Does God Dance?

The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche famously asked for a better God than a blustering old man or a nameless nothing, and that he “would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”

It may sound like a frivolous requirement at first, but, when we think about it, it’s actually quite significant. Dancing, in and of itself, has an intrinsic value apart from needs or obligations. Dancing is a form of play. A God who dances is a God who’s playful.

Dancing is also a form of self-expression. How we dance tells the world something about who we are. And how we dance with someone else tells them something about how we feel about them.

So we can ask ourselves: does our conception of God accommodate the possibility of a playful God who likes to dance? And that God wants to dance with us?

What would that say about the nature of God? And about who we are in relationship to the one being among all beings who is uniquely qualified to occupy the position of “God?”