At a press conference he gave in Orlando, Florida two weeks ago, former president Jimmy Carter took questions centered on his new book, The Virtues of Aging. Having just read the book myself, I asked Mr. Carter a question bearing on his spirituality, a subject that sometimes comes up in its pages.

Specifically, this was what I asked: “Do you find, as an older person, that your ideas about God have changed in any way?” Mr. Carter clearly found the question provocative and responded to it at length.

Here’s some of what he said: “Obviously our ideas about the hereafter and about the almighty, the Creator (whatever our religion might be), do change as we go through life, particularly if we study and pay attention to the subject.

“I’ve been a Sunday school teacher since I was 18 years old. I still teach Sunday school every Sunday when I’m home. . . . so every time I address a scripture passage, every time I address a new congregation in my church on Sunday morning, my ideas do change.

“As we approach the end of life, obviously we begin to think more about the hereafter. One of the things I told in my book is how my own family has addressed this issue. .  .  . I think all of us have to address how we’re going to approach the end of life… All the members of my family have approached the end of life with a very good attitude, a very healthy attitude, with a retained sense of humor.

“I think that whether or not we believe in life after death, we do have to face the prospect of what we’re going to do in our final days… how we’re going to be a blessing instead of a curse to the people we leave behind.”

This exchange with President Carter revealed to me a man who takes the spiritual life seriously. He appears to be a person at peace with himself and other people, apparently a result of  paying serious attention to his soul. Perhaps that goes far to explain the outstanding success he has enjoyed as a troubleshooter in parts of the world racked by armed struggle.

And yet my exchange with him has shown me once more how difficult it is to talk about spirituality. Much as I appreciate the reflections which he shared with me on a subject too often ignored in the public forum, I found that his remarks fell short of an adequate answer.

Yes, he confirmed that his ideas of God do change, and he suggested that it happens because of his continuing study of scripture, but he never said what those ideas were.

Instead the former president talked about preparation for death, clearly a relevant topic too often avoided. His reflections on this subject with its focus on the experience of his family members struck me as touching and valuable. What I missed, however, was talk about the way changes in human life provoke changes in the way people of spirit think about ultimate reality.

And yet, maybe Mr. Carter’s missing the mark testifies to something vitally important – – God always escapes definition. No human being, however spiritual, can grasp the supreme being and reduce God to a neat formula.

In his book, President Carter takes a different route. There, in discussing what makes human life successful, he suggests that everyone needs something “inspirational, exalting, transcendent.” Ultimately, he says, what counts most is love, an ideal that is “common to almost all religions.”

According to President Carter, three kinds of love lead to human fulfillment. Family love, sexual love and the love of friendship all contribute greatly to success and happiness.

But, even more important, he adds, is another kind of love which the Greeks called agape, a love “filled with unselfishness, grace and forgiveness with the happiness and well-being of other people preeminent.”

This kind of love, according to many of the world’s great spiritual traditions, says more about God than any other notion ever can. So, to answer the original question we might say simply that God is love and, as our love grows, so may our ideas about God deepen and become less inadequate.

Richard Griffin