Spinoza.

I could start with Confucius, with the Hindu Carvaka, or with Epicurus, but I shall start with Grandfather Spinoza (the following is adapted from Stone 2008, 18). Interpreters of Spinoza disagree, but surely his phrase “God or nature” indicates that he is a forerunner of contemporary naturalist spirituality. Now perhaps his use of the term God disqualifies him as a naturalist, but I suggest that he is at least an important pioneer explorer in this territory.

I would like to mention one important theme in Spinoza. His intellectual love of God is a third level of knowledge above sense perception and rational knowledge. I suggest that rather than a form of pseudo‐cognition, Spinoza was driving at a form of insight or appreciation of the whole system of nature. (See the British philosopher Samuel Alexander's comments on Spinoza (Alexander 1939, 346, 373–6; also Stone 2008, 43).

George Santayana.

For Santayana in Reason in Religion, religion is an imaginative symbol for the Life of Reason (Santayana 1905; the following is adapted from Stone 2008, 21–37). Part of his treatment of religion involves a discussion of religions sentiments. These sentiments are piety, spirituality, and charity.

Spirituality is the higher side of religion that imposes a direction and ideal on the forces of human life—in short, an aspiration. We are spiritual when we live in the presence of an ideal.

However, spirituality has a pathology. It is subject to corruption. So pedantry often displaces wisdom, tyranny replaces government, and superstition substitutes for piety and rhetoric for reason. Further difficulties come with fanaticism or mysticism. Fanaticism aggressively narrows down concern to only one interest. The mystic passively either accepts all passions or rejects them all. Both represent arrested development of common sense.

The rational person goes a step beyond spirituality and subjects it to the scrutiny of reason. So the rational is a step beyond the spiritual.

Roy Wood Sellars.

I will discuss Sellars later, but I wanted to mention him here because chronologically he comes after Santayana.

Sam Harris.

Harris, one of the so‐called New Atheists, is a practitioner of various techniques of meditation and teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and the Advaita Vedanta. His extended discussion of spirituality is found in the last chapter of The End of Faith.

A range of human experiences can be called “spiritual/mystical”—namely, “experiences of meaningfulness, selflessness, and heightened emotion that surpass our narrow identities as ‘selves’” (Harris 2004, 39). “Ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call ‘I’ and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe” (Harris 2004, 40).

Another description of spiritual practice is “investigating the nature of consciousness directly, through sustained introspection” (Harris 2004, 209). If we can recognize that we are “the mere witness of appearances, we will realize that we stand perpetually free of the vicissitudes of experience” (Harris 2004, 206). Almost all our problems are due to our feelings of separateness. A spirituality that undermined such dualism through the contemplation of consciousness would improve our situation (Harris 2004, 214).

Introspection shows us that there is no subject of experience, no separation of knower and known. Spiritual life is a freeing of attention so that the selflessness of consciousness can be recognized (Harris 2004, 219).

Here is another definition. Meditation is paying close attention to the moment‐by‐moment experience of the world. This is not irrational. It is the only rational basis for making claims about subjectivity (Harris 2004, 235). The goal of meditation is not to eliminate thought. It is not to get rid of thoughts but to break our identification with these thoughts (Harris 2004, 217).

One insight to be achieved by meditation is “that the feeling we call ‘I’—the sense that we are the thinker of our thoughts, the experiencer of our experiences—can disappear when looked at in a rigorous way” (Harris 2004, 235). Negative social emotions (hatred, envy, spite) proceed from this common dualistic perspective.

These experiences in which we divest ourselves of the feeling we call “I” are “spiritual” or “mystical” for want of better words. “‘Spirituality’ and ‘mysticism’ have unfortunate connotations and neither word captures the reasonableness and profundity of the possibility … that there is a form of well‐being that supersedes all others, indeed, that transcends the vagaries of experience itself” (Harris 2004, 205). Harris uses the two terms spirituality and mysticism interchangeably, but in a cautious sense. After all, we are not dealing with “the healing powers of crystals and colonic irrigation” or “the ardors of alien abduction” (Harris 2004, 205).

Owen Flanagan.

Flanagan's discussion of spirituality appears in his book The Really Hard Problem, particularly Chapter 6, “Spirituality Naturalized.” Spirituality is “seeking to understand and develop a sense of connection to that which is greater than and more comprehensive than [one's] self” (Flanagan 2007, 199).

Spirituality is “having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort” (Flanagan 2007, 201).

