Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality
Henry Nelson Wieman and Empirical Theology (Radical Empiricism)
A dear friend and mentor, Dr. Kenyth Freeman, mentioned to me a few years ago that I should check out the work of American philosopher of theology, Henry Nelson Wieman. I didn't want to take on another thinker, as I felt I had too many too-read books on my list already. It wasn't until last year that I found out he had written his master's thesis on Wieman (in 1956). So I borrowed and read his thesis, and since then I've really been on a Wieman kick, which has also lead me to some other like-minded thinkers, categorized variously as religious naturalism, radical empiricism (William James' term), empirical theology, the "Chicago School," or empirical realism (Bernard Meland).
For my birthday last Saturday, my wife got me three more books that I've added to the pile in the photo above. Working from the bottom up...
Religious Experience and Scientific Method - Wieman's first book, originally published in 1926, my copy is a reprint of the 1971 edition. This is Wieman's equivalent to Wilber's Marriage of Sense and Soul, but written about 70 years earlier, and remained a constant theme for Wieman throughout his career.
American Philosophies of Religion - one of my birthday gifts. My copy is an original 1936 edition. Looks fascinating as Wieman teams up with former student Meland to survey American philosophers, classifying various schools as supernaturalism, neo-supernaturalism (Tillich, Niebuhr), idealism (absolutists Royce, Hocking, or modern mystics - Rufus Jones, or Personalists - Brightman), various streams of romanticism (such as aesthetic naturalists - Santayana), various streams of Naturalism (such as evolutionary theists, cosmic theists such as Whitehead, religious humanists such as Otto, and empirical theists (the University of Chicago folks, such as Edward Scribner Ames, John Dewey, Shailer Mathews, Gerald Birney Smith, and the two authors).
The Source of Human Good, published in 1949 - this is often considered Wieman's magnum opus where the source of human good being "the creative event" (which I think has some strong parallels to Balder's concept of (en)closure). I asked my friend why he liked Wieman so much, rather than, say Hartshorne, who was one of his teachers. He said it was the humanity of the man, a real concern about people, and the application of religion in very practical ways. This book is great all the way through, but would even be worth getting just for the technical postscript. When reading this book, it seemed to me Wieman was paving the way for for a reconstructive post-modernism. He was a proto reco pomo!
Man's Ultimate Commitment, published in 1958 - Wieman had what some called a Calvinist streak, in that he felt strongly about making a personal commitment to something that saves. But very different from a fundamentalist conception. Wieman was calling for a commitment to what he called "creative interchange." Again, very forward looking - Wieman even shares concerns about limits to growth and peak oil, though not using those terms.
Creative Freedom: Vocation of Liberal Religion - essays written in the '50s, published in posthumously in 1982. I found this book interesting enough to read, but not memorable.
The Empirical Theology of Henry Nelson Wieman (1963) is a series of essays by others reflecting on Wieman's work, and with Wieman's replies to each of them, which is quite fascinating. This is volume 4 of the Library of Living Theology, edited by Robert Bretall, who said about Wieman "It is quite possible that he may be what his students have almost unanimously aclaimed him - the most comprehensive and most distrinctively American theologian of our century."
Seeking Faith for a New Age: Essays on the Interdependence of Religion, Science and Philosophy - published in 1975, the year of Wieman's death. Various essays previously published, but brought together in an organized fashion, and includes some of his interesting later writings. This is another birthday gift, and I've been reading his essays on "Science and a New Religious Reformation" from 1966, "Co-operative Functions of Science and Religion" from 1968, and "Knowledge, Religious and Otherwise" from 1958. I must say, he had a very integral approach; he probably would have appreciated Edgar Morin. Editor Cedric Hepler writes "As Wieman has indicated in personal correspondence to the editor, the reason religion, science, and philosophy need each other is because only through their interdependence can mankind go about "seeking a faith for a new age." "
Interestingly, Wieman outlines some integral-like levels of cultural development in the 1966 essay. The first three roughly parallel red, blue, and orange. The fourth level has "the religious problem...interpreted to be an unfathomable mystery which the human intellect cannot penetrate. these are the religious existentialists and the neo-orthodox." He calls the fifth level "the new cultural threshold," and says "To be sure, this further step cannot be taken so long as impenetrable mystery is held to be the ultimate concern of religion. At this fifth level, one seeks knowledge to guide religious commitment and so cannot stop with mystery. At this fifth level, mystery is recognized as the frontier of knowledge but not as the barrier beyond which intellectual inquiry cannot pass...Let us accept everything which this ultimate concern with mystery may have to offer. But let us be on our guard against using this appeal to mystery as a device for holding fast to cherished beliefs which we know can never be sustained by evidence."
"Against this background of analysis and survey of conditions, may we summarize the basic religious problem of our time as we see it. It can be put in the form of a question, thus: How can religion and science be united to make human existence at all levels more fit for the effective operation of that creativity which expands indefinitely the valuing consciousness of each individual in community with others when this community must itself expand indefinitely to include all the diverse goal-seeking activities of human existence insofar as they can be brought into relations of mutual support at deeper levels of mutual understanding across wider ranges of diversity?" [reminds one of Balder's "(en)closure", right?]
