Where we are headed- The Second Axial Age and post-Axial Religion, part 2: Spiritual Minimalism

Axial age religions emerged at a time when humanity often perceived itself in very confident terms: the pinnacle of creation, the center of the Universe, the holder of the key to all knowledge: Reason. And from this confident sense of human epistemological abilities there emerged detailed, complex, confident dogma, doctrines, and theologies.  
 
But all that has changed! An honest, informed 21st century sensibility includes a radically altered sense of the context of the human presence in the vastness of space and time. We now recognize humanity as a species which, relative to the 14 billion year history of the Universe, has only recently appeared, and, relative to the immensity of the Universe, exists on a tiny speck of a planet. Such recognition of the human presence in the vastness of space and time is a profoundly humbling experience. When humanity is spatially and temporally contextualized like this, the notion that a recently evolved creature using a three pound organ (brain) on one tiny planet should be able to make detailed and definitive statements about the Ultimate nature of existence becomes glaringly arrogant and preposterous.
 
Recognizing the place of the human species in the broader context of the Universe produces what might be characterized as a profound sense of Epistemological Humility, or a sense of the limits of human knowledge, and Epistemological Humility in turn is likely to lead to what we will refer to as Spiritual Minimalism, or a constant awareness of the need to avoid saying too much about the nature of the Spirit/Ultimate Reality which exceeds the capacity of humans to understand and describe in a comprehensive manner.      
 
Predictions that the religion of the 21st century will be theologically minimalist are shared by many who are exploring the possible contours of the future of religion. As Sean Kelly has put it, the spirituality of the future is likely to be characterized by a “renunciation of certainty” that stands in marked contrast to the detailed doctrinal positions of existing religions.* Similarly, Ervin Laszlo, in exploring the religious implications for the evolving global quality of human consciousness, suggests that we should attempt no more than a “minimally speculative theology.”** And J.L. Schellenberg argues that with reference to religion, “We simply need to start thinking more generally than we are accustomed to doing,”  generating religious beliefs that can best be characterized as “thin,” in contrast to the “thick” collections of detailed ideas found in the theologies, doctrines, and philosophies that are associated with traditional, Axial religion.***
 
Similarly, we need to recognize that we are only at the beginning of the emergence of a post-Axial spirituality, and hence there will likely be a similar period of creative theologizing in which new words, symbols, concepts, etc. are offered up as the best ways to express the Sacred, and over time, as in the case of Christianity and every other major religion, new preferred expressions will emerge. Even then, however, we are suggesting that spiritual minimalism will always be present, since we have acquired an epistemological humility and a historical consciousness which, once attained, will not go away.
 
* See Sean Kelly’s Coming Home: The Birth and Transformation of the Planetary Era and Becoming Gaia: On the Threshold of Planetary Initiation.
** See Ervin Laszlo, Quantum Shift in the Global Brain.
*** Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg is perhaps the best known “mainstream” figure to write extensively and in great depth and detail about the temporal contextualization of religious thought and exploring the radical implications of the future evolution of religion. Schellenberg proposes “Ultimism” as a replacement for theism, and his concept of Ultimism shares many characteristics of the 21st century spirituality which we will be exploring on this website. For non-philosophers, his accessible Evolutionary Religion is an excellent starting point.