Why there is a need for an environmental spirituality (part 2)

 Understanding Environmental Spirituality

At this time, I would like to devote some space to discussing the relationship between ethics and spirituality, to elucidate why my aim is to approach the issue of the environmental crisis from the perspective of spirituality rather than ethics. In reality, spirituality and ethics are so closely connected that a person cannot be considered fully developed if these two facets are not well integrated into his or her life.[1] Ethics is also closely related to morality, which is the demonstration of actions and virtues that promote human flourishing and harmony with nature.[2] Thus morality is about our actions and behaviour that reflect our understanding of our duty and obligation. Ethics, on the other hand, commonly refers to the way we think about what constitutes a good person, and whether a person’s action should be considered as right or wrong.[3] In environmental ethics, for example, one of the questions raised might be: Is it ethically acceptable for humans to cause change to nature by engaging in acts of oil exploration and extraction? Thus, ethics is a study of morality, which refers to our lived experience of our understanding of the standards and norms in a particular social context.[4] Defined thus, we see that morality and ethics need not have a religious dimension. It only acquires a religious dimension when a transcendental power, for example Allah, is incorporated into the discourse and serves as a point of reference.

Spirituality can be delineated into two aspects—lived spirituality and reflective spirituality. According to William C. Spohn, lived spirituality "refers to the practice of transformative, affective, practical, and holistic disciplines that seek to connect the person with reality's deepest meanings.”[5] In modern day contexts, lived spirituality may represent various meditation courses, New Age movements, a variety of popular religious practices and traditions, and even some perceived as more “sophisticated” ones.[6] Sufism in Islam and Kabala in Judaism are some of the examples of the more unconventional lived spirituality. However, nowadays, lived spirituality may also be non-religious, and many people claim that they have a spiritual life without adhering to any particular religious tradition. Reflective spirituality “stands for the second-order interpretation and communication of this dimension of experience as experience. It employs theological, historical-contextual, artistic, anthropological, and hermeneutical methods to analyze the lived experience.”[7] Thus, in this way, the relationship between reflective spirituality and lived spirituality is analogous to the relationship between ethics and morality, where morality and lived spirituality represent the first order descriptive accounts while ethics and reflective spirituality represent the second-order reflective interpretations of the lived experience. Although a variety of spiritualities exist, there are three aspects that are common to the different types of spiritualities. First, it involves a recognition that beyond what is immediately or externally obvious, there is something deeper to our human life which may involve a deeper experience or self, or a deeper reality of transcendence. Second, there is an attempt to grasp or touch this deeper reality by using various ways. Finally, there are concrete actions that are aimed at fulfilling these goals.[8]

These three aspects of spirituality tell us that there are points of generic overlapping between spirituality and morality, but also differences. First, we see that spirituality and morality are both lived experiences of a certain belief, a practical reaction to what one perceives as holding the highest value in one’s life. However, while spirituality emphasizes the transformative experience and holistic integration of human life, morality has as its priority actions and behaviours that correspond to normative values. According to Spohn, they overlap in as much as “devotional practices often seek to inculcate virtues and pursue moral values to their ultimate depths.”[9] The actions or activities that we engage in reflect the human endeavour towards self-transformation on the journey towards ultimate reality. This transformation is expressed in our relational lives and our responses to the various situations that we encounter in life. Thus, our moral life is a visible manifestation of our inner transformation. In this way, morality and spirituality intersects when authentic inner transformation (the subject of lived spirituality) leads to achieving a way of life that takes goodness and rightness as priority (the subject of morality).[10]

