Philosophy’s roles in the spiritual life

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A few days ago, I presented “Philosophy’s roles in the spiritual life” in a Thought Leaders Forum hosted by Urantia University Institute. Below is a slightly revised version (especially in the definition of phenomenology) of the script I used for that event. That presentation initiated the conversation that continues with this blogpost and your comments.

To follow the link for that UUI video (with some answers to priceless questions that came in on chat), click on this sentence.

If you would like to watch the quick video that I created to introduce this blogpost, click here. For the audio version, the podcast episode, click here.

If you missed the Forum and the 90-minute video is not realistic for you, then I ask that you read the rest of the blogpost before you comment on it.

When you are ready to continue your exploration of the chat discussion and specific links for many of the philosophical disciplines, go to the philosophy of living part of this website. There I also post some of the priceless chat questions, which you are also free to discuss in comments to this blogpost.

Two ground rules for the comments, please. Firsts, the rule of living—the golden rule: Communicate with others as you want others to communicate with you. Second, stay on topic. This is an educational site, not place for general social-spiritual sharing or agenda that are unrelated to the topic(s) of the blogpost.

When you are ready,

Here the script of the Forum begins, slightly revised, especially in the description of phenomenology.

 

Let us open our time together by entering into the consciousness of Deity.

Jesus, we know that two conditions of effective prayer are to pray exclusively for wisdom . . . after we have been industrious in searching for it. Thank you for answering our prayer by giving us an expanded revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness.

Mother, we know that the seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness. Mother, thank you.

And Father, matchless personality, indwelling us as love and will, as the father of the soul and the one who conducts our worship, we enter your embrace for a short time of silence.

 

(Deep breath)

 

Elisabeth Callahan sent out this quote in her invitation to the Thought Leaders Forum that provided the occasion for this presentation, titled, “What are philosophy’s roles in the spiritual life?” I call it the invitation quote.

^{110:3.6 (1206.4)} You must not regard co-operation with your Adjuster as a particularly conscious process, for it is not; but your motives and your decisions, your faithful determinations and your supreme desires, do constitute real and effective co-operation. You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by:

1. Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then co-ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love.
2. Loving God and desiring to be like him—genuine recognition of the divine fatherhood and loving worship of the heavenly Parent.
3. Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him—wholehearted recognition of the brotherhood of man coupled with an intelligent and wise affection for each of your fellow mortals.
4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship—honest recognition of your progressive obligations to the Supreme Being, awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity. This is the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.

What is philosophy?

Socrates would say that a philosopher is a friend of wisdom. To befriend wisdom implies that we live in accord with the wisdom we have; realize when we need more wisdom, and then seek it through rigorous thinking.

How does philosophy work? To acquire the truths of philosophy, we interpret the meaning of concepts.

• truth, beauty, goodness
• causation, duty, worship
• universe, science, human being, love, God, (the list goes on)

In philosophy, there is always a lot to discuss. There are competing philosophies, centered in science or humanistic culture, or spiritual truth. And it can be difficult to apply philosophy to our lives, for example, in making a moral decision.

Philosophy specializes in a higher quality of thinking . . . that weaves an ever-growing synthesis of

• intuition
• reason
• wisdom

Philosophers often strive for an integrated concept embracing the full range of human experience and all dimensions of universe reality.

We gather wisdom from sources high and low—like the Ancients of Days, who receive “a stream of the wisdom of divinity from the universe above and a flood of the wisdom of practicality from the higher minds of the universes below.”

To sum up: at its best, philosophy clarifies intuition, interprets meaning, synthesizes concepts, reasons logically, prays effectively, criticizes judiciously, and knows when to shut up—all based on an ever-expanding scientific study of the topic in question. The result: wisdom. The organizational headquarters of the human mind is in good shape.

 

What roles does philosophy play in the spiritual life?

Here I will present philosophy as having three roles in the spiritual life: (1) part-way up the mountain; (2) part-way down the mountain; and (3) leap-frog.

Philosophy as part-way up the mountain to worship

“[Science gives] way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.” (112:2.11/1228.6)

Part-way down the mountain

Consider Mother’s adjutant mind-spirits: the spirits of intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge, counsel, worship, and wisdom. Worship takes you to the top of the mountain; and to coordinate the top of the mountain with the base of the mountain, you need wisdom.

Leap-frog

In leap-frog, philosophy and spiritual experience take turns, humbly kneeling down to allow the other one to go over. Every leap forward of one enables the next leap forward of the other. We’ve already seen philosophy yield to worship. Here’s meaning added to, or going beyond, value.

^{65:8.6 (740.2)} When physical conditions are ripe, sudden mental evolutions may take place; when mind status is propitious, sudden spiritual transformations may occur; when spiritual values receive proper recognition, then cosmic meanings become discernible, and increasingly the personality is released from the handicaps of time and delivered from the limitations of space.

And it takes worship-wisdom in tandem to rescue planetary civilization.

 

(A deep breath)

 

Segment 1: Part-way up the mountain

Consider a portion of the invitation quote, the one from the invitation email to this Forum.

