Abstract
In his 2010 article, ‘Secular Spirituality and the Logic of Giving Thanks’, John Bishop recalls a striking theme in a recent address by Richard Dawkins in which he appeared to enthusiastically endorse the appropriateness of a ‘naturalised spirituality’ that involved ‘existential gratitude’, and this led him to investigate the notion of a naturalised or secular spirituality with particular reference to Robert Solomon’s Spirituality for the Skeptic (2002). This essay looks to pick up on Bishop’s engagements with both Dawkins and Solomon, but to extend the conversation well beyond them in order to defend the credibility and integrity of secular spirituality in its movement of ontological gratitude. In this way it looks to offer a first sketch of what might be termed a ‘hermeneutics of ontological gratitude’. To this end – and via a distinction between gratitude for existence and life – the essay considers Dawkins’ argument and Solomon’s work in further detail, before turning to consider various other perspectives on the problem including Kenneth Schmitz’s existential Thomist notion of ontological contingency, Hannah Arendt’s concept of primary natality, and Emmanuel Levinas’ sketch of the self in its interiority and economy. My claim is that any serious naturalistic spirituality needs to take into account not only a gratitude for one’s existence per se, but for the whole context of individual and collective being.
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Notes
My thanks to Chris Mulherin for drawing my attention to his Convention blog on the ABC Religion website and for his making available the audio file of this unpublished lecture from which the following quotations have been taken.
In this context, Bishop’s observation concerning the ‘irritation’ of many of his ‘scientific naturalist colleagues’ is a salient point (2010, 531).
I leave to one side the whole issue of ‘existential’ vis-à-vis ‘ontological’ language and the vast and ancient historical issues pertaining to the semantic field of each. There is a variety of issues here that I have addressed elsewhere, including the problems associated with the prevalent overly ‘thin’ conception of existence qua mere ‘fact’ (see Colledge 2008). Nonetheless, for the purposes of this essay, suffice to say that I prefer ‘ontological gratitude’ to ‘existential gratitude’ given that I intend the former term to capture a broader sense of gratitude not only for one’s existence as such, but for the many aspects of lived being in its often tumultuous richness.
As pointed out by an anonymous referee for this article, it is worth noting that Dawkin’s appeal for a renewed appreciation of one’s life seems to imply a forthright rejection of the option of suicide. However, while true, it is very unclear how Dawkins would make that argument in more detail. Further, it is doubtful that he would be interested in making anything like an argument for this having strong normative force.
Note the implicit distinction here in Desmond’s (and my own) thinking between (a) being as ‘event’ or a ‘coming forth’ (which does not itself appear) and (b) determinate beings that do appear (which ‘come into being’). I take this distinction to be inspired more by Aquinas’ esse – ens distinction than to Heidegger’s Ontologische Differenz, though this is to broach a vast matter that lies well beyond the scope of this article.
The following remarks on Solomon’s thoughts on this theme complement John Bishop's more Analytic account (2010, 526-30).
There is a sense in which fate plays a similar role in Solomonian thought to what ‘facticity’ plays in early Heideggerian thought, though that is a connection I won’t expand on here.
In his essay, Bishop takes ‘a (moderately) analytical approach’ to Solomon’s account of cosmic trust, enumerating six features or propositions of this account.
Again, comparisons with early Heideggerian thought are palpable here, this time in terms of the notion of ‘anticipatory resoluteness’ in Sein und Zeit.
With thanks to my colleague Greg Moses for alerting me to this passage. Translation by David Hawe.
This conversation perhaps indicates something of the benefit for Christian theism of allowing for the independent integrity of a seasoned and thoughtful secular expression of thanks in the midst of death. In this sense, perhaps the Christian hope in resurrection might be put as follows … Not that, ‘there has to be more life beyond death, since I believe in a just and kind God’, but rather that, ‘I hope in a God whose graciousness is so outrageously beneficent, that there might be even more life to come’. The difference between the two approaches may appear minor, but it makes an enormous difference. Otherwise, do not Christians risk being like spoilt children who on Christmas morning, having torn open all their lovely gifts, then stamp their feet because there aren’t still more gifts to come? Are they so dissatisfied with the incredible gift of existence and earthly life that it cannot be accepted as anything other than a mere prelude to perfected heavenly existence?
To be fair, Eagleton’s target is not so much protagonists of the kind represented in the foregoing ‘secular prayer of thanks’ thought experiment. He is rather targeting those for whom religion offers certain utilitarian benefits (often of an elitist and unsavoury kind), and in this sense he places de Botton in a most unflattering light, following in the footsteps of figures such as Machiavelli, Voltaire, Toland, Gibbon, Diderot, Arnold, Comte and even Habermas: those who see a social role for religion while spurning it themselves. There is, nonetheless, a common thread here in terms of a pervasive contempt for ‘spirituality without religion’, and with it a strong suspicion concerning all such allegedly counterfeit versions of religious faith.
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Colledge, R.J. Secular Spirituality and the Hermeneutics of Ontological Gratitude. SOPHIA 52, 27–43 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-013-0358-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-013-0358-0