Although there is overlapping between morality and spirituality, these two cannot be identified because spirituality is often seen to address areas of life that seem beyond the bounds of ordinary morality. We can reasonably say that spirituality generally has a more pedagogical nature than common morality in its aim to develop a life and way of living characterized by personal transformation, authenticity, and integrity, usually by connecting the human person with a deeper and more radical reality. While morality may also promote holistic integration, most versions of spirituality attempt to do so to greater degrees. However, this is not meant to say that morality is not essential to an authentic and integrated life. Moral skills and spiritual skills are different and one acquires them through different trainings. Thus, a person with great spiritual skills needs to also have the necessary skills in order to make moral decisions in concrete situations. Spirituality does not offer the degree of precision that morality does.[11] According to Vincent Macnamara, morality is a “demand of the human spirit” and an indication of a developed spirituality.[12] To “want to be moral” is a characteristic of a person who has undergone a spiritual conversion. However, in addition to having a desire to be moral, one must also learn the proper expressions of morality in everyday life. Richard Gula emphasizes the integral connection between spirituality and morality as follows:

Spirituality can never be separated from morality as some external aid that helps us be good. Spirituality, with its array of practices, nourishes the moral life at its very roots…Spirituality is the wellspring of the moral life. That is to say that morality arises from, rather than generates, spirituality…In this way, morality reveals one’s spirituality. In other words, how we live reveals who we are, what we genuinely value, and how we are integrating life experiences around what we give as ultimate value.[13]  

Morality needs spirituality because without it, it becomes legalistic and may be perceived as some code imposed upon by social or religious institutions or by an espoused Creator. The fear of punishment for transgressing these moral codes then becomes the dominant motivation for exercising moral behavior. In addition, morality without spirituality risks having a too narrow of a scope because certain profound moral truths do not have a chance to be considered. On the other hand, morality connects spirituality with concrete everyday life situations with all its problems and social concerns. Morality becomes the manifestation of how one applies one’s spirituality to address life issues with the aim of promoting well-being for oneself and others, including the environment. The life issues that we must confront in our moral choices can in turn enrich our spirituality by forcing us to make further reflections upon our spirituality. In addition, ethics can have a positive impact on reflective spirituality by forcing us to consider our spiritual experiences in a more disciplined and normative way. It helps us realize that a healthy spirituality is not just about feeling at peace and feeling good in a selfish way, but that it must contribute to the promotion of the moral good. Thus, we can see that in no way is reflective spirituality and ethics antagonistic to one another. Although each has its own scope and focus, both take the human person as their subject, and in a cooperative relationship, they can bring about a fully developed person that is able to enter into healthy and harmonious relationships with other people and with the environment.

Based on the above discussion, we can see why I have decided to frame the discussion on the environment as a matter of spirituality, rather than religion, ethics, or morality. Undeniably, all these aspects are integrated, and in the course of delving into various topics, one may get the feeling that there is a blurring of the lines, for example between faith and spirituality. When this happens, it is not because we have failed to separate religion from spirituality or that we are unable to distinguish between the two. This reality, I believe, speaks to the fact that as much as we would like to make distinction between religion/faith and spirituality, especially in an academic sense, in real life, religious faith often informs spiritual practice, and spiritual practice can deepen one’s faith in a never-ending cycle. In the same manner, spirituality and ethics go hand in hand in a cooperative relationship in our everyday life. Ultimately, how humans view and interact with nature as shown in our ethical actions reflects our spirituality, which for many of us, can be deeply informed and inspired by our religious faith. Spirituality can indeed by discussed and developed independent of religion. However, for people of religion, it is unproductive and artificial to negate religious faith as a valuable resource for reflection and inspiration. It is within this outlook that I believe we should approach the topic of environmentalism emanating from religious sources.

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[1] Anna Abram, “Ethics and Spirituality: Self-Sufficiency or Symbiosis?” StBob 4 (2009): 69.

[2] Richard M. Gula, The Call to Holiness: Embracing a Fully Christian Life (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), 24.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Abram, 70.

[5] William C. Spohn, “Spirituality and Ethics: Exploring the Connections,” Theological Studies 58 (1997): 112.

[6] Abram, 72.

[7] Spohn, 112.

[8] Abram, 73.

[9] Spohn, 112.

[10] Abram, 75.

[11] Abram, 75.

[12] Vincent Macnamara, “The Moral Journey,” http://www.theway.org.uk/back/s088Macnamara.pdf, 7.

[13] Gula, 37