the face of the waters.


There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence. —John Calvin

There is no worse screen to block out God than confidence in our own intelligence.


All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. —Chief Joseph

All men were made by the Great God Chief. They are all brothers.


I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me. —William Blake

I myself do nothing. God accomplishes all through me.


All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love. —Morihei Ueshiba

All life is a manifestation of God, the manifestation of love.


Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature always wears the colors of God.


In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified. —Hermann Hesse

In each individual God is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.


Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. —Leonardo da Vinci

Where God does not work with the hand, there is no art.


And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. —Black Elk

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in God, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.


It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control. —Oprah Winfrey

It isn't until you come to a divine understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, God within - that you can begin to take control.


It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us. —John Ruskin

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts God within us.


All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit. —Thomas Aquinas

All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in God.


Finally, and tellingly, this from Voltaire

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and God gives life.