What is spirituality?

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BlueKumul

BlueKumul

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Is there an official Catholic definition of spirituality?

My idea is that spirituality is a detachment from purely human, terrestrial concerns which allows you to see things from God’s perspective. Being finite creatures marred by sin we can only attempt this, so our spirituality will never be perfect before we enter Heaven.

Can an atheist be spiritual? Some claim to be, calling it “cosmic perspective”. The astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson is notorious for that. But since galaxies and black holes and whatever Mr Tyson studies are not conscious person, they cannot have any perspective at all. Without God, human (or other embodied beings) perspective is the only perspective in existence, making all attempts at spirituality invalid.
 
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BlueKumul said:
My idea is that spirituality is a detachment from purely human, terrestrial concerns which allows you to see things from God’s perspective.
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That’s a good one, and I think Catholic spirituality also involves recognizing His goodness in purely human, terrestrial concerns. It’s all part of the motion of relationship with God within ourselves, one another, and how we experience Him in creation.
BlueKumul said:
Can an atheist be spiritual?
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Yes, but they have a different vocabulary for what they experience. 🙂
BlueKumul said:
Without God, human (or other embodied beings) perspective is the only perspective in existence, making all attempts at spirituality invalid.
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Well, no one is without God, because God is within. Any person who has a conscience, for example, is connected to God within, God moving the person toward behavior that is not harmful. Much of relationship is subconscious. Love is from God; a person who loves, regardless of their belief system, is showing the love of God. The person may have some super-warped ideas, but the love comes from God.
 
My Congregation tackles the definition of spirituality by providing us with a mini-book (seriously, 80-90 pages with homework! 😂) to figure it out, as it’s not an easily distilled, one-size-fits-all thing. My feeble summary is that it’s about growth toward the holy life God calls us to; that’s a little different (or a lot, sometimes) for each of us.
 
BlueKumul said:
Is there an official Catholic definition of spirituality?

My idea is that spirituality is a detachment from purely human, terrestrial concerns which allows you to see things from God’s perspective.
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Can an atheist be spiritual?
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It’s probably worth considering that a non-Catholic might not be using the ‘official Catholic definition’. Are you trying to understand what Catholics would describe spirituality to be, or what the wider population means by it?

Usually when I hear people describe themselves as being ‘spiritual’ it simply means they accept the idea of a higher power or the idea there’s more to the universe than physical reality, but they don’t ascribe to a particular religion or belief system about such.
 
the secular version used in healthcare fr all people is related to the search for meaning and purpose. I think that is too humanistic psychological. It needs to include a relation ship with the Transcendent, what we call God.
 
I’m actually trying to erase non-Catholic views from my mind. By yes, secular and new age definitions are all over the place.
 
What word would you use instead of spiritual to describe the definition I gave above?
 
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

SPIRITUALITY. Positive immateriality; the property of being intrinsically independent of matter at least in essence and in some activities.
 
BlueKumul said:
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Can an atheist be spiritual?
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All humans have a spiritual immortal part called the soul and the spiritual life is lived mainly in the spiritual faculties of intellect and will, even though affecting both body and soul. God gives actual grace even to non-believers, that there may be conversion.
 
As someone who has been a spiritual aspirant for years, I know that the definition of it can be very malleable. I have only returned to Catholicism in the past few months, so I can’t say too authoritatively how it can be defined precisely in that vein, but I know that given the plethora of unique saints and doctors of the church who have by no means been homogeneous or identical, spirituality even in a religion as dogmatic and consistent as Catholicism contains great diversity.

In my view spirituality is like a rainbow. The same light exists but it manifests as a wide range of colors. I think even an atheist can be spiritual in that he may be open, albeit misguided, regarding the truth. He still may care about the truth, as so many atheists clearly do in their denunciation of theists as “irrational.” And truth can manifest in many ways. The very fact that we live in a Good world that mirrors God’s Goodness because it has its source in Him, means that we cannot run away from reality. We are parts of this reality and thus in some sense related to it.