The healthy forms of spirituality involve “the degree to which they result in unselfish love of others.”[Flanagan quotes this approvingly from Stephen Post (Flanagan 2007, 207; Post 2004).] There are three major spiritual traditions that endorse such an unselfish love: Buddhism, “Jesusism” or the ethical teachings of Jesus, and utilitarianism or consequentialism. These three can all be lived naturalistically. Buddhism and Jesusism do not need to be conceived supernaturalistically, while consequentialism is overtly secular.

The reason why one would want to live in such an ethically expansive manner is that it is one reliable way to human flourishing (Flanagan 2007, 209). The path of universal love and compassion is the best strategy to find happiness; in addition, this strategy can be conceived naturalistically, which is the best philosophical view. Happiness, flourishing, and meaning come from having a goal beyond my own personal desires that is inclusive of all actual and potential persons (possibly of all sentient beings) as well as to Earth and the larger cosmos (Flanagan 2007, 219).

The next question is how to be motivated to live in such an ethically expansive way. Perhaps we can encourage the relevant human impulses through rational and emotional support and a method of moral education and socialization. Meditation is a very helpful strategy, for it transforms the mind‐brain by “reconfiguring neural circuits” (Flanagan 2007, 212).

Instead of merely wishing for no suffering for others, through meditation on such scenarios as the Dalai Lama suggests, we can have more of the love that one usually has for one's loved ones for other people. The three traditions ask us to consider this. Such universal love takes lots of work and practice: meditation, concentration, rational arguments and charismatic exemplars can do much. They are promising strategies. Supernatural foundation is not required (Flanagan 2007, 218).

Robert C. Solomon.

In Spirituality for the Skeptic, Solomon characterizes spirituality as the thoughtful love of life (Solomon 2002). Along with most of these current writers he sees spirituality as involving the transformation of the self in terms of an expansion of the self beyond selfishness. Spirituality takes us out of ourselves into community with a larger whole. As a naturalized spirituality it is nonreligious, nonexclusive, nondogmatic, not based on belief, not anti‐science, and not otherworldly. It embraces science because it seeks to know more about the world that it loves.

Interestingly, as a love of this life, naturalized spirituality embraces appetites, sex and sensuality, possibly even fast cars, money and luxury, all in their proper place. What counts is living well. But Solomon is a little uneasy about this, because he admits that spirituality can be vulgarized into living luxuriously and simply enjoying oneself. As he phrases it, spirituality involves a larger sense of life. However, not any larger sense of life will do. Patriotism, for example, while it can have a spiritual dimension, can also be narrow and confining. So although there are dangers of vulgarity and narrowness, love of this life, or better, thoughtful love of this life, is what a naturalized spirituality is about. Being in love, losing oneself in music, feeling at one with nature, are all ways of being spiritual.

Solomon is clear that spirituality involves thinking, feeling and acting. It is rational, emotional and active. Indeed, spirituality is a passion, and this involves Solomon's elaborate notion of a passion. Passions are investments of the self with life in a way that emotions are not. The erotic love in spirituality involves choice, engagement with life, including uncertainty about the future. Passions can be cultivated and, be it noted, are not out of control.

Solomon has analyzed spirituality in terms of three emotions: erotic love, reverence and trust. The objects of these emotions are ultimately the world or life itself. And when the world or life is specified as the object of love, reverence and trust, the distinction between emotions and moods is dissolved.

Love of a lover, humanity, or the world is exemplary of spirituality as an expansion of the self, a fusion or merger with the larger world. Now, of course, we cannot be passionately intimate with everyone, but we can expand our erotic world.

In spirituality one chooses to see the world as beautiful, as an object of love or fascination, not just as a resource or challenge. So spirituality is not disinterested, but involves appreciation as well as comprehension. But this choice is steadfast, not fickle. Spirituality is resistant to change.

Now eroticism can be dangerous, as in the eroticism of fascism. Erotic love needs reverence to be spiritual. [Solomon owes a great deal to Paul Woodruff here (Woodruff 2001).] Being spiritual means being reverential before the world, before other people, the law and other social institutions worthy of reverence. Reverence has nothing to do with God or religion. Reverence means recognizing one's limits, even with regard to the feeblest creatures. It implies responsibility, not just humility.

Reverence does not mean politeness, hyperseriousness or a lack of humor. Nor is reverence to be equated with awe. Awe is too passive. Reverence is active and responsible.

Solomon can also describe spirituality as cosmic trust. Trust is a determined stance toward the world that implies dependence and vulnerability. Trust entails risk and also responsibility for our engagements in the world. Trust includes being prepared to accept life's many possibilities.

