He wear white robes and go barefooted"(201) Celie views God like the illustrations of the white interpretation of God in the bible. She sees all the angels are white, too and she comes to realize that this God is useless to her. Celie knows deep down that her image of God, as a white patriarch "don't seem quite right"(201). She views God as someone who acts like all the other men she has known, she states " The God I been praying to and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown"(199) Celie feels that God has done injustice to her.
When Celie realizes that God does not listen to her prayers "Just sit up there glorying in being deef "(200) she revises her notions about religion and she does not address her letters to God any longer. Celie's changing views of God are completed by Shug's alternative interpretations of God and his purpose. Shug rejects the narrow church and its false perceptions and prefers to have a personal religion in which " God ain't a he or a she, but a It"(202). Shug says to Celie, " But if God love me, Celie, I don't have to do all that. Unless I want to. There's a lot of things I can do that I speck God likes" (200) she refers to the fact that you do not have to do anything for God, for him to love you. Shug further states, " I can lay back and just admire stuff. Be happy. Have a good time" (200) stating her belief of what a person should do in order to worship. Shug says," I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it"(203) asserting her interpretation of God. Shug tells Celie, "You have to get man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall"(204) The white God Celie imagines has obstructed her view that she has never really seen the world's beauty and color. Shug tells Celie she does not have to reject God altogether but suggests that instead of being mad at God for his injustice, Celie should re-imagine God as a figure or entity with which she can more closely connect.
