English

Noun

spiritual naturalism ‎(uncountable)

1. A worldview that reveres nature, without belief in the supernatural.
   • 1861, “Davis, Andrew Jackson” (encyclopedia article), in George Ripley and Charles Anderson Dana (editors), The New American Cyclopædia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, D. Appleton and Company, Volume VI, page 286:

     The book embraces a wide range of subjects, ontological, cosmical, theological, spiritual, and social, which are presented in the aspect of a unitary system, the pervading animus of which is a kind of attenuated and semi-spiritual naturalism, which ignores and repudiates any special divinity or sacredness attaching to the teachings of the Bible.

   • 1869, Epes Sargent, Planchette; Or, The Despair of Science, Roberts Brothers, page 306:

     The spiritual philosophy pulls them down, and opens again the fair fields of spiritual naturalism to the contemplation of thinkers.

   • 1891 December, Edward Dowden, “The ‘Interviewer’ Abroad” (magazine article), in John Holmes Agnew and Walter Hilliard Bidwell (editors), The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature‎, Science, and Art, page 836:

     The possibility of a “spiritual naturalism” has been conceived by M. Huysmans.

   • 1945, Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume I: The Spell of Plato:

     This spiritual version of naturalism is perhaps best formulated in the Laws […] This is a clear statement of spiritual naturalism; and it is combined as […]

   • 2005, Ramun Bjerken, The Archaic Smile: On Spiritual Naturalism, iUniverse, ISBN 0595369065, page xiii:

     Spiritual Naturalism, being a rejection of supernaturalism, removes the religious image to further penetrate and intensify […]

Synonyms

• (worldview that reveres nature): naturalistic spirituality (less common)

Derived terms

• spiritual naturalist

See also

• environmentalism
• Gaia
• naturalism
• neo-pantheism
• pantheism
• religious naturalism
• spiritual