Spirituality is that area of human experience that treats of our awareness of, and response to the mystery of reality. In that we are potentially aware of this mystery by means of everything we experience our spirituality is of foundational importance to healthy human being. With this clear and I maintain, valid, definition we can begin to develop methods of religio-spiritual growth, as well as methods of assessing religio-spiritual health.
Many people stifle awareness of the mystery. It elicits a deep and primal sense of insecurity. The mystery of reality "goes beyond" us and what we know-- it transcends us. To the degree that you are aware of the mystery of reality as mystery you are aware of the Transcendent. Many people also mistake the religio-spiritual talk about the Transcendent-- that is, theology-- with the reality itself.
Assuming that one is even aware of the mystery of reality as a mystery we discover that there is always a basic, foundational interpretation of the Transcendent-- a statement about what it is. This takes only a few basic forms: the Transcendent can be interpreted as personal or impersonal, and then benevolent, indifferent or hostile to human fulfillment. THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE THE TRUTH OF AN INTERPETATION OF THAT WHICH TRANSCENDS US. This is the realm of faith, pure and simple.
The importance of interpretation leads us into the field of "hermeneutics" which deals with how we interpret meaning. Hermeneutics has a foundational impact on just about everything we think we know. It is a main element in all art and science and has center stage in the post-modern consciousness.
So, if I choose a faith that calls the mystery "God" I'm intepreting that which is transcendent to me as personal and benevolent-- (even my use of, and capitalization of the word is already a couple of interpretive steps). A Taoist could be said to interpret the mystery as impersonal and indifferent to his fulfillment. A suicide interprets the mystery as hostile to his or her life project.
The three Abrahamic traditions claim that Revelation happened. That is, that which transcends us itself somehow communicated to us what it "is." According to these traditions, the mystery revealed itself as both personal and benevolent: God-- what we experience as mystery is not that "which" transcends us, but "Who" transcends us. There is no way to prove that Revelation really happened. It is a faith statement, pure and simple.
Basic hermeneutic possiblities regarding the mystery are contained in texts we might call "Scriptures" such as the Baghavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, the Torah, the New Testament, and the Qur'an.
These texts make statements about what appears to us as the mystery of reality-- they provide a hermeneutic. They attempt to raise awareness of the mystery of reality. They claim that the transcedent is of foundational and ultimate importance to human life. They also provide guidelines for the proper behavioral response to the transcendent mystery as it is interpreted in the Scriptural text.
Now, every text must also be interpreted....
For instance, let us say we have a poem describing a tree and an excerpt from a biology textbook describing a tree. Imagine what each would say about the tree-- how would each text describe the tree? Would there be a certain tone or feeling particular to each? What types of words would they use? If you read each aloud would your voice have a different cadence and rhythm?
Now, having imagined these texts..... is each description true? Do both the poem and the biology text describe the reality that is the tree? I would say yes. Wouldn't you?
BUT--- they are two different literary genres-- both are true, but in different ways based on the genre. Now, imagine this: you read the poem thinking it is to be used as a biology text and you read the biology text thinking it is a poem. NOW are they true? Ack! You sure wouldn't want your kid to be reading poetry when he or she is supposed to learn biology. And you sure wouldn't want to read a poem that reads like a textbook! You need to pay attention to the literary genre to interpret the text correctly--get the truth about reality it contains.
This is the case for ANY text: book, magazine, usenet post...... Scripture.
Scriptures are texts of a particular literary genre-- that genre pertaining to human spirituality-- awarness of and response to the mystery. If you forget that the Scripture is talking about the mystery-- thus making a confusion of genre-- you will misinterpret the text. If you yourself have a low level of awareness of the mystery you may even forget what the Scripture is about-- and make some really big hermeneutical errors.
These are mistakes of interpretation of the text.
Fundamentalism: thinking all meaning, all valid interpretation, is contained in the "surface" of the text-- a fear of discourse that is overly symbolic, metaphorical, or imaginative.
Gnosticism: thinking all significant meaning is "hidden" in the text-- a rejection of actual phenomenon for a hermeneutical "floating off" into imaginative interpretation. "Only a select few can understand the Scripture."
Dogma arises from the fact that we are trying to talk about what can't really be talked about! The text itself is about mystery and so, in reality nothing can be said about the transcendent that does not immediately violate the reality of the experience-- and yet we must talk about it.
If we mistake our traditions' dogma about the mystery for the actual awareness of the transcendent mystery we have made a very big mistake.
We must remain "mystery-centered"-- that is, be mystics. However-- in that we have to talk about the reality of this we can't go floating off into mystic "space." Dogma can keep one grounded in actual phenomenal reality, but if we become dogmatic we lose sight of the whole subject of our religio-spiritual exertions. A dogmatist is a person who has mistaken his or her tradition's talk about God for God's transcendent reality.
So, we have
1) the human experience of reality-as-mystery
2) claims of revelation (or not)
3) Scriptures about all this
4) interpretations of the Scriptures
A religious tradition is comprised of faith statements about the mystery (personal, impersonal; benevolent, indifferent or hostile.) and behavioral guidelines (commands?) based upon that basic hermeneutic schema.
In this schema of religio-spirituality it is quite possible to be highly religious, but with a low level of spiritual development (one's awareness of and response to the mystery). Likewise, it is possible to be outside of a formal religious tradition but be spiritually quite healthy.
(See also other text files such as the early book with Jeff Wilson, my dissertation, and Formative Spirituality.)