Introduction to Rational Spirituality
by Francois Tremblay (e-mail: FTremblay@liberator.net) [July 3rd, 2003]Recently I have been working on a new discipline, which, for lack of a better term, I call Rational Spirituality. It tells it like it is : spirituality done rationally. My research hinges on finding what exactly the ramifications of Rational Spirituality are.
You probably think two more different terms could not be found. As commonly used I couldn't disagree with you. Some sketches of rationally spiritual ideas, such as pantheism, have always floated around, but no one has done a rational exploration of the subject.
“To be rational, any spiritual system must start from the premise that, if we want to say it simply, "everything is one" at a fundamental level.” But first, we must define what spirituality is, and how I think we can examine it rationally.
Every discipline starts with a question, an object. I take as our starting point the questions that all religions have tried to answer, but in an irrational, superficial way, the most desperate questions ever uttered :
"Why am I here ?" and "What is my place in the universe ?"
Of course, these questions entail other questions, such as the ontological nature of this universe, the ontological nature of the "I", or what it means to have a place. But their answers arise logically after we have sketched a preliminary answer to our main questions.
There are only two classes of answers. Monotheist religious doctrines (and other religions, to a lesser extent) have answered that the universe is cleaved in two - the natural and the supernatural - that there is a superpower inhabiting another realm - the god-concept, however it is named - and that this superpower has a Plan for all human beings.
All these answers come back to the same principle : man is special. Man is not a mundane part of the material realm, but has a supernatural soul, he has a purpose, he is eternal, he is outside of causality, he is part of the Plan. Man is the center of all things.
On the other hand, science has told us otherwise for centuries, and continues to tell us otherwise.
- Astronomy has told us that the Earth is not the center of the universe, but one planet orbiting a star in a quarter of a galaxy.
- Biology has told us that the human race was not specially created, but evolved naturally, along with all the other forms of life on this planet (and possibly all forms of life there is). What's more, humans are not even the end goal of evolution : it has no end goal at all, as far as we know.
- Biology has also told us that there is no "special race" or "superior race". In fact, there is far more genetic difference between individuals of a given "race" than between different "races".
- Neurology has been telling us, and is still researching, that the human mind is probably not a special, supernatural entity, but a consequence of the brain.
To this, we may add the conclusions of rational philosophy :
- Metaphysics has told us that reality is objective, apart from our own mind, and our whims, emotions, desires, etc.
- Epistemology has told us that our mode of perception is as valid as any other mode of perception. There is no privileged way of perceiving reality.
There is no escaping it. It is not just the god-concept which is contrary to Reason, but the whole answer that religion has given us. Man is not part of a supernatural, divinely-appointed Plan : he is part of a natural, causal determinism. Man's point of view is not privileged : our human constructs are simply that, constructs. They are extremely useful for our daily life, but when trying to grasp Existence, they must necessarily be limited.
To measure objectively whether a spiritual concept is rational or not, I use the words "integrative" and "dissociative".
As we have seen, dissociation represents the religious method - putting man apart from nature, the saved apart from the unsaved, the supernatural apart from the natural, the gods apart from their creations. An integrative concept, on the other hand, is a concept which conveys the unitary nature of Existence.
From the scientific discoveries I have named above, you can easily name some dissociative concepts. Subjectivism, geocentric theory, Creationism, racism and nationalism, the soul, are all such concepts.
On the other hand, pantheism (the belief in natural law as god) is an integrative concept, to a large extent. The notion of Tao is another integrative concept. When I say that they are integrative, I do not mean that they represent an absolute truth, but rather that they help us integrate this or that aspect of Existence, instead of dividing it.
The obvious problem is that, as we try to integrate more and more, words become useless, since words are units of division. This is a complex paradox which I discuss in great detail in my article Semantics and Grasping the Undifferentiated paradox". Suffice it to say here that there are practical limits to Rational Spirituality which are already apparent to me. But this does not make it any less worthwhile.
The god-concept, from this point of view, is very dissociative. In fact, you could say it is the most important element in religious dissociation. God's divine Plan, God's salvation and God's attention to Earth and humans are all elements of specialness which make the religion attractive. The integrative/dissociative tool permits to slash thru these pretenses.
So far I have not discussed the principles of Rational Spirituality, only the basic answer : to be rational, any spiritual system must start from the premise that, if we want to say it simply, "everything is one" at a fundamental level.
This may sound Buddhist. Indeed, it is undeniable that Buddhism is a very insightful religion. However, it does share many false premises with other religions, including the pretense that it can dictate scientific inquiry. If we are to stay within the domain of the rational, spirituality cannot dictate science, it must be informed by it. We cannot accept the Buddhist claims for reincarnation (in the strong form that Buddhists believe in, anyway) any more than we can accept the Christian claims for Creationism.
Buddhism also emphasizes the unknowable and the unsystematic, while a serious study must start from the premise of trying to know as much as possible thru systematic study. This is what I am doing with my research on Rational Spirituality - trying to build up a spiritual view of human behaviour and nature, our constructs and beliefs, the universe, and everything in between.
This is only a brief overview. I post a new article every month at the Suite 101 Rational Spirituality column.
Resources
Objective Thought: What is Rational Spirituality? Objective Thought: Semantics and Grasping the Undifferentiated paradox