spiritual naturalism

English

Etymology

A calque of French naturalisme spiritualiste (coined by Joris-Karl Huysmans from naturalisme and spiritualiste).

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, 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

See also
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