Authentic trust is not given but “earned, and cultivated, and worked at” (Solomon 2002, 46). It is something we do and therefore is something for which we take responsibility. In a nutshell the problem is “How do we get past the cynical (aka “realist”) position that sees the utter contingency of life without falling into the naivete of philosophical optimism?” (Solomon 2002, 47).

Thus it seems that “spirituality is a synthesis of uncertainty and confidence, a sense of powerlessness combined with resoluteness and responsibility” (Solomon 2002, 47). The trust in spirituality presupposes that matters are not wholly in one's hands but also not totally out of one's hands.

Now there are emotional poisons that hinder such trust: paranoia, envy and resentment. Envy, for example, “closes off any possibility of appreciating ourselves for ourselves or getting along with those we envy… . [Envy] closes off that larger view that allows us to be thankful for what we’ve got, accepting of what we do not have, and grateful for the very chance to be so alive at all” (Solomon 2002, 54–55, emphasis in original). (At this point Solomon confesses that the struggle against envy and resentment are why spirituality is such a challenge for him.)

Now the spiritual life is sometimes wrongly defined as life without the distractions of affections. On the contrary, for Solomon, the spiritual life is defined by the most passionate caring, and in fact this defines its rationality. Reason and the passions are ultimately one and the same. “Spirituality is and must be both rational and passionate at once,” although there are both irrational and dangerous forms of spirituality (Solomon 2002, 61).

Rationality is “not just our ability to criticize and argue, but also the perspicacity and vision to appreciate complexity, to find (or make) meaning in disorder and confusion” (Solomon 2002, 62). But this is what passions do, too. The right passions bring perspicacity and vision that are characteristics of rationality. Science is not the only kind of rationality.

Solomon turns now to the problem of suffering. Life is not fair. Bad things happen. Spirituality accepts that fact. But that is not to say that life is meaningless, nor does it justify dwelling on tragedies or overlooking the blessings and benefits of life. We need not opt for feeling victimized or for cynicism. Feeling victimized and cynicism are sometimes the products of our eagerness for blame and our extravagant sense of entitlement. We need a combination of gratitude and humor. We need to confront tragedy and engage passionately with the people and details of our life.

Life is a gift none of us deserves. The odds are that one would have been born impoverished, malnourished and ignorant, in the midst of famine, war or dictatorship. Thus gratitude is the best approach to life. It implies an admission of limitation as well as appreciation.

Spirituality is the enlargement, not the negation of the self. It is not just an awareness of suffering, but also a sense of the joy of the world. Spirituality involves a compassionate ordinary self that has become enlarged and enhanced. To get locked into petty tasks and competitions is a distortion of ourselves. Selfishness turns out to be a constriction of our humanity. In fact, one can speak of “soul” as the full realization of our ordinary self. Thus soul is both something natural and something to be striven for. Perhaps soul is our better self.

The naturalized notion of spirituality is an arduous process but well worth striving for. It is awareness not only of suffering but of cosmic joy and humor as well.

Ursula Goodenough.

Professor of biology at Washington University and past president of the American Society of Cell Biology, Ursula Goodenough is the author of a best‐selling textbook on genetics. Her major writing as a religious naturalist is The Sacred Depths of Nature, which made the New York Times best‐seller list (Goodenough 1998). She adopts a completely naturalistic, explicitly nontheist outlook. [This and the next two sections are adapted from Stone 2008.]

Goodenough has two starting points: first, the existence of the universe as a whole and the fact of our existence within it and second the major steps in the evolution of life and of humans.

As for the first point, the existence of the universe, she affirms that the opportunity to develop personal beliefs in response to ultimate questions, such as “Why is there anything at all?,” is important for humans. Even though her beliefs are naturalistic, she does not dismiss these questions as meaningless or treat them as simply scientific questions. Her own response is “to articulate a covenant with Mystery.” She speaks of responses of gratitude that our planet is “perfect for human habitation” and “astonishingly beautiful” and of reverence in the face of the vast lengths of time, the enormous improbability and the splendid diversity of it all (Goodenough 1998, 167–8). Her naturalism is explicit in her profession that “this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty” plus her ability to apprehend it serve as the source of ultimate meaning and value, requiring no further justification, no Creator (Goodenough 1998, 171). These attitudes she sees as giving rise to action to further the continuance of life, including human life.

