I study the psychology behind religious faith. I am not interested in praising religion nor in criticizing it. I am trying to understand people, and to do that, I need to study them in both secular life and in spiritual life. My expertise is the psychology of motivation and values, or what makes people tick. The results of my scientific research may suggest new ideas about the fundamental forces that drive us and how those forces are expressed in spirituality and religion.

My analysis suggests a close correspondence between the attributes of God and the fundamental motives driving the human psyche. If you want to identify what makes us tick, you may need to look no further than the divine attributes of the gods we worship. These attributes include, for example, infinite goodness, infinite wisdom, and so on. As we shall see there are 13 such qualities expressed as divine attributes. Each is a powerful motivator of human behavior.

Religion presents each and every fundamental psychological force that makes us tick as an attribute or quality of god. Nothing significant is left out. Scientists have spent decades studying biology, the unconscious mind, and the brain to create lists of human instincts, psychological needs, fundamental psychological forces, and intrinsic motives. Arguably, they could have created a comprehensive and valid list by studying the qualities of the gods people worship.

My colleagues and I asked many thousands of people from the diverse cultures living on four continents what intrinsically motivates them. By "intrinsic motivation," I mean what do people want simply because they inherently value it. We asked no questions about God, religion, or spirituality. We followed conventional scientific rules to analyze the results of the surveys and to construct our list of intrinsic motives.

As explained in my book, The 16 Strivings for God: The New Psychology of Religious Experiences, we discovered 16 basic desires of human nature. Everyone shares each of the 16 basic desires but people prioritize them differently. An intellectual might prioritize curiosity, for example, while a gregarious person might prioritize social contact. How a person prioritizes the 16 basic desires determines his or her personality traits and relationships.

In my book The 16 Strivings for God: The New Psychology of Religious Experiences, I suggest that the greatest imaginable expression of 13 of the 16 basic desires are attributes of the Judeo-Christian presentation of God. Here is how I connect motives and divine attributes:

Acceptance is one of the 16 basic desires of human nature. Everyone would rather be accepted and praised rather than rejected and criticized. Because salvation is the greatest acceptance human beings can imagine, religion presents God-as-Savior.

Curiosity is one of the 16 basic desires of human nature. Everyone would rather understand than be confused. Because omniscience is the greatest imaginable knowledge human beings can imagine, religion present God-as-omniscient.

Here is how I connect 11 additional basic desires and divine attributes:

Family: God as son
Honor: God as moral lawgiver
Idealism: God as justice
Independence: God as self-sufficient
Order: God as perfect order
Physical activity: Almighty
Power: God as creator
Social contact: God as friend
Status: divinity
Tranquility: God as protector
Vengeance: Wrath of god
The Judeo-Christian God has no body and is not presented as the greatest eater nor greatest lover (basic desire for romance), but some say he saves souls.

Human beings are incapable of imagining qualities greater than those attributed to the God they worship. Divine attributes are the traits people most admire. Human beings, for example, admire strength. They worship God as Almighty. He is not only strong but also the strongest force in the universe. Nothing is stronger than God. If people came to believe that scientists have discovered a stronger force, they would wonder if God is God. They would worship the stronger force, not the God of the Bible.

Human beings admire achievement. They worship God as Creator. Creation is not only an achievement but also the greatest imaginable achievement. Nothing is a more impressive achievement than Creation. If people came to believe that scientists have discovered a greater achievement, they would wonder if God is God. They would worship the Achiever, not the God of the Bible.

The correspondence between the attributes of God and intrinsic motivation adds confidence that the 16 basic desires are in fact a valid list of the fundamental forces of human nature. Freud erred in claiming that sex and aggression are the overriding instincts lighting up the human psyche. At most, Freud identified only two of the fundamental forces driving us in secular and spiritual life. Maslow's hierarchy of needs does not explain the psychology behind religious faith. Social psychology's theory of intrinsic-extrinsic motivation cannot explain scientifically the correspondence between 13 psychological needs and the attributes of God. In demonstrating both the spiritual and secular validity of the 16 basic desires, we add significantly to the view that these are the fundamental psychological forces that make us tick.