Religious naturalism


Religious naturalism combines a naturalist worldview with ideals, perceptions, traditions, and values that have been traditionally associated with many religions or religious institutions. "Religious naturalism is a perspective that finds religious meaning in the natural world and rejects the notion of a supernatural realm." The term religious in this context is construed in general terms, separate from the traditions, customs, or beliefs of any one of the established religions.
Areas of inquiry include attempts to understand the natural world and the spiritual and moral implications of naturalist views. Understanding is based on knowledge obtained through scientific inquiry, and insights from the humanities and the arts. Religious naturalists use these perspectives when they respond to personal and social challenges and concerning the natural world.

Overview

Naturalism

All forms of religious naturalism, being naturalistic in their basic beliefs, assert that the natural world is the center of our most significant experiences and understandings. Consequently, Nature is looked at as the ultimate value in assessing one's being. Despite having followed differing cultural and individual paths, religious naturalists affirm the human need for meaning and value in their lives. They draw on two fundamental convictions in those quests: the sense of Nature's richness, spectacular complexity, and fertility, and the recognition that Nature is the only realm in which people live out their lives. Humans are considered interconnected to various parts of Nature.
Science is a fundamental, indispensable component of the paradigm of religious naturalism. It relies on mainstream science to reinforce religious and spiritual perspectives. Science is the primary interpretive tool for religious naturalism because scientific methods provide the most reliable understanding of Nature and the world, including human nature.

Religious

Religious naturalists use the term "religious" to refer to an attitude of being appreciative of and interested in concerns that have long been a part of religions.
These include:
As the source of all that is and the reason why all things are as they are, the natural world can be of utmost importance.
As in other religious orientations, religious naturalism includes a central story, a modern creation myth, to describe humanity and its place in the world. This story begins with the Big Bang and the emergence of galaxies, stars, planets, life, and evolution that led to the emergence of human beings. Taking this insight into the being and origin of humans, religious naturalists look to the natural world, as the source of human intelligence and inclinations, for information and insights that may help to understand and respond to unanswered philosophical questions such as :
Furthermore, religious naturalists try to find ways to minimize problems, to allow us to better ourselves, and relate to others and the world we are part of.
When discussing distinctions between religious naturalists and secular naturalists, Loyal Rue said: "I regard a religious or spiritual person to be one who takes ultimate concerns to heart." He noted that, while "plain old" naturalists are concerned with morals and may have emotional responses to the mysteries and wonders of the world, those who describe themselves as religious naturalists take it more "to heart" and show an active interest in this area.

History

Core themes in religious naturalism have been present, in varied cultures, for centuries. But active discussion, with the use of this name, is relatively recent.
Zeno said:
Views consistent with religious naturalism can be seen in ancient Daoist texts and some Hindu views. They may also be seen in Western images that do not focus on active, personal aspects of God, such as Thomas Aquinas' view of God as Pure Act, Augustine's God as Being Itself, and Paul Tillich's view of God as Ground of Being. As Wesley Wildman has described, views consistent with religious naturalism have long existed as part of the underside of major religious traditions, often quietly and sometimes in mystical strands or intellectual sub-traditions, by practitioners who are not drawn to supernatural claims.
The earliest uses of the term, religious naturalism, seem to have occurred in the 1800s. In 1846, the American Whig Review described "a seeming 'religious naturalism'", In 1869, American Unitarian Association literature adjudged:"Religious naturalism differs from this mainly in the fact that it extends the domain of nature farther outward into space and time....It never transcends nature". Ludwig Feuerbach wrote that religious naturalism was "the acknowledgment of the Divine in Nature" and also "an element of the Christian religion", but by no means that religion's definitive "characteristic" or "tendency".
, traditionally the author of the Tao Te Ching In 1864, Pope Pius IX condemned religious naturalism in the first seven articles of the Syllabus of Errors.
Mordecai Kaplan, one of the great rabbis of the 20th century and the founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, was an early advocate of religious naturalism. He believed that a naturalistic approach to religion and ethics was possible in a desacralizing world. He saw God as the sum of all-natural processes.
Other verified usages of the term came in 1940 from George Perrigo Conger and from Edgar S. Brightman. Shortly thereafter, H. H. Dubs wrote an article entitled Religious Naturalism – an Evaluation, which begins "Religious naturalism is today one of the outstanding American philosophies of religion..." and discusses ideas developed by Henry Nelson Wieman in books that predate Dubs's article by 20 years.
In 1991 Jerome A. Stone wrote The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence explicitly "to sketch a philosophy of religious naturalism". Use of the term was expanded in the 1990s by Loyal Rue, who was familiar with it from Brightman's book. Rue used the term in conversations with several people before 1994, and subsequent conversations between Rue and Ursula Goodenough took a major leap forward in 1998 when Ursula Goodenough published The Sacred Depths of Nature, which is considered one of the founding texts of this movement."
Biologist Ursula Goodenough states:
Donald Crosby's Living with Ambiguity published in 2008, has, as its first chapter, "Religion of Nature as a Form of Religious Naturalism".
Loyal Rue's Nature is Enough published in 2011, discusses "Religion Naturalized, Nature Sanctified" and "The Promise of Religious Naturalism".
Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative is a history by Dr. Jerome A. Stone that presents this paradigm as a once-forgotten option in religious thinking that is making a rapid revival. It seeks to explore and encourage religious ways of responding to the world on a completely naturalistic basis without a supreme being or ground of being. This book traces this history and analyzes some of the issues dividing religious naturalists. It covers the birth of religious naturalism, from George Santayana to Henry Nelson Wieman and briefly explores religious naturalism in literature and art. Contested issues are discussed including whether nature's power or goodness is the focus of attention and also on the appropriateness of using the term "God". The contributions of more than twenty living religious naturalists are presented. The last chapter ends the study by exploring what it is like on the inside to live as a religious naturalist.
Chet Raymo writes that he had come to the same conclusion as Teilhard de Chardin: "Grace is everywhere", and that naturalistic emergence is in everything and far more magical than religion-based miracles. A future humankind religion should be ecumenical, ecological, and embrace the story provided by science as the "most reliable cosmology".
As P. Roger Gillette summarizes:

