Human Being as Spirit

This week's philosophical quote, by the Danish Existentialist philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, reads, "A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? The spirit is the self. But what is the self?"

Of course, this being Kierkegaard, I realised it would probably be more complicated than this. So I Googled to find the quote in context. It is from his book, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Here it is: 

"A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the fintie, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self... In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self."

Which hurt my head a little. However, one sentence spoke to my condition: "A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the fintie, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis." Which reminded me of the Quaker affirmation that there is "that of God in everyone."

When we really start to think about or reflect on what we are as human beings, it gets complicated. We have a body, which is physical; we have a mind, which does our thinking; we have emotions, which do our feeling; and many of us believe we have a soul, which is "that of God" within each of us. I believe that our bodies, minds and emotions live in time, but our soul, which I believe came into us at our birth, is that eternal part ofus which is reaching out to that of the Divine which is in, and is, the world and the universe. And it will return to union with the Infinite, which some of us call God, when we die.

As I wrote in a previous post, "For me, God, the Divine, Spirit of Life and Love, is eternal, infinite and real. But not unknowable. At least, not entirely. I believe we can only get glimpses of the Divine, but we can be aware of some Being beyond our finite selves in everything around us, but also in ourselves and in each other."

I have also pondered on the nature of the Spirit here. I believe that when we choose to be open to the presence of the Spirit everywhere, that is when we grow into our true selves. I'm not sure I'll ever really understand Kierkegaard, but that is my take on his words.

Unitarianism - Philosophy or Religion?

I have just enrolled on a fascinating online course, entitled Humanity and Nature in Chinese Thought, which is about the various schools of philosophy in classical China. The lecturer, from Hong Kong University, is Professor Chad Hansen, and in the first lecture he made an interesting distinction between what is a religion and what is a philosophy:

"[One] way of making the distinction, if we don't look at logic, ... is that what marks a kind of philosophy as religious is that it has some sort of reliance on authority. The obvious one would be a supernatural god. If you depend on God to be the determiner of truth and falsity, rather than argument and logic, then that's a form of religion. It would also be a form of religion even if there were no God. If you depended on a text, a particular text, or on a particular tradition, if you insisted ... whatever is true comes by a kind of unverifiable experience, a revelation, or a vision, or some mystical experience that cannot be evaluated, criticized, or studied by science, then I would call that religious.

And what I would call philosophy, is anytime the content of thought is the result of discussion, and exchange, and contending, if the schools are disagreeing and as a result they make intellectual progress; that is they move from less adequate to progressively better theories, because the arguments make them reconsider and re-evaluate and make progress. Then I would want to call that philosophy rather than religion because it's free from authority, and it makes progress through discussion."

I'm not sure I agree with him. Unitarians would seem to fall between his definitions. Unitarians today believe that although we may develop spiritually within a particular faith tradition, "such development is greatest when the believer is in active and critical dialogue with it." (Cliff Reed) This is the antithesis of the traditional view of authority, which requires unthinking submission to a particular creed or set of beliefs. It means that Unitarians can be open to inspiration from whatever source it comes - in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys.

Our view of authority has modified over the centuries, from a dual belief in reason and scripture, to our current position that "each person is his or her own final authority in matters of faith." (Cliff Reed) The authority of individual reason and conscience is held to be supreme, but it is important to be a member of a religious / spiritual community to which you can bring your questions and your doubts, in the sure knowledge that they will be met with a broad, questioning tolerance. The interplay of individuals' beliefs is one of the great strengths of a Unitarian congregation - the bouncing of ideas off each other means that we can never be complacent about what we believe. It is stimulating to belong to such a community, but can be very hard work. Nothing is set in stone, and each individual is responsible for keeping his or her mind open to new ideas, so that our faith can grow.

So is Unitarianism are philosophy or a religion? I think it is both/and, rather than either/or, and stronger for that.