Published December 28, 2012 | 
Now that I have lain down the foundation for resonance, let me take up the other lexicological challenge facing me: an apt name for what may well be the most critical, central, and vital part of the whole thing – the division between the secular and the spiritual.
As you may have read in the pages of Reason and Spirituality, the important truths of the world are divided into two halves:
- the secular – which is everything factual, objective, every truth about the actual real world, and
- the spiritual – which is everything subjective, all the values, contexts, and personal truths
The balance is maintained by treating them differently. Reason is the sole arbiter of what can be claimed true in secular matters. However, in spiritual matters, Reason no longer gets to reign supreme, and is demoted to performing only the clean-up work of finding and removing inconsistency. Other methods – intuition, faith, revelation, our innate sense – can be brought into play in spiritual matters without reproach.
This arrangement works splendidly at three critical tasks.
First, it prohibits any method other than Reason from being allowed to produce facts about the objective world. Under this approach, there would never be another moment of having some spiritual text say one thing while the scientific evidence says something completely different. No more would our religious leaders say one thing about the world, like the earth is only 10,000 years old, while the incontrovertible evidence demonstrates an age of billions of years. No more would any spirituality or faith have any right to make any pronouncements with regards to facts about the world. Under this approach, that right belongs to Reason alone.
Second, this arrangement permits truly spiritual beliefs – beliefs about value, meaning, purpose, morals, understanding and wisdom – to be free of the rigid strictures required by Reason. The only justification for a spiritual belief needed is “This is what I feel”. By these means, all spiritual statements of all kinds are forever protected from being challenged by philosophers and scientists. Each person can truly embrace what’s in their heart and spirit without fear of attack on their logic. (With the only exception being the pursuit of internal consistency.)
Finally, this approach (were people to follow it) utterly and completely ends the incessant tug-of-war between religion and Reason, church and science – at least as far as disagreements go – for if the disagreement be over a secular matter, then only Reason decides it, but if the disagreement be over a spiritual matter, then the matter is decided by one’s spiritual beliefs.
This arrangement, which (if followed) would end a war that has raged since the dawn of humanity, I will be calling the Covenant – a pact amongst us all to (hopefully) finally settle these matters in the way that benefits all and respects all truths, secular and spiritual, each in their own appropriate way.
This is perhaps an unusual concept, so I will illustrate the Covenant shortly. But first, we need to tackle the Skeptic’s Principle.