Fallible Forms & Symbols - Discourses of Method in a Theology of Culture - Bernard Meland's 1976 publication. As mentioned above, Meland was one of Wieman's early students at Univ. of Chicago, and they worked together on the American Philosophies of Religion back in 1936 (above). Meland continued to be an admirer of Wieman, but also respectfully emphasized a difference. Wieman tended to focus on manageable realms of experience, whereas Meland liked to bring emphasis to the unmanageable dimension - "we are more than we can think" he liked to say. This book as some dry sections, but overall is fascinating in the discussion of symbols, language, mythos, and cultus, and their various insights and limitations.
Creative Interchange is another book of essays about Wieman. This project was begun in 1974, a year before Wieman passed away, but not published until 1982. Largely written by former Wieman students I think, and very interesting to see how the next generation was carrying his ideas forward. Also very important essays from Meland and Charles Hartshorne. And a brief excerpt of a letter by John Cobb, Jr. to Wieman, who wrote that "In spite of metaphysical differences between your thought and that of Alfred North Whitehead, I have come to feel that the concrete meaning of his doctrine that God is immanent in all things as a lure to their optimum self-creation is religiously better brought out in your analysis of what it means to serve the event of creative interchange than in the work of most Whiteheadian theologians."
Finally, Religion and Radical Empiricism by Nancy Frankenberry - a 1987 overview of this stream, covering mostly William James, John Dewey, Wieman, Meland, Bernard Loomer, and Alfred North Whitehead, and Abhidharma Buddhism. This is a great book, clearly laying out the important issues and distinctions, and a suggested way forward. I started a thread about this book here.
Ambo Suno
Hi David - he sounds like a vital, honest, clear thinking man to have fairly transcended his early christian heritage.
I have a couple of brief reaction-responses.
I have perhaps been making room in myself and trying to make room for myself for years around some super strong Christian conditioned ambivalences and even antipathies. It wouldn't be fruitful or truth-conveying for me to try to say how that project is going - in some ways and moments, well, and in some ways and moments, not so well. I really don't know.
Wieman became a Congregationalist and then a Unitarian. Those are the two childhood churches I attended in a smallish New England town in the late 40's and early to mid 50's. I am not saying that my truly dreadful feelings, if I enter a gut-level memory of church, is due to the churches themselves - I was going through a difficult childhood and New England I suspect was a dreadfully repressive place. So the dread is probably mine as much as the local church particulars and socio-cultural religious surround. I'll leave this inserted thought here by saying that I may have had a better feeling for this young child's Unitarian church experience.
This current memory of my life and my consciousness at that time was and is too muddled to be able clearly identify causes. Yet strange for me to read that those were his babies, and that my Scottish family roots arose to some extent from Presbyterian stock, "protestant ethic" and all. Please excuse me for any personal ill-vibes I may have tossed into this thread and site.
The other thing I want to say is that in the quote below, from his bio, I really liked reading what I have emboldened. That is a fine insight to me and quite a large challenge, as I read it.
'While living at Carbondale, Wieman continued to move away from traditional Christianity. In 1963 he wrote, "It is impossible to gain knowledge of the total cosmos or to have any understanding of the infinity transcending the cosmos. Consequently, beliefs about these matters are illusions, cherished for their utility in producing desired states of mind. . . . Nothing can transform man unless it operates in human life. Therefore, in human life, in the actual processes of human existence, must be found the saving and transforming power which religious inquiry seeks and which faith must apprehend."'
Thanks, D
ambo
DavidM58 said:
Wieman, btw, was raised a Presbyterian, and ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1911; in 1931 he switched his affiliation to Congregational; he shared his naturalistic approach to Christianity with people of many denominations during his years as a professor of philosophy of religion (at Univ. of Chicago and elsewhere). He joined a Unitarian fellowship in 1949, and in 1950 was granted ministerial fellowship with the American Unitarian Association. [A bio of Wieman can be found here.]
Apr 12, 2015
DavidM58
Ambo,
Thanks for sharing your reactions and your background. How Wieman talked about God and religion shifted a bit over the years, I suppose partly due to changes in his own thinking, and partly due to who he felt his audience was at the time. Yet the general thrust remained the same from first till last. His first book was "Religious Experience and the Scientific Method," written in 1926, and re-issued in 1971 with a new preface by Wieman, in which he writes:
In Jan. 1972, he wrote the following (published in the book Creative Interchange):
Wieman clarified this statement to the book's editor in a personal letter in June, 1972: "I reject the word 'God' in this statement not because I reject a reality that can be given that name but because the word has become the source of confusion and deception."
Wieman's last book, published in 1987, more than a decade after his death, was on the same topic as the first: Science Serving Faith.
Apr 12, 2015
Edward theurj Berge
"He joined a Unitarian fellowship in 1949, and in 1950 was granted ministerial fellowship with the American Unitarian Association."
A good fit. It seems many who bring rationality to their religion end up in UU. It's the only church I attend. A number of progressive groups also choose to have their meetings at UUs, which also attracts my attendance.
Apr 13, 2015