As for the second point, the steps in evolution, each chapter of The Sacred Depths of Nature starts with a description of a step in evolution. (And may I note here parenthetically that if you haven't studied biology recently, her book is a good way to catch up. I recommend it as a gift for young people struggling with biology. It has a lot of detail but is clearly written.) After explaining the biology briefly, she has a rich set of “Reflections” at the end of each chapter in The Sacred Depths of Nature. These reflections include meditations on the development of enzyme cascades, on speciation, on the regulation of gene expression, reflections on “assent,” on deference toward diversity of species, on the nature of human distinctiveness amidst other species, and on the difference between cosmic mystery and a sense of immanence. For example, to choose the reflections at the end of only one chapter, “it was the invention of death, the invention of the germ/soma dichotomy, that made possible the existence of our brains” that can face the prospect of our own death (Goodenough 1998, 149).

These reflections are combined with carefully chosen selections from poems, hymns, and meditations from a variety of cultures and religious traditions. Thus she moves from scientific inquiry through disciplined deliberation on her deeply felt responses to it, culminating in an artistically crafted expression incorporating gems from the world's cultures all wrought in her own poesis, to use her term.

She conceives of her task as exploring the religious potential of the scientific understanding of Nature. This task of exploration is made easier by the emergence in recent decades of a coherent scientific cosmology and account of evolution. Such a task is a poiesis, a religiopoiesis, a making or crafting of religious material. No one person, of course, constructs a religion. But unless individuals “offer contributions, there will be no ‘stuff’ available to cohere into new religious orientations in future times” (Goodenough 2000, 562). Thus she conceives of her task as contributing to the making of religious material for those in the future with a naturalistic outlook.

A viable religious orientation, she claims, comes from the integration of spirituality and beliefs. When the scientific accounts of cosmology evoke what could be called our beliefs, we find ourselves walking humbly and with gratitude in the presence of the scientific accounts. Religiopoiesis, in the end, is engaged in finding how to tell the scientific story of evolution in ways that convey meaning and motivation (Goodenough 2000, 565).

From her perspective our scientific account of Nature, the Epic of Evolution, is the one story that has the potential to unite us all, because it seems to be the most adequate account we currently have. A cosmology works as a religious cosmology only if it resonates, if it makes the listener feel religious. The scientific account of how things are and came to be is likely, at first encounter, to elicit alienation, anomie, and nihilism. A naturalistic religiopoiesis needs to overcome such alienation. She suggests that the scientific account, rightly grasped, can elicit gratitude and reverence and help us acknowledge an “imperative that life continue” (Goodenough 1998, xvii).

Goodenough and Woodruff.

Since The Sacred Depths of Nature, Goodenough has been exploring several innovative lines of thought. One of these is the concept of mindful reverence. In collaboration with philosopher Paul Woodruff, she explores reverence and other virtues (Goodenough and Woodruff 2001; see Woodruff 2001). To be mindful as developed here is more than awareness in the classic Buddhist sense: it is scientifically informed consideration. But it is also more than learning scientific facts. It is living in consideration of them. It is to be mindful of our place in the scheme of things. Reverence is a capacity, developed in the process of evolution, a capacity that can be cultivated.

Goodenough also has come to distinguish between horizontal and vertical transcendence. The spirituality of horizontal transcendence requires identification not merely with the nonhuman living, but also with the inanimate, “the massive mysticism of stone,” to use Robinson Jeffers’s phrase (Kalton 2000, 199). The reward of vertical transcendence is unification with a purposeful Creator. The reward of horizontal transcendence is homecoming. The ethics of vertical transcendence is fitting into an ideal scheme. The ethics of horizontal transcendence is responding appropriately to our situation. “An ethical approach to nature must be anchored both in deep attunement and deep knowledge” (Goodenough 2001, 29). Our children must have a chance to play in the woods and to be taught, with wonder, gratitude and respect, at their mother's knees, that the trees are genetically scripted.

Goodenough and Deacon.

Recently Ursula Goodenough and Terrence Deacon, professor of biological anthropology and linguistics at Berkeley, have been attempting to specify the concept of evolutionary emergence in detail and to articulate its significance for spirituality (Goodenough and Deacon 2006). In their formula, emergence refers to the generation of “something else from nothing but.”

While recognizing that some physicists suggest that emergence starts at the subatomic level, Goodenough and Deacon begin their story at the molecular level.

To condense the whole epic of evolution in a few sentences: with life genes encode proteins that fold into shapes that give rise to cell organization and behavior, metabolism and energy transduction, and communication between cells. These are emergent properties.

With the development of nervous systems, humans have new traits—symbolic languages, cultural transmission, and an autobiographical self—that are “something else” emergent from “nothing but” ancient protein families displayed in novel patterns and sequences. “Biologically we are just another ape; mentally we are a whole new phylum” (Deacon 1998).

Goodenough and Deacon go on to suggest religious responses to this evolutionary perspective. Both are “religious nontheists,” which makes them of interest to our topic.

