Abstract
This essay sets out to argue that postsecular spirituality is about the quest for hypergoods within today’s mass populist- and consumerist-oriented world. It shows that people who consider themselves to be spiritual not only have many values in their lives, but rank some values higher than others, with some being ranked as being of supreme importance, the so-called hypergoods. Such ethics has an interpersonal character, and in Christian circles this reopens the issue of biblical hermeneutics, especially the phenomenon of conflicting interpretations. Against the background of the various options of being religious in the secular age, the essay focuses on Charles Taylor’s view of the discovery of spirituality in a posttheistic world and his emphasis on the love of God and the ethics of justice as hypergoods.
Highlights
DISCOVERING SPIRITUALITY IN A POSTTHEISTIC WORLDIn his book, Ethics in the global village: Moral insights for the post 9–11 USA, Hill (2008) refers to the words of the pastoral counsellor Howard Clinebell (1984:138), who stated that our age is marked by ‘an epidemic of moral confusion and value distortion’
Ethics in the global village: Moral insights for the post 9–11 USA, Hill (2008) refers to the words of the pastoral counsellor Howard Clinebell (1984:138), who stated that our age is marked by ‘an epidemic of moral confusion and value distortion’
On the basis of two citations, from Butterfield’s (1975) The origins of modern science: 1300–1800 and Kuhn’s ([1957] 1979) The Copernican revolution respectively, Kopfensteiner puts it as follows in an article entitled ‘Historical epistemology and moral progress’: A shift of paradigm will result in “handling the same bundle of data as before, but placing them in a new system of relations with one another by giving them a different framework, all of which virtually means putting on a different kind of thinking cap”
Summary
Postsecular spirituality, engaged hermeneutics, and Charles Taylor’s notion of hypergoods. How to cite this article: Van Aarde, A.G., 2009, ‘Postsecular spirituality, engaged hermeneutics, and Charles Taylor’s notion of hypergoods’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 65(1), Art. Note: This article was originally presented as a paper at the Conference of the Spirituality Association of South Africa (SPIRASA), 16–17 April 2009, Santa Sophia Centre, Waterkloof, Pretoria. Andries van Aarde is Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa
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