^{110:3.6 (1206.4)} You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by . . .

3. . . . Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him—wholehearted recognition of the brotherhood of man coupled with an intelligent and wise affection for each of your fellow mortals.

 

We have a little skit for you now, with three characters, Intelligent, Wise, and Affection.

 

Affection: It says here, “an intelligent and wise affection.” Since I am Affection, I just want you always to remember that I am the noun and you, Intelligent and Wise, are the adjectives. You are modifications of me. What do you have to say for yourselves? Intelligent?

Intelligent: Well . . . I’d say that you need a lot of modification. The other day I saw you gushing affection on someone who was put off by it, and you didn’t even think to find out about their needs or to recognize your tendency to do this kind of thing. You need to read the chapter on scientific living in the book by Jeffrey Wattles, Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

Affection (reluctantly): Well, thanks, Intelligent, but I must say that you could sure use some affection. Wise?

Wise: I saw that same episode. It was more self-display than love. And when you failed to do good to the other person, you didn’t even recognize your need for me. You said, “I did something stupid.” But it wasn’t stupid. It was foolish! You need to do the work! Don’t mouth the words “truth, beauty, and goodness” over and over as though you are at the top of the mountain.

Affection: Well . . . thanks for your honest feedback. I guess I really need you two.

 

The main lesson of the skit is that our love may not always be as spiritual as we think it is, because we are not mobilizing our (scientific) intelligence and (philosophical) wisdom.

Now, to cultivate an intelligent and wise affection for each of your fellow mortals, let’s look at Jesus’ six levels of interpretation of the golden rule, the rule of living (147:4/1650). You recall that level 5, the moral level involves wisdom and philosophy.

The level of the flesh is material-minded and self-centered. The level of feelings brings in sympathy and pity. The level of the mind engages reason and science and life experience and the idealism inherent in the nobility that comes from profound self-respect. The level of brotherly love activates

^{147:4.7 (1651.1)} “unselfish devotion to the welfare of one’s fellows. On this higher plane of wholehearted social service growing out of the consciousness of the fatherhood of God and the consequent recognition of the brotherhood of man, there is discovered a new and far more beautiful interpretation of this basic rule of life.”

People who achieve this level generally feel very spiritual for understandable reasons. But they have not yet completed this path.

Level 5 is the moral level.

^{147:4.8 (1651.2)} And then when you attain true philosophic levels of interpretation, when you have real insight into the rightness and wrongness of things, when you perceive the eternal fitness of human relationships, you will begin to view such a problem of interpretation as you would imagine a high-minded, idealistic, wise, and impartial third person would so view and interpret such an injunction as applied to your personal problems of adjustment to your life situations.

Here we confront difficulties that can be overwhelming. What philosophical levels of interpretation lead us into to real insight into the rightness and wrongness of things and the eternal fitness of human relationships? Yikes. It is sobering to discover that we cannot avoid philosophy if we want to love, pray, and live the golden rule excellently.

This is the moment to recall that our ideals may grow geometrically, but the will of God is simply for us to act at the level of our ability, which only grows arithmetically. We notice lessons in morality as we study The Urantia Book, for example, these universal duties:

1. Always to show adequate respect for the experience and endowments of [our] seniors and superiors
2. Always to be considerate of the limitations and inexperience of [our] juniors and subordinates.” (107:3/1179)

And regarding the eternal fitness of human relationships, we see in the Creator Son and the Mother Spirit the pattern of equality and complementarity in human marriage. And so on.

On the basis of achievements with the teachings of the previous levels, we are ready for the spiritual level, as we learn to treat others in a God-like way, as we come to know Jesus so well that we know what he would do in circumstances that are similar to our own.

 

Now, my question for you is this. If you could find a gentle, step-by-step way forward in philosophy, would you be willing to set aside a few minutes to read and ponder one new paragraph each day?

 

(Deep breath; get up and stretch and move)

 

Segment 2: Part-way down the mountain

Here’s another portion of the invitation quote.

^{110:3.6 (1206.4)} You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by . . .

4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship—honest recognition of your progressive obligations to the Supreme Being, awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity. This is the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.

 

Suppose that you are engaged in some project for personal growth, child-rearing, care for another person, the gospel movement, the Urantia Book movement, any ecological, social, economic, political, artistic, philosophical, or religious purpose—any project that will help uplift the planet and contribute to the Supreme. And then you decide to seek for wisdom about the concept of duty. You turn to the section on the cosmic mind. The cosmic mind is the source of our intuitions (insights) into three levels of reality.

^{16:6.6 (192.2)} 1. Causation—the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. . . .

2. Duty—the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. . . .
3. Worship—the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. . . . .

 

So duty is the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm. But what is the philosophic realm? The tree of philosophy has many branches. Each branch is a philosophical discipline that can help you sharpen your capacity for intuition-insight and gain wisdom for your project. Here are three of the many philosophical disciplines.