Now for spirituality. Goodenough and Deacon suggest that one spiritual response to emergentism will be a re‐enchantment of the universe whenever we take its continuous coming into being into awareness and a re‐enchantment of our lives when we realize that we also are continually transcending ourselves. Another spiritual response will be reverence, a deconstruction of hubris and a recognition that our context is vastly larger and more important than our selves. Further, the emergentist outlook can inspire our stammering gratitude for the creative universe, this astonishing whole to which we owe our lives.

Deacon centers his notion of spirituality, much like Goodenough's notion of “horizontal transcendence,” on a sense of connectedness with the world. He also refers to an extended self beyond the space and time of our bodies, for the consequences of our lives ramify in all directions through all time. He suggests this as an improvement over the usual self‐centered spirituality focusing on saving an immortal soul.

Sharon Welch.

Sharon Welch, provost at Meadville Lombard Theological School and writer in the field of social ethics, has been reflecting on how to work for social justice under conditions of finitude with limited knowledge about the consequences of our actions and no assurance about their success. In particular, how do people of relative privilege work with people of less privilege and different ideas?[This section is adapted from my Religious Naturalism Today, where I have given a fuller analysis of her key concepts (Stone 2008, 146–8, 206–7).]

Her thinking about the spiritual dimension of social action falls into two periods. In both periods the divine is not a separate entity. In her earlier period the divine is a characteristic of relationships or of the capacity to enter into right relationships with other people, with nature and with ourselves. Hers is a theology of radical immanence. There is no separate divine entity. Rather than God‐language, she uses “divine” as an adjective to refer to grace or the power of relations (Welch 2000).

In her later writing Welch is even more reticent to use traditional religious language. She is acutely aware that our actions are morally ambiguous. She is keenly aware of how religious people can be cruel and destructive. For her the power of religion is in “the collective support of meaning and commitment.” This communal solace, joy and challenge is not unambiguously good.

Religious experience … is fundamentally amoral. Belonging to a religious

group … can as easily fuel campaigns of genocide and coercion as movements

of compassion and social transformation. Slave owners and abolitionists,

participants in the Civil Rights movement and members of the Ku Klux Klan,

alike drew comfort and challenge from their religious beliefs and their

participation in religious communities. (Welch 1999, 127)

She now speaks of the wellspring of moral action as arising from such things as gratitude, joy, mourning and rage. Acts of persistence, resistance, and transformation spring from a reservoir of vitality and joy in life. They come from gratitude and the affirmation of this life in which there is suffering and moral failure, where we make mistakes and where we love people who will die. Welch no longer uses religious language, even tenuously.

Spirituality has power and value, and yet is fraught with danger. What is needed is an ironic spirituality that recognizes our limits and failures and finds joy in our successes. We need to be ironic and committed, suspicious and celebrative simultaneously (Welch 1999, 128 and 156 n. 25).

André Comte‐Sponville.

For Comte‐Sponville, author of The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, there are certain moments of experience or awareness of the All, the entire universe of being, when the Ego vanishes (Comte‐Sponville 2007). These are moments of affirmation and of acceptance. These moments are rare but powerful enough to be unforgettable, moments that can be characterized by such words as mystery, self‐evidence, plenitude, eternity, serenity, and acceptance.

William R. Murry.

Unitarian Universalist minister and former president of Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary, William R, Murry has been showing how religious humanism is an adequate approach to life in the twenty‐first century. In Becoming More Fully Human develops a theory of virtues, including reverence and awareness (Murry 2011, 87–9 and 119–21). Both of these are often considered aspects of spirituality.

Drawing on Paul Woodruff, Murry articulates a nontheist approach to reverence. It involves awe and respect for what transcends humanity, particularly justice and nature. Surely nature is transcendent to humans and, as an unrealized ideal, justice is also beyond us. Reverence thus can save us from the hubris that can destroy the good we have accomplished.

Awareness is paying attention. It is similar to Buddhist mindfulness; indeed Murry uses the terms interchangeably. Awareness involves attention in the present moment both to the world around us and to the total complex we call our minds and bodies.

This survey of the literature indicates that there is a great deal of current interest in spirituality without God or a metaphysical transcendent. These recent advocates of natural spirituality are saying three things about spirituality: We are spiritual, first, when our sense of connection is enlarged. Second, we are spiritual when we aspire to greater things, when we attempt to realize our ideals. Finally, we are spiritual when we ask the big questions. Note that these three—connection, aspiration, and reflection on profound questions—are all forms of enlarging our selves, of breaking through the narrow walls of the ego.