Ultimately, I would say spirituality, true spirituality at least, means encountering Reality. It is the opposite of escapism. People in this age are distracted, and that is trying to run away from what is real. I think so long as you are committed in any respect towards reality, you are somewhat spiritual.
 
Dimmesdale said:
Ultimately, I would say spirituality, true spirituality at least, means encountering Reality. It is the opposite of escapism. People in this age are distracted, and that is trying to run away from what is real. I think so long as you are committed in any respect towards reality, you are somewhat spiritual.
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Very good Dimmesdale. certainly reality, truth and the search for it needs to be considered. But I hate to go negative, here goes, can a spirituality be negative. Was Nazism a spirituality? Prosperity gospel? or would we think of them as aberrant, distorted but basically still the search.

I think spirituality needs to be carefully distinguished from psychology and philosophy. They are too mental. Spirituality seems to be about and encounter with the divine who is other than my little ego. That encounter may be through nature, other people, music, art or any other mode.

Just some thought of mine.
 
Shakuhachi said:
Very good Dimmesdale. certainly reality, truth and the search for it needs to be considered. But I hate to go negative, here goes, can a spirituality be negative. Was Nazism a spirituality? Prosperity gospel? or would we think of them as aberrant, distorted but basically still the search.
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I think it would depend on the perceiver. A person may be sincerely following Nazism, thinking it is the truth. Hitler though I’m pretty confident only thought it a masquerade for mere power.

It is true that we are all searching for a good, whether it is relative or absolute. Actually, I would say that true spirituality is geared toward absolute good, as opposed to relative. The absolute good is the foundation of reality, maybe you could say. Maybe like the root of a tree from which all the other branches emerge…
Shakuhachi said:
I think spirituality needs to be carefully distinguished from psychology and philosophy. They are too mental. Spirituality seems to be about and encounter with the divine who is other than my little ego. That encounter may be through nature, other people, music, art or any other mode.

Just some thought of mine.
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I think you are right that spirituality is more universal. Not as departmentalized. But relative goods may refer back to the absolute, spiritual good. Finite goods mirror the object of our ultimate concern: God.
 
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Then maybe spirituality is simply our ultimate concern. As smart and as educated as one might be there is still plenty of mystery. So we all might understand our ultimate concern in different ways, .with and without a faith in “God” of some kind. So none of us really know our ultimate concern. It is more like a hunger within us. And so we search on many different paths.
 
To me, religion is the map, and spirituality is the actual relationship to God (Who is a spirit).

And no, a person who does not believe in spirits can’t be spiritual.

They might experience a rush of emotion at contemplating a beautiful sunset, but it’s emotion and not spirituality.
 
I’m referring to people who don’t believe in spirits, but call themselves spiritual.
 
Nazism had some “spiritual” component, they believed in a “racial soul” and at least some claimed to have the old germanic gods at their side. But it’s very likely for most it was only a masquerade for power lust. Al-Qaeda/ISIS are certainly very spiritual and very evil.

Bolshevism would be a better example of a movement altogether devoid of spirituality, as well as Ayn Rand’s philosophy and transhumanism.
 
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“Spirituality is the overriding term that describes engagement in things transcendental. Ultimate aims. Ultimate goals. It has to do with one’s connection with and commitment to ways of engaging transcendence. All adherents of religions, Christians or not, have a sense of transcendence or a sense of intimacy that drives how they try to live their lives, their piety, and their virtues and values.”

What does “transcendence” mean to an atheist, I wonder?
 
Atheists typically worship technology, but technology always corrodes spirituality and even morality. If you can protect yourself from painful effects of evil by purely technical means, you have no incentive to fight evil by moral means.

Transcendence is no less than Heaven. Technology aims at prolonging human life to thousands of years, making the prospect of death very remote and thus weakening the desire for transcendence.
 
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