We wrestle endlessly with the mysteries of human life and nature. Why would we not also wrestle with concepts and realities of spiritual life? Human life and the environment of nature offer some evidence that is verifiable about life and meaning. We honor it partly because it is inherently verifiable, providing confidence, in our perceptions of the laws of nature, education for future benefit. Even so, there remains considerable natural mystery. Spiritual life introduces a different context, beyond physical and natural evidence so to be approached differently, grasped in a different context of knowing. It is helpful to us in the process to give some attention to philosophy related to humankind. Philosophy is the theology (incorporating concepts beyond nature) of humanism, the search for mankind that is not material in its substance, but attached to the needs of mankind. Christian theology is the philosophy of God as taught by Scripture and experience. That couples both physical and spiritual meaning. Human beings run on parallel tracks, physical and spiritual, each serving the other for a balanced and safe ride to the future.
Significant to each for mankind is its longevity, and the need to adapt to the requirements of both. The natural is usually extended if the rules of nature (like effective nutrition and exercise) are followed. No matter how long the life of nature is extended it is learned and understood that it will conclude. We call it death (for vegetable or animal) for this or that in nature – even for things as rust to metal, or summer to winter. Spirituality addresses that which in super-nature never ends, especially related to divine life (immortality) and time overcome (eternity). This life implies a pattern never ending – to be gained in a context of faith or lost in omission or rejection of the meaning of spiritual faith. It is too complex for full natural explanation, but fully received in spiritual faith that covers mystery. An analogy appears in natural life faith in that we embrace life to fulfillment without knowing everything vital about that life.
I have been intrigued through years of study about natural and supernatural perceptions to note the attitudes of persons who accept and reject faith, even accept and reject the evidence of either context. Another one emerged for me in an article by Ann Hulbert, in The Atlantic, a serious and sophisticated magazine. The article is quite short, and is largely related to a book and its author, Barbara Ehrenreich: Living With a Wild God. Ehrenreich was walking alone in a high desert California town one morning when she was whacked by a power greater than herself . . . the world flamed into life. She had been puzzling about life, but could find no words for the blazing rush. She went on from there to become a graduate biology student, activist, journalist, cultural critic and historian. Even after all that she felt she was struck dumb. As a rationalist, atheist, scientist by training, she struggles with mystery and transcendence. Her observations continue in this vein. She has no interest in conversion: I believe in nothing. Hulbert, apparently supporting her subject wrote: Relief is intellectual surrender. She wants and inspires open minds. That is the claim. The elevated experience gained when Ehrenreich was in her late teens, remains with her. It is evidence of something. What is it? It seems more than hallucination, and she refers to it as opening some kind of glory for her – not a negative or fearful episode, but an epiphany. Similar experiences have been reported by many persons in history and responded to in various ways. They aroused wonder and questions. The least I would do as an educated and searching person is to investigate reputed meanings of such an event.
Many persons following such search have discovered life changing experience of joy, peace and comfort. Why would a seeking person write off an inspiring, even continuing, experience as that of Ehrenreich’s? Why do so many persons resort to science to say they believe in nothing – except whatever they find in nature that always leads to an ending (death) that may seem like nothing? Why do so many teaching and practicing scientists find the facts of science to be forceful to the support of their faith? At this writing of twelve million persons identifying themselves as scientists, two million of them identify themselves as evangelical persons. (CT: April 2014, pg.23) Of the options, nothing is least open minded. Nothing is our way to close. Isaiah made clear the promising invitation: Come let us reason together, saith the Lord. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020