God. God is Celie's salvation for most of the book—by communicating with God through letters, she is able to maintain a certain sanity. Halfway through the book, in a discussion with Shug, Celie confesses that she sees God as a white man with a beard.
Celie's idea of God is wholly different from Shug's. Celie has suffered misery from men, and she has believed that she had to accept it. To her, God was just another man, up in the sky, a white man who was patiently listening to her.
God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for.
Celie is about to go into adolescence, believing that she was raped by her father and that he killed both of their children. She writes to God because she has no one else to help her bear this terrible knowledge.
She sees God as a white man who behaves like the other men she knows and who does not listen to “poor colored women.” This image of God held by Celie—and, ironically, by Nettie, Corrine, and Samuel in their missionary work—is limiting.
In a similar way, the "image" of God is no longer important to Nettie. She doesn't think of God as a gentle old white man; instead, God is different, she tells Celie. He is "more spirit than ever before . . . not being tied to what God looks like, frees us."
In the beginning of the novel, Celie writes letters solely addressed to God. She is alone, vulnerable, and degraded, so she seeks encouragement from God instead of from physical beings. She hopes that God is a human figure who may be more benevolent than any of the people in her life.
Celie begins writing letters to God in order to survive the her father's sexual abuse; she later comes to view God as an outgrowth of nature's beauty, after Shug convinces her that God is more than what white people say, and what church teachings confirm.
Another important moment, commingling ideas of race and religion in the novel. Moment's earlier Celie had rejected God because she had been taught to see God as white, as being like the people who had oppressed her and her people.
By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised (Heb. 11:11). Sarah received the power to conceive because she “considered him faithful who had promised.” Sarah's faith was restored through an encounter with God.
Sisters are women who publicly profess vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience to God in the context of a life in religious community. They assist the mission of the Church in a wide variety of ministries.
One of those women was Lydia, a Gentile God-worshipper from the city of Thyatira, a dealer in purple cloth. As she listened, the Lord enabled her to embrace Paul's message.
The Color Purple, on the other hand, teaches us that dignity does not come from ducking behind appearances and hiding yourself. Being a victim is nothing to be ashamed of. By relentlessly focusing on black female vulnerability, The Color Purple disassembles the myth of the strong black woman.
The color not only represents mourning, but also royalty. Purple cloth was also expensive in biblical days, she said. It's used today to illustrate “there was a high price paid by Jesus Christ for us,” she said.
The primary theme of The Color Purple, though, reflects Walker's desire to project a positive outcome in life, even under the harshest conditions. Her central character triumphs over adversity and forgives those who oppressed her.
Gold is the color most used to symbolize the Divine connection and each figure connected to christ, including Jesus himself, has a golden halo drawn around their head to show their loyalty to Jesus during his crucifixion.
While gold represents God's deity, black represents suffering and death in the Bible.
Purple was a kingly color, and the soldiers mockingly put this robe on Jesus Christ because He had claimed to be the king of the Jews. Of course, in reality He is much more than that—He is the “King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:16). See more images of Easter—and their meanings—here.
In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is simple (without parts). The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God.
a) Shug tells Celie that God isn't a man or a woman, but an It. She tells Celie God is inside everyone, and they just have to find it.
Divine simplicity is central to the classical Western concept of God. Simplicity denies any physical or metaphysical composition in the divine being. This means God is the divine nature itself and has no accidents (properties that are not necessary) accruing to his nature.
She is purely a victim: She's repeatedly raped by her father, her children are taken away from her, and she's literally sold into marriage to a man who wants a servant, not a wife. The only person she loves—and the only person who loves her back—is her sister Nettie.
Alice Walker in this novel tries to state that it is Celie's strict devotion to traditional Christianity which has bounded her in the cycle of male authority. Walker believes that Celie's fear of God has prevented her from standing up to her tyrannical patriarchal force which is imposed upon her.
Wiesel reveals a sense of commitment to God at the very beginning of the novel, but when he actually encounters the Holocaust, Wiesel becomes dismissive of his spiritual beliefs. As Wiesel evolves and turns himself into a man, at the same time he repudiates the position of God in his life.
Contrasting beliefs about the nature of God. Monotheism – the belief that there is only one God; Polytheism – the belief in or worship of more than one god. There are many different beliefs about God and many different ways to describe God.