Spiritual Naturalism
Encyclopedia
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
in 1895 in his book En Route - “Huysmans was the first to defect to 'Spiritual Naturalism' and eventually to a form of mysticism; he was followed by Maupassant:” and “In 'En Route' Huysmans started upon the creation of what he called ‘Spiritual Naturalism,’ that is, realism applied to the story of a soul. ...” .
Coming into prominence as a writer during the 1870s, Huysmans quickly established himself among a rising group of writers, the so-called Naturalist school, of whom Émile ZolaÉmile ZolaÉmile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
was the acknowledged head…With Là-bas (1891), a novel which reflected the aesthetics of the spiritualist revival and the contemporary interest in the occult, Huysmans formulated for the first time an aesthetic theory which sought to synthesize the mundane and the transcendent: "spiritual Naturalism". This new approach carried him through the remaining volumes of his "spiritual autobiography"
Origins
Spiritual Naturalism is a term that can be applied to a variety of philosophical/religious worldviews that are naturalistic in their basic viewpoint but have a spiritual/religious perspective also. Chief among modern forms of Spiritual Naturalism are religious naturalismReligious naturalism
Religious naturalism is an approach to spirituality that is devoid of supernaturalism. The focus is on the religious attributes of the universe/Nature, the understanding of it and our response to it . These provide for the development of an eco-morality...
, religious humanism
Religious humanism
Religious humanism is an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities.-Origins:...
, dualist pantheism
Dualist pantheism
Dualist Pantheism holds that there are two major types of substance, physical and mental/spiritual. Dualistic pantheism is very diverse, and may include beliefs in reincarnation, cosmic consciousness, and paranormal connections across Nature...
, and humanistic religious naturalism. The term may also apply to the beliefs of some pagans
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, many Taoists
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
, some Buddhists
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, a number of Hindus
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, and a variety of non-affiliated independent thinkers who base their spiritual experience directly on Nature itself rather than traditional deities and the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
. Some liberal Jewish congregations
Society for Humanistic Judaism
The Society for Humanistic Judaism, founded in 1969 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine embraces a human-centered philosophy that combines the celebration of Jewish culture and identity with an adherence to humanistic values and ideas....
, nontheist Friend
Nontheist Friend
A nontheist Friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not necessarily accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God, a Supreme Being, the divine, the soul or the supernatural...
s, and Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
have similar orientations in their adoption of Religious Naturalism beliefs.
Although the overall movement toward these attitudes remains relatively small and loosely organized, various forms of Spiritual Naturalism have existed since time immemorial, with the pantheistic philosophies of Taoism and similar Eastern nature-mysticisms being perhaps the most notable example. At present, there is a growing interest in adopting a Spiritual Naturalism rational alternative for the modern world because many are losing their belief in more traditional spiritual avenues. This is demonstrated in the recent rapid growth of Religious Naturalism, pantheism
Naturalistic pantheism
Naturalistic pantheism is a naturalistic form of pantheism that encompasses feelings of reverence and belonging towards nature and the wider universe, but is realist and embraces rationalism and the scientific method...
(particularly of an avowedly naturalistic variety) and some liberal Christian perspectives. Theologians such as John Shelby Spong
John Shelby Spong
John Shelby "Jack" Spong is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. He was formerly the Bishop of Newark . He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author...
and Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
have embraced thinking that is non-secular naturalist.
Crucial challenges for the spiritual naturalism movement in its various forms currently involve developing and promulgating a conciliate understanding of the somewhat ambiguous terms spirituality and naturalism. The difference in interpreting the difference between religious and spiritual, humanist and naturalist and free will and determinism also needs a consensus. In addition the individualistic nature and thinking of many of the adherents preclude organizing cohesive communities. However a proliferation of recent authors (Ursula Goodenough
Ursula Goodenough
Ursula W. Goodenough is a Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the best selling book Sacred Depths of Nature...
, Chet Raymo
Chet Raymo
Chet Raymo is a noted writer, educator and naturalist. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts. His weekly newspaper column Science Musings appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years. This is now a daily blog by him...
, Karl E. Peters
Karl E. Peters
Karl E. Peters is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL and former adjunct professor of philosophy, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT. He also is the co-editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, and is a founder, organizer, and first President of the...
, Loyal Rue
Loyal Rue
Dr. Loyal D. Rue is professor of religion and philosophy at Luther College of Decorah, Iowa , and focuses on naturalistic theories of religion.He has been awarded two John Templeton Foundation fellowships....
and Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth...
) are highlighting the paradigm via their naturalistic writings.
The most recent work on Religious Naturalism is Donald Crosby’s Living with Ambiguity published in 2008. His first chapter is titled Religion as a Form of Religious Naturalism. Also in December 2008, an in depth look at the history of this worldview was published by Jerome A. Stone
Jerome A. Stone
Jerome Stone—author, philosopher, and theologian—is best known for helping to develop the religious movement of Religious Naturalism. Dr. Stone is on the Adjunct Faculty of Meadville Lombard Theological School; is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at William Rainey Harper College; is in Preliminary...
. In addition a few modern theologians with liberal orientations have rejected some of the historical claims of some biblical doctrines and supernaturalism and moved to progressive forms of Christianity and Judaism akin to theistic naturalism. Examples are:Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan , was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.-Life and work:...
