Yesterday's posting (here) quoted the definition of "spirituality in a research paper entitled, "Spirituality as an Essential Determinant for the Good Life, its Importance Relative to Self-Determinant Psychological Needs," by Dr. Dirk van Dierendonck, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Rotterdam School of Management, I argued that his definition is so broad and vague that it does not provide him with the kind of definition needed to carry out an empirical study of spirituality. Science requires a degree of precision that his definition of spirituality lacks.Indeed, in his study of the relationship of spirituality to the good life, Dr. van Dierendonck did not define spirituality for those who filled out his questionnaire. It was whatever they thought it was, which meant that in effect he did not study spirituality so much as the popular usage of the word "spirituality". His informants associated the word with a good life, which is hardly surprising in a nation that still deeply values religion.
The question here is whether or not one can meaningfully treat human spirituality empirically. I have my doubts. In trying to do so, it seems that social scientists are likely to end up with something that is like studying a northern lake on an August morning at sunrise. Science is able to describe many facets of the lake and its environment and still totally fail to capture even remotely the stillness, the quiet, the beauty, and the spiritual quality of sitting on the edge of that lake drinking a morning cup of coffee or sitting on it in a canoe that glides across the still water at daybreak. Scientists can describe the mist that clings to the lake in terms of chemical and physical processes and still say nothing that really matters about the mist. If science fails to capture the spiritual quality of a lake, how can it capture that same quality in human life itself? I don't think it can. It isn't equipped to do so.
But, I still think scientists should try. If they make an honest effort at studying spirituality, they will have to develop tools and approaches appropriate to that study, which could well lead them in the direction of modifying the way science works. As it stands, science is rooted in the study of physical realities. It's success is remarkable. Physical reality is, however, only a piece of reality, and science today is not equipped to deal with meta-physical realities. It can describe the physical realities of the lake and fail to describe the meta-physical realities that even the most hard-headed scientist is likely to feel in the still quiet of the morning. Thus, for example, science will only be able to begin to study the spiritual discipline of prayer when scientists stop trying to prove or disprove that "it works" and understand its role as a discipline and part of a way of life. Until science learns how to studying the meta-physical reality of the lake, it is not equipped to deal with the whole of reality, which is meta-physical as well as physical.
