Everyday Ethics

It has become rather cliché to reply to questions concerning one’s religious views by responding, “Well, I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.”  This claim has always baffled me, because I have no idea what it means to be religious, but not spiritual.

Religion is clearly a spiritual activity, so it seems odd to try to pull these apart.  You certainly couldn’t be religious, yet not spiritual, at least not in a way that was genuine and whole-hearted.  So the real question is what it means to be spiritual, yet not religious.  At the request of one of our readers, we will try to shed some light on this puzzling new social custom.

Before we begin, it should be specified that this brief piece couldn’t even pretend to be definitive with regard to this topic.  I am certain there are many ways that one could separate the religious and the spiritual, and I am no authority on either of these topics.  But that’s the beauty of doing philosophy.  One need not be an authority on the referent of a term in order to try to explicate what that term might mean.

Since the meaning of the term “religion” is better known to us, we will first try and clarify what it means to be religious.  We might start by considering the class of traditions that qualify as religions.  Some are big, while others are much smaller.  Most include both a particular specified belief set and a particular specified set of practices that go with it.

Virtually all religions subscribe to the existence of something transcendent, whether this is an alternate reality or a divine being.  This transcendent something is always regarded as special in some way and worth of our positive affections.  (Buddhism is tricky here, but many forms of Buddhism believe in gods and goddesses, and all schools of Buddhism share the view that nirvana is a transcendent experience)

The trouble has already begun, because in order to capture what is common to all religious traditions, we have to define a religion in a way that makes it exceedingly ambiguous, and thus unhelpful in creating a clear distinction between religion and spirituality.  After all, someone who is “spiritual” probably has a belief system and set of practices that go with it, and it would be tough to call yourself spiritual without believing in anything called a “spirit.”  So it seems like someone who is merely spiritual meets this loose definition of someone who is religious.

However, if one is spiritual, yet not religious, this belief system and set of practices is not specified by an external tradition.  The spiritual person can continue to identify as spiritual, whatever their beliefs and practices are.  But a person who was Catholic, for example, would have a hard time continuing to identify as a Catholic if they thought that heaven was simply a folktale to frighten children into behaving, rather than a central tenet of their faith.

So maybe this is part of the distinction between being religious and being spiritual.  The religious person has their beliefs and practices handed to them by their tradition, while the spiritual person picks and chooses their beliefs and practices from what is available to them.  Further, the religious person qualifies as being a member of their respective tradition by way of having the necessary beliefs and engaging in the necessary practices.  But the spiritual person need only believe in something transcendent in order to qualify as spiritual.  In fact, the spiritual person may need to do nothing more than self-identify as such.  There are no set criteria for what makes a person spiritual; if you say you are, you are.

We will refrain from going further at this time, but an additional component that is relevant to this distinction might be that a religious person claims a specified group affiliation, while the spiritual person either refrains from doing so or specifically rejects any such affiliation.  But whatever this distinction ultimately amounts to, one thing remains clear.  One can be spiritual without being religious, but cannot be genuinely religious without also being spiritual.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.