cross-posted at religiousleftlaw.com
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Religion Without Spirituality
It has long occurred to me that the doctrines of heaven and hell can undermine spirituality. If one lives a life primarily to avoid hell and to gain access to heaven, one is in danger of leading an individualistic, instrumentalist and egoistic life. I can recall, however, the late Father Robert Smith arguing to me that the notion of heaven was not consumerist in any way. Properly understood, the desire for heaven was a desire to be close to God. The goal is to live a life trying to be close to God, and it is natural to hope that an afterlife deepens that connection. So understood, the religious and spiritual fuse.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/08/religion-without-spirituality.html
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the
comment feed
for this post.
When I first came back to Christianity, after my years as a Buddhist, I realized I could no longer recite the act of contrition I learned as a child, which said something like, "I am heartily sorry for my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pain of hell." That struck me as an insufficient motivation for anyone who calls themselves a Christian. My desire is to deepen my relationship with God ever more every day - and that is not something that can be done without growing in love for others.
Having said that, as Smith's comment suggests, it is not the doctrine of heaven or hell that creates the problems, but a limited way of understanding the concepts. If one understands hell as a state of permanent alienation from God and heaven as a state of perfect union with God, then the desires to deepen our relationship with God (and each other) and to achieve perfect union with God are perfectly congruent.