Many are happy to be spiritual but not religious. If asked to elaborate, I think they would say something like this:
Well, you know, I don't go to church or believe any one religion is true with a capital “T.” I don't really do organized religion. But I am spiritual. I'm open to a higher power. And if you want to call it God, that's fine. In fact, I think at times I've felt Him—Her? It?—you know, while watching the sunset, or sitting with old friends; that moment, that special feeling of being connected to something beyond us.
These ideas are familiar enough. Their distinguishing marks appear to be:
(a) Lack of interest in belonging to any specific religion.
(b) Lack of interest in affirming any definite creeds.
(c) Confidence that some Higher Power exists.
(d) Appreciation for experiences of a spiritual or transcendent character connecting us to that Higher Power.
Thus, being spiritual but not religious may appear hands-off. It plants no flags. From these seemingly minimal attitudes, however, we are ushered much further than it might seem. We are led, in fact, to organized religion.
Four properties of the Higher Power
If there is a Higher Power, what is it like? Spiritual-But-Not-Religious may prefer basking in mystery, but he does have some specific ideas. They’re worth bringing into relief.
For one, the Higher Power can be felt. It can and does enter into our experiences.
For another, experiencing the Higher Power is a good thing. Such moments are desirable, worth seeking even. And that would suggest the Higher Power itself is good, something to be sought rather than shunned or feared or reviled.
Third, the Higher Power is above us, beyond us, greater than we are, a thing worthy of awe and perhaps even adoration. It is a Higher Power, after all.
Finally, it is a Higher Power. This thing, whatever it is, is powerful, presumably more so than we, though I doubt Spiritual-But-Not-Religious is prepared to say just what this power comes to. Let’s leave that open-ended for now.
The point is, from the ordinary ways in which Spiritual-But-Not-Religious describes his outlook, we actually get four quite definite properties of God: (a) He can be experienced, (b) He is good, (c) He is beyond us, and (d) He is powerful.
The Higher Power is personal
If the Higher Power is good, in what does Its goodness consist? Perhaps It is like an ocean or a mountain range—good because vast and beautiful. On the other hand, perhaps It is good in the way a person can be good—a saint or a wise ruler or a loving parent, someone who cares for us and does what is right.
Notice the emotional difference between these two options. An ocean or a mountain range, no matter how sublime, cannot love you, cannot call to you, cannot guide you or forgive you. Only a personal being can do those things, a being who has a character, who knows and yearns and acts in the world.
But that alone doesn't show us the Higher Power is personal, only that we should hope so. Here is a reason to think It really is personal. As noted, Spiritual-But-Not-Religious has experienced the Higher Power in those passing moments of transcendence. And if not him, he’ll admit that others likely have. But why are those moments so fleeting and sporadic? One cannot manufacture them at will. They rather come upon us all of a sudden; they envelop like a pouring mist. And then, like that, they are gone. Why?
Skeptics may wish to explain away such experiences. Perhaps we’re misattributing a supernatural cause to natural euphoria. But that's not how Spiritual-But-Not-Religious feels. He is far more open-minded, and takes these experiences at face value. He thinks they relate him to a Divine Something, for he—unlike the skeptic—already believes a Divine Something exists. His “priors” are higher, as the Bayesians say.
Why, then, do these transcendent moments appear and vanish like rare birds?
If the Higher Power is an impersonal force, it is hard to explain this. We might imagine It as a patch of energy floating about, a sort of roving storm. But this could only be a metaphor. After all, the Higher Power isn't physical. It isn't something we can measure or explain with laws or destroy by scattering its atoms. And if it isn't physical, it doesn't occupy space. And if it doesn't occupy space, it can't literally float around.
On the other hand, if the Higher Power is a person, it has a will. And it can choose to make itself known to us. An impersonal, non-physical force can't come and go at will, but a living, loving person can.
It follows we should think the Higher Power is personal. For this gives us a better explanation of why these transcendent experiences are so fleeting and elusive. Perhaps what you have felt on those occasions is precisely what it seemed—a visitation. This supremely good and powerful Person reaches out to us, piercing the veil of shadows.
Why would the Higher Power do this? Since He is good, presumably His motives are good. The most natural suggestion, then, is that He reaches out because He desires our friendship, desires to encounter us and be encountered in turn, to pour out some of His goodness into our lives. Isn’t that precisely what those experiences feel like anyways?
Now this is rather remarkable. If we start with a Higher Power, one who enters our experience, we end with a Being who is good, powerful, immaterial, personal, desirous of our fellowship, and willing to disclose Himself to us. That is, in fact, quite a bit of theological detail for someone who had wished to avoid definite creeds.
Revealed religion
But here is the real catch. Isn't it likely—more likely than not—that such a being would at some point explicitly and officially reveal Himself to us? After all, we reasoned that He was interested in knowing us. Then wouldn't He come right out and say, "This is how you can befriend me. This is what I want from you. This is how to unlock my blessings." If the Higher Power is personal, and wants to know us, but realizes He is beyond our natural comprehension, we should expect Him to somehow accommodate Himself to us. We should expect Him to offer a revelation.
But in that case, there is a reasonable chance He has already done so. And therefore we should be rather interested in the world's monotheistic religions which claim to be revealed by God. Where you might have written these off as “organized religion,” they are now live options, and cannot be discarded like old hats. For there is a significant chance one of them speaks with the voice of Heaven.
We began with Spiritual-But-Not-Religious having rather vague doubts about whether any organized religions could be the way. But now we see that’s exactly what he should expect, if he reasons from his own premises. Spiritual-But-Not-Religion—in light of his own ideas about the Higher Power—has every reason to investigate the great monotheistic religions of the world.
Some advice
Let me offer some advice for setting about the investigation. First off, Hinduism and Buddhism are ruled out directly. For neither of these give us a personal God to befriend. There simply is no such being on Buddhism, and on Hinduism, Brahma, the god behind the gods, is far more like an impersonal force.
So, Spiritual-But-Soon-To-Be-Religious will want to start with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There are other monotheisms, to be sure. But it is difficult to imagine many Westerners becoming devout Zoroastrians. Thus, the big three would be a more natural starting place, given their resonance for many today. And the central dispute between them is the character of Jesus Christ. Who was this man? The Jewish scriptures tell of a coming Messiah. As one reads the Gospels, the question is, Could Jesus be that person? Or is Jesus rather what the Koran tells us, nothing more than a messenger of God, to be superseded by Mohammed? Now, the skeptic may dismiss all these scriptures as legendary (whether he should is another thing). But Spiritual should expect some of them to be more than that. And let us not be duped by the cliché that all religions say the same thing. They don’t. In particular, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam make conflicting claims about the identity of Jesus Christ. At most one of them can be right. The question is, Who was Jesus really?
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