An Instinct for Spiritual Quests: Quiet Religion

Abstract

John Dewey notes the following in his book A Common Faith: Any activity pursued in behalf of an against obstacles and in spite of threats of per sonal loss because of conviction of its general and enduring value is religious in quality (1934, 27). By ideal end he is suggesting something of importance to us, something fundamentally worthy of enhancing the human condition. Dewey certainly captures what I have in mind by spiritual quests as they are natural ized and linked to human needs, cognitive capacity, and neural structures; these qualifications are consistent with Dewey's orientation, along with self-corrective inquiry, nonviolence, and humility. Spiritual quests are not an aberration or a pathological state. They are, rather, a fundamental human need. Moreover, conversions to seeing events in a certain way are at the basis of scientific and other forms of human experience, as well as spiritual quests. The pursuit of knowledge has conversion-like experiences associated with it (Bloom 2007; Heelan 1994). Religious quests are vital human activities and cut across the sciences and humanities. Religious sensibility is one thing; religious tyranny, quite another. Religious sensibility, at its normative best, is humble and pluralistic. The approach that I suggest avoids dismissive positivism and dogmatic theological fundamental ism and replaces them with a pious naturalism. What underlie spiritual quests are (1) heightened vigilance and some discomfort or unrest about human existence, (2) a search to come to terms with this fact, and (3) the much-appreciated moments of peace and quietude that are necessary for human well-being. What is important is to bring ideas to the lifeblood of experience, to the everyday, to bring the conception of vulnerability and hypothesis-testing inquiry to cover the whole range of human experience, including spiritual inquiry. Thus, in what follows, I suggest, first, that spiritual quests are fundamental to the human condition and then that certain cognitive categories and a basic instinctive response predispose us to express this human need. Diverse brain