(Special notes for class discussion taken from the book “Initium Fidei” (REAP))

Lesson 2: A Conversation between: Spirituality and Theology

 The question of spirituality is a vital one in a human being’s life. All people have spirituality,
whether they live it out in the context of a religion or not. And yet, not many people know how
to talk about it. However, the understanding of one’s spirituality opens many new paths in the
human’s quest for meaning and purpose.
 A common phrase that has come up in contemporary talk regarding the spiritual-religious
enterprise is the self-identification by people as “spiritual but not religious.” In fact, many
young people have begin to identify themselves as such when asked about what they believe in,
often in a very proud and self-assured sort of manner.

According to a theologian David Tracy:

 More and more secular persons in Western societies can be heard repeating the refrain (almost
by now a cliché) “I am not religious” (shorthand for I am not a practicing member of any
institutionalized form of religion), “but I am spiritual.” Such declarations should be honored by all
theologians and churches as, among other matters, a clear call from the hearts of “secular”
seekers for guidance for some vision and way of life beyond secularity.

Theologian William Spohn, drawing from his own experience with his undergraduate students, shares
what he believes people mean when they say they are “spiritual but not religious”:
 Usually this means that the speaker is interested in religious experience but cannot find it in
church. Saying “I’m not a religious person” separates the spiritual pursuit of meaning from
organized communities and traditions of faith. People are realizing that they can experience the
transcendent without accepting all the baggage of organized religion. Many who have no
religious background experience a hunger for something more, for life that has a reach or depth
that they cannot live without. Some have found that churches promise a vital relationship with
God but fail to deliver on the promise. Institutions of religion are shadowed by the same
suspicion we have toward other social structures that have betrayed our trust: government,
medicine, business corporations, and the like. Indeed organized religion with its formality and
doctrines and self-importance seems to stifle this mysterious hunger for the spiritual. That
hunger points to a freedom and personal authenticity that seem unwelcome in established
religions.
 For many young people, religion represents rigidity and inflexibility that is not consonant with
their search for meaning in the world. This may be the reason why “spirituality” seems to be the
favored word for expressing their experience of the search for meaning and purpose. For young
people seeking fullness of life, to be “spiritual” seems to be the opposite of being “religious.”

Sandra Schneiders, one of the foremost experts on the study of spirituality, describes three ways people
view the relationship between spirituality and religion.
 The first perspective views religion and spirituality as “strangers to the banquet of
transcendence who never actually meet or converse.” For these people, religion and spirituality
are different enterprises with different approaches to the same end.
 The second perspective views religion and spirituality as “rivals, if not enemies, vying for the
allegiance of the serious seekers.” This perspective can be taken by those who have, at some
point in their lives, felt hurt or betrayed by a religious institution in one way or another, seeking
solace in what they have now called “spirituality.”
  The final perspective views religion and spirituality as partners, two dimensions of a single
enterprise. These two dimensions are often seen as being at odds with each other, but are
actually complementary and essential aspects of any authentic quest for purpose and meaning
in the world. As partners, they are distinct, but intimately related.

Spirituality as Life Integration

 We can begin with a working definition from prominent theologian Roger Haight: “Spirituality
refers to the logic, or character, or consistent quality of a person’s or a group’s pattern of
living insofar as it is measured before some kind of ultimate reality.”
 In this sense, all spirituality is directing the human life toward some manner of ultimate value or
reality. At the same time, it is a pattern of living that one commits himself or herself to, which
indicates a kind of fidelity to a particular manner of being in the world—a consistent quality of
being.

However, who determines what that ultimate value or reality might be? This is the task of religion.
 For Haight, religion refers to “a set of beliefs, values, and practices that together identify what
ultimate reality is and help establish the relationship that obtains between this ultimate
reality and the practitioners.”
 Religion becomes that which aids people in developing spirituality within its defined beliefs
and practices, and in doing so, according to that religion’s tradition, a person can grow closer
and closer to the ultimate value or reality. For some religions, like Christianity, that ultimate
reality is named as God.

Can a person practice spirituality without religion?

 Yes. There are people who claim that they have spirituality even outside of religious institutions.
 However, in theory this is incredibly difficult to do. Without a religion that determines for us
what ultimate value might be, a person practicing this so-called “secular spirituality” has to find
ultimate value on their own terms, by their own capacity.
 In particular, beyond secular spiritualities lived outside religious institutions, one can also speak
of a Christian spirituality.
 This spirituality’s foundation of life-integration and direction of self-transcendence finds its
ground in the person of Jesus Christ. Very simply, Christian spirituality is “the lived experience
of Christian faith.”
 Although we can claim that there exists a general understanding of what Christian spirituality is,
one can actually categorically describe what one’s spirituality is within the bigger umbrella of
Christian spirituality.
 Therefore, the spiritualities of Christians, even within the same denomination, Religious order, or
movement, may differ enormously.
 There is no such thing as “exclusive.”

