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The character 神 for shen exemplifies the most common class in Chinese character classification: xíngshēngzì 形聲字 "pictophonetic compounds, semantic-phonetic compounds", which combine a radical (or classifier) that roughly indicates meaning and a phonetic that roughly indicates pronunciation. In this case, 神 combines the "altar/worship radical" 礻or 示 and a phonetic of shēn 申 "9th Earthly Branch; extend, stretch; prolong, repeat". Compare this phonetic element differentiated with the "person radical" in shen 伸 "stretch", the "silk radical" in shen 紳 "official's sash", the "mouth radical" in shen 呻 "chant, drone", the "stone radical" in shen 砷 "arsenic", the "earth radical" in kun 坤 "soil", and the "big radical" in yan 奄 "cover". (See the List of Kangxi radicals.)
Chinese shen 申 "extend" was anciently a phonetic loan character for shen 神 "spirit". The Mawangdui Silk Texts include two copies of the Dao De Jing and the "A Text" writes shen interchangeably as 申and 神: "If one oversees all under heaven in accord with the Way, demons have no spirit. It is not that the demons have no spirit, but that their spirits do not harm people." (chap. 60, tr. Mair 1990:30). The Shuowen Jiezi defines shen 申 as shen 神 and says that in the 7th lunar month when yin forces increase, bodies shenshu 申束 "bind up".
The earliest written forms of shen 神 "spirit; god" occur in Zhou Dynasty Bronzeware script and Qin Dynasty Seal script characters (compare the variants shown on the Chinese Etymology link below). Although 神 has not been identified in Shang Dynasty Oracle bone script records, the phonetic shen 申 has. Paleographers interpret the Oracle script of 申 as a pictograph of a "lightning bolt". This was graphically differentiated between dian 電 "lightening; electricity" with the "cloud radical" and shen 神 with the "worship radical", semantically suggesting both "lightning" and "spirits" coming down from the heavens.
Read more about this topic: Shen (Chinese Religion)