, John Shelby Spong
John Shelby Spong
John Shelby "Jack" Spong is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. He was formerly the Bishop of Newark . He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author...
, Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
, John A. T. Robinson, William Murry and Gordon Kaufman. Some of those into process theology
Process theology
Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and further developed by Charles Hartshorne . While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead the term is generally applied to the...
may also be included in this movement.
Orientation
Spiritual Naturalism has advocates that cover the religious spectrum from neo-theism (neo-Christianity, process theology) to atheism. The majority probably are agnostic or atheistic while many prefer not to be categorized. There is a vast difference in opinions on how to address the question of a deity of some kind, if at all. There are those who see God as the creative process within the universe, those who define God as the totality of the universePantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
(The All
The All
The All is the Hermetic or panentheistic view of God, which is that everything that is, or at least that can be experienced, collectively makes up The All...
), some who use God in metaphoric ways, those that have no need to use the concept or terminology of God even as a metaphor and some who are atheistic proclaiming there is no such entity what so ever and rebel against usage of the term.
Spiritual Naturalism is chiefly concerned with finding ways to access traditional spiritual feelings without the inclusion of supernatural elements incompatible with science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and a broad naturalism
Humanistic naturalism
Humanistic naturalism is the branch of philosophical naturalism wherein human beings are best able to control and understand the world through use of the scientific method. Concepts of spirituality, intuition, and metaphysics are not pursued because they are unfalsifiable, and therefore can never...
. Adherents believe that Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, in all its diversity and wonder, is sufficient unto itself in terms of eliciting the intellectual and emotional responses associated with spiritual experience, and that there is no need for faith in the traditional anthropomorphic concept of 'god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
' and similar ideas.
Adherents of Spiritual Naturalism are generally scientifically-oriented in most aspects, with their primary difference from other naturalists being their belief that the abandonment of superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
does not necessarily entail the abandonment of spirituality. To adherents, the intellectual and emotional experience of something greater than oneself is seen as a phenomenon of enduring value, a positive facet of the human condition to be preserved even while they purge themselves of so much that has traditionally accompanied it. Furthermore, some adherents of spiritual naturalism view their philosophy specifically as a form of mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
.
There is some debate as to the similarity of, and differentiation between, the view of spiritual naturalism and the related view of religious naturalism. They are both clearly form of pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
but it is unclear which category they fit best. The term "spiritual" seems to imply that spiritual naturalism is Monist idealist Pantheism. This debate is generally view as purely academic or meaningless semantics.
New Religions, A Guide states that:
after the Second World War, the religious landscape in the West dramatically changed” and cites the reasons for this, two being religious pluralism and better communication of all kinds. Also “Religion is increasingly a private rather than a public matter… as religion is simply a matter of personal preference, and since there is little evidence to establish the validity of one choice over another, or indeed to establish the validity of any choices, there are few reasons to limit choice….consequently, spirituality is being explored in some unexpected areas of Western life… it is not a return to previous ways of being religious, but rather the emergence of new ways of being religious.
The Guide continues “the term ‘spirituality’ tends to be associated more with non-institutional forms of practice and a radical rethinking of tradition, space, community and the body. In this sense, postmodern spirituality reflects the collapse of religious authority and institutional practice…. Post modern spiritualities question the division between the transcendental and the immanent… the transcendent is seen either as present or a false division, making creation divine.” Thus Spiritual Naturalism (Naturalistic Spirituality) along with its related naturalisms, can be seen as a rebellion against traditional religious thinking and a naturalizing of the concepts of God.
See also
- Religious naturalismReligious naturalismReligious naturalism is an approach to spirituality that is devoid of supernaturalism. The focus is on the religious attributes of the universe/Nature, the understanding of it and our response to it . These provide for the development of an eco-morality...
- Religious humanismReligious humanismReligious humanism is an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities.-Origins:...
- Secular spiritualitySecular spiritualitySecular spirituality, as a cultural phenomenon, refers to the adherence to a spiritual ideology without the advocation of a religious framework. Secular spirituality in principle might embrace many of the same types of practices as religious spirituality, but the motivation is different...
- Naturalistic PantheismNaturalistic pantheismNaturalistic pantheism is a naturalistic form of pantheism that encompasses feelings of reverence and belonging towards nature and the wider universe, but is realist and embraces rationalism and the scientific method...
- List of new religious movements
- Nature worshipNature worshipNature worship describes a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on natural phenomenon. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, the biosphere, the cosmos or the universe. Nature worship can be found in panentheism, pantheism, deism, polytheism, animism, totemism,...
- Cosmic consciousnessCosmic consciousnessCosmic consciousness is the idea that the universe exists as an interconnected network of consciousness, with each conscious being linked to every other...
Further reading
- 2008 - Jerome A. Stone - Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative, State U. of New York Press (Dec 2008), ISBN 0791475379
- 2008 - Chet Raymo - When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: Making of a Religious Naturalist, Sorin Books (September 2008), ISBN 1933495138
- 2006 - Loyal Rue - Religion is not About God, Rutgers University Press (September 25, 2006), ISBN 0813539552
- 2004 - Gordon Kaufman - In the Beginning….Creativity, Augsburg Fortress Publishers (July 2004), ISBN 0800660935
- 2000 - Ursula Goodenough - The Sacred Depths of Nature, Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (June 15, 2000), ISBN 0195136292