Tenets

Due to the high importance placed on nature, some religious naturalists have a strong sense of stewardship for the Earth. Luther College professor Loyal Rue has written:
Religious naturalists will be known for their reverence and awe before Nature, their love for Nature and natural forms, their sympathy for all living things, their guilt for enlarging the ecological footprints, their pride in reducing them, their sense of gratitude directed towards the matrix of life, their contempt for those who abstract themselves from natural values, and their solidarity with those who link their self-esteem to sustainable living.

Varieties

The literature related to religious naturalism includes many variations in conceptual framing. This reflects individual takes on various issues, to some extent various schools of thought, such as basic naturalism, religious humanism, pantheism, panentheism, and spiritual naturalism that have had time on the conceptual stage, and to some extent differing ways of characterizing Nature.
The current discussion often relates to the issue of whether belief in a God or God-language and associated concepts have any place in a framework that treats the physical universe as its essential frame of reference and the methods of science as providing the preeminent means for determining what Nature is. There are at least three varieties of religious naturalism, and three similar but somewhat different ways to categorize them. They are:
The first category has as many sub-groups as there are distinct definitions for god. Believers in a supernatural entity are by definition not religious naturalists, however the matter of a naturalistic concept of God is currently debated. Strong atheists are not considered religious naturalists in this differentiation. Some individuals call themselves religious naturalists but refuse to be categorized. The unique theories of religious naturalists Loyal Rue, Donald A. Crosby, Jerome A. Stone, and Ursula Goodenough are discussed by Michael Hogue in his 2010 book The Promise of Religious Naturalism.
God concepts
Stone emphasizes that some religious naturalists do not reject the concept of God, but if they use the concept, it involves a radical alteration of the idea such as Gordon Kaufman who defines God as creativity.
Ignatowski divides religious naturalism into only two types—theistic and non-theistic.

Shared principles

There are several principles shared by the aforementioned varieties of religious naturalism:
The concept of emergence has grown in popularity with many religious naturalists. It helps explain how a complex Universe and life by self-organization have risen out of a multiplicity of relatively simple elements and their interactions. The entire story of emergence is related in the Epic of Evolution—the mythic scientific narrative used to tell the verifiable chronicle of the evolutionary process that is the Universe. Most religious naturalists consider the Epic of Evolution a true story about the historic achievement of Nature. "The Epic of Evolution is the 14 billion year narrative of cosmic, planetary, life, and cultural evolution—told in sacred ways. Not only does it bridge mainstream science and a diversity of religious traditions; if skillfully told, it makes the science story memorable and deeply meaningful, while enriching one's religious faith or secular outlook."
Many naturalistic writers have used this theme as a topic for their books using such synonyms as: Cosmic Evolution, Everybody's Story, Evolutionary Epic, Evolutionary Universe, Great Story, New Story, Universal Story. Connie Barlow writes: "Epic of evolution' is a term that, within the past three years, has become the theme and title of a number of gatherings. It seems to have been first used by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson in 1978. 'The evolutionary epic', Wilson wrote in his book On Human Nature, is probably the best myth we will ever have. Myth as falsehood was not the usage intended by Wilson in this statement. Rather, myth as a grand narrative that provides people with a placement in time—a meaningful placement that celebrates extraordinary moments of a shared heritage. The epic of evolution is science translated into a meaningful story."
Evolutionary evangelist minister Michael Dowd uses the term to help present his position that science and religious faith are not mutually exclusive. He preaches that the epic of cosmic, biological, and human evolution, revealed by science, is a basis for an inspiring and meaningful view of our place in the universe. Evolution is viewed as a spiritual process that it is not meaningless blind chance. He is joined by a number of other theologians in this position.

Notable proponents and critics

Proponents

Proponents of religious naturalism are seen from two perspectives. The first includes contemporary individuals who have discussed and supported religious naturalism, per se. The other includes historic individuals who may not have used or been familiar with the term, "religious naturalism", but who had views that are relevant to and whose thoughts have contributed to the development of religious naturalism.
Individuals who have openly discussed and supported religious naturalism, include:
Individuals who were precursors to religious naturalism, or who otherwise influenced its development, include:
Religious naturalism has been criticized from two perspectives. One is that of traditional Western religion, which disagrees with naturalist disbelief in a personal God. Another is that of naturalists who do not agree that a religious sense can or should be associated with naturalist views. Critics in the first group include supporters of traditional Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions. Critics in the second group include:
Religious naturalists sometimes use the social practices of traditional religions, including communal gatherings and rituals, to foster a sense of community, and to serve as reinforcement of its participants' efforts to expand the scope of their understandings. Some other groups mainly communicate online. Some known examples of religious naturalists groupings and congregation leaders are:
Religious Naturalism is the focus of classes and conferences at some colleges and theology schools. Articles about religious naturalism have appeared frequently in journals, including Zygon, American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, and the International Journal for Philosophy and Religion.