Augustinian Spirituality as Pattern

 There are many kinds of spirituality that exists within the Catholic Church, but collectively,
various kinds of spiritualities in community have emerged within our history in order to provide
guidance and pattern for developing proper practice and belief, in order to provide a pattern for
directing our progress in self-transcendence toward God.
 One possible pattern is the Augustinian spirituality, patterned after the Rule of Augustine, as
well as through the lives of Augustinians over the many centuries since the time of Saint
Augustine.
  In Augustinian Spirituality, three principles are most apparent. They are veritas (truth), unitas
(unity), and caritas (love).
 Veritas - This passion for truth is something that led Augustine to much self-questioning and
introspection. However, Augustine’s self-questioning was not just psychological introspection or
mere general curiosity. “By probing the spirit again and again, he came to discover his heart—
and to listen to the truth that has been placed there.”
 Therefore, within Augustinian spirituality, one important aspiration is the understanding of the
truth of oneself, and in that, the truth of God: Domine Iesu, noverim me, noverim te. “O God, let
me know myself, so I may know you.”
 Unitas – as emphasized in the Rule of Augustine, his first expectation for members of the
Augustinian community is to live harmoniously together in oneness of mind and heart.
 As such, any Augustinian community strives to live with mutual concern for one other, making
sure to give mutual assistance to each other in every way possible. However, unity is not
uniformity.
 Therefore, there must be openness and willingness for collaboration amongst members of the
community, as well as with those engaged by the community. In this way, there is still respect
for differing contexts and experiences, while being united in the foundational and essential
aspects of the faith.
 Caritas - For Augustine, love is the why and how of our knowledge. “Use knowledge as a kind of
scaffolding to help build the structure of love and understanding, which will last forever even
after knowledge destroys itself. Knowledge is useful when it is used to promote love. But it
becomes useless, even harmful in itself, if separated from such an end.”

The Need for Roots and Wings

 William Spohn, drawing from research done by sociologist Robert Wuthnow, describes three
types of spirituality that has emerged since the 1950’s. These are the dwelling, seeking and
practicing spiritualities.
 The first kind of spirituality is the dwelling spirituality. Its emphasis is the reliability of traditional
religious institutions, and the living out of person’s spiritual lives within the traditionally drawn
bounds of such institutions.
 The second kind of spirituality, the seeking spirituality, which sought to abandon the roots of
institutional religion. Without a religion dictating them what ultimate value to follows, those
who adopted the seeking spirituality worked to find paths to ultimate value on their own terms.
 The final kind of spirituality is the practicing spirituality.

Spirituality and Practice

 To achieve life integration, people often rely on tangible and concrete ways in which their
spirituality is lived out. This living out of spirituality is often referred to as “practice.”
 Practice captures a wide range of realities, which not only includes prayer, but also includes
moral living. At the same time, practice is not just private activity, but is something that touches
entire communities and society at large.
However, there must be a distinction made between practice and other kinds of activity known as
techniques:
 Techniques are not worthwhile in themselves, they are worthwhile because they produce certain
results. Although a technique requires certain skills, skills are a means to an end beyond the
technique.
  A practice usually involves certain skills, but these are wrapped up in the activity itself. Learning
to be a good listener and being faithful to your friends, for example, are skills that are wrapped
in the practice of friendship.
 Techniques are deemed to be worthwhile only because they produce some kind of output or
effect, but beyond that expected result, they are not in themselves worthwhile.
 Techniques, however, can develop to become practices.
 Therefore, practices that are done for their own sake within a spiritual setting, especially within
religious traditions, are what might be considered spiritual practices.
 However, spiritual practices are done within the context of spirituality. Secular practices can
themselves develop into spiritual practices. At the same time, spiritual practices are the
committed activity of spirituality.
 Since they are committed activity, they are done constantly as to bring a person closer and
closer to the ultimate value that they have directed themselves to.

Practical Theology
 Practical Theology is a strand of theological thought that attempts to heal the division between
theory and practice that has marred theological discourse throughout the years.
 Theology has traditionally been split into the two distinct areas, where there is theology that
deals with theories and concepts, and another kind of theology that focuses on the application
of said theories and concepts.
 However, the goal of practical theology is to look at theology as “practice,” and that in itself, all
theology is practical in nature as everything that it tackles must be related to practice in some
manner.
 Practical theology aims at the harmonization of the knowledge of the faith, and the practice of
the faith. Orthodoxy and orthopraxis are not made separate, but two united elements of the
same whole.
 In this way, “theory proceeds from practical interests, and practice itself is theory-laden.”

Today, the Church in the Philippines recognizes the distinct need for renewed religious education and
catechesis that is grounded in practice. Thus, the National Catechetical Directory for the Philippines
highlights three important features of teaching about the faith that may be able to reach out to students
of theology of today: integration, inculturation and community-formation. These three are the three
distinct features of practical theology in the Philippine setting.
 Integration in theology means the complex yet holistic approach to the faith that aims
interrelate the Christian message and the actual living out of that same message in the daily life
of the people.
 One example of integration is Source Integration, referring to the interweaving and
interrelating of the three basic sources of theology, namely the primary sources of
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, concurrently with the secondary source of
human experience.
 The primary sources are then integrated into the concrete human experience of the
believers, inclusive of daily life experience, the economic social-political situation of the
believers, as well as the concrete cultural experience of the people.
 An example of this kind of integration is the approach known as intertextuality.
 Inculturation is the process of contextualization and dialogue that allows for the engagement
between faith and culture.
 Community-formation - theologizing must be not just be informative, but formative and
transformative for people and communities.
  An authentic practical theology touches the lives of both individuals and communities:
 One explicit concern that animates much of current Practical Theology is the formation
of a community for transformation, according to God’s salvific reign revealed in Jesus
Christ.

 A practical theology demands to respond to the urgent needs of the community called Church,
and the greater world community in which that Church dwells.
 The task of theology is to build up this community of faith, and its call for justice, peace and joy
for all people.

Reminder: “to be spiritual you need the roots of religious tradition and community, while to be
religious in a Christian way you need the wings of committed spiritual practices.” They’re not
supposed to be taken as opposing forces, but complementary realities that help people come to a fuller
life. In this manner, the true challenge of living out an authentic Catholic faith is to be both spiritual and
religious.