Causality and Subjectivity in the Religious Quest

Ursula Goodenough
2000 Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science  
The dynamics of seeking causation and the dynamics of subjectivity are first presented and are then brought together in a consideration of the 3 core components of the religious quest: the search for and experience of ultimate explanations, the interiority of religious experience ("spirituality"), and the empathic experience of religious fellowship. Thomas Berry proposes that the universe functions on three principles: Differentiation, Subjectivity, and Communion (Berry 1988). Elsewhere I
more » ... t (Goodenough 2001) that these three categories can be mapped as well onto the core components of a religious orientation, with differentiation translated as the quest to develop an orientation with respect to Ultimacy, subjectivity reflected in our spiritual quest or Interiority, and communion reflected in our search for Fellowship with one another and with the Earth and all its creatures. In this essay I develop these relationships. I first describe two distinctive facets of the human psyche, the search for causation and the subjectivity of experience, and I then consider how these operate in our religious quest to apprehend Ultimacy, deepen Interiority, and experience Fellowship (the substrate for morality).
doi:10.1111/1467-9744.00310 fatcat:ozimdfqgvva5rmet6hbbxlphge