• Philosophy of science, which helps you evaluate the seemingly solid factual base that you are relying on for your project.
• Philosophy of religion, which helps you cope with the question of what to do when you ponder the fact that we cannot tell whether an impressive phenomenon in the mind comes from the superconscious or the subconscious.
• Ethics, which helps you make good moral decisions and develop excellence of character.

We’ll mention more philosophical disciplines in segment 3.

Please stop now and ponder this next question. What one question do you have about seeking wisdom for your project?

 

(Deep breath, time to move and stretch)

 

SEGMENT 3: Leap-frog

Consider this portion of the invitation quote.

^{110:3.6 (1206.4)} You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by:

1. . . . sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness . . . .

This phrase recalls the philosophy of living sketched at the end of Paper 2. The last four paragraphs of Paper 2 include these two sentences.

^{2:7.9 (43.2)} The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.

The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness.

Why do I talk about leap-frog here? Because there is a weave between intellectual-philosophical-cultural components and spiritual components.

There is no simple linear ascent or descent.

 

	Love
Truth	Beauty	Goodness
Truths of spiritual . . .	yes, spiritual . . .	experience!
Truths of philosophy	The charm of the arts
Truths of science	Beauties of nature	Morality
	Character achievement

 

I add love at the top as a reminder that it is the source, sum, and destiny of truth, beauty, and goodness. I centered the grandeur of genuine character on its own line because it unifies virtues developed in each of the emerging philosophy’s seven areas.

Philosophy has disciplines in all these areas. Aesthetics for beauty, ethics for goodness, and lots of disciplines in the truth area. Here is a fuller list.

The philosophical disciplines

• Philosophy of science: so that you can reflect on the philosophical assumptions in the sources of factual information that you rely on
• Logic: how to reason accurately—and fairly!
• Phenomenology (experienceology): clarifying how we know (epistemology) as correlated with what we know (metaphysics)
• Philosophy of thinking: for a quality of thinking whose process embraces intuition, reason, and wisdom
• Hermeneutics: interpreting meanings
• Philosophy of religion: what to do about the fact that we can’t tell whether the gleaming input that has come into consciousness is from the superconscious or the sub-conscious?
• Aesthetics: how to find the Supreme in the beauty of physical harmony; coordinate spiritual beauty with beauty in nature and the arts—including artistic living.
• Ethics: personal morality, social equity, and divine ministry; and the grandeur of genuine character achievement

Note: the following quote from Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, p. 49 goes beyond the first paragraph used in the original presentation.

One model of the exercise of reason comes from Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).^[1] When thinking about a particular subject, he took into consideration ideas from ancient and contemporary philosophers and from theologians of different religions. He organized his discussion of topics into a sequence of sharply focused questions. For each question, he created a short article, which began by listing the main objections that his historical and contemporary conversation partners could raise about the answer he was about to defend, and then set forth his own view in a brief, clear, reasoned way. Finally, he showed how to handle the previously stated objections.

If people could form the habit of using an abbreviated version of this procedure prior to entering a debate on a contentious issue, this could transform public discussion from polarized polemics into peaceful progress. It is essential to listen deeply to the perspectives of the groups involved. Fairness requires acknowledging that key premises in each group’s position may (perhaps crudely and partially) express a genuine value. In angry debate, opposing sides fail to acknowledge the values cherished by their opponents. True, sometimes a one-sided position finds the insight that slices through all the confusion and goes straight to the right conclusion. But a judicious examination of key ideas from all sides is a more reliable guide to reaching a sound conclusion. In a complex problem, truth cannot be told via one-sidedness; good judgment requires a sense of proportion.

Philosophical training in rational thinking does not ensure that our ideas will be correct, but it does help us spot some types of error. This is serious business, because thinking depends greatly on basic convictions; and in drawing conclusions, any one of us can make big mistakes based on one key premise that is seriously wrong.

Taking a couple of courses on formal logic and critical thinking (informal logic) would improve our ability to protect ourselves from sophistry and participate constructively in group discussion. The study of logic provides a vocabulary for identifying and explaining errors that occur when reasoning—our own or that of others—goes bad, and it helps organize our thoughts in a legitimately persuasive way. It is sad to contemplate the flood of shoddy thinking that pervades public media, which are overloaded with manipulative commercial and political messages. I sometimes entertain the idea that training in logic should be regarded as a requirement for responsible functioning as an adult. It should be widely known that philosophy can be taught at all levels, and that children can begin to develop logical thinking before being trained in formal logic.

Can it be that our intuitive and spontaneous spiritual loving is sometimes not as intuitive and spiritual and loving as we think it is? Can it be that we could use a truth-beauty-and-goodness on-ramp to love, so that our love becomes increasingly based upon understanding, more wise, and more genuinely spiritual?

Final question. If you had to choose a philosophical discipline to start working on a little bit, which one would it be?

[To continue your exploration, please go to the philosophy of living part of this website.]

[1] Thomas’s Summa Theologica is available at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/.

Photo credit: this is statue of Socrates, here represented in a plaster case; the original is in the British Museum.

By Zde – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44259251[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]