Is Unitarian Universalism a Philosophy or a Religion?

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), March 8, 2009, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

Like most ministers, I aspire to offer sermons that are relevant and meaningful to my congregants. Some weeks this is easy to achieve, because there has been an incident in the community or even within the Congregation that needs to be addressed. But at times, I struggle to come up with ideas or topics that are worthy of your time and mine. So I’m always happy to entertain suggestions from people in the Congregation.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Richard Eisler, a member of the Congregation, who suggested this question as a sermon topic: “Is Unitarian Universalism a philosophy or a religion?”

This topic was intriguing, and I agreed to address it. I realized from the outset that there is no definite “yes” or “no” answer. My intention today is to offer my thoughts as a jumping-off place for your consideration. You will have your own response to this question and if it’s different from mine, then all I can say is that’s the beauty of diversity!

Richard and I met to discuss his question, and he supplied me with printouts of information that he’d downloaded from Wikipedia. I was most interested in the material that addressed the definitions and connotations of the words “philosophy” and “religion.” But this was just the starting gate. To answer the question before me, I would also need to discern the core methods or assumptions that were particular to each discipline. In other words, how is philosophy per se different from religion? My next step would be to examine some core “truths” of our way of the spirit, and determine if these truths or va lues were established by the methods and foundational tools of philosophy or of religion.

My Webster’s College Dictionary says that the word Philosophy comes from the early Greek word that meant “love of wisdom. The Wikipedia Web page on Philosophy states:

“Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned argument.”

As you may have noticed, this definition says nothing about a belief in a supernatural being, such as God. Many philosophers, such as Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton, and Spinoza, believed in a supreme supernatural god and based their arguments on this assumption. So philosophers may use traditional religious terms and ideas in their arguments, but their arguments had to be critical with a systematic approach that relied on reasoned argument. The word “logical” seems to belong to the discipline of philosophy.

The Wikipedia page on religion was not as clear or concise. Some scholars claim that religion comes from the ancient Greek word "religio" which means “to bind up or connect.” Other scholars believe that the root of the word is the Latin word “lego” which means “to choose” or to “go over again” or “consider carefully.”

According to the author of the Web page, religion can be described as a system of beliefs and practices that are usually based on a set of mythic stories and teachings that are held as sacred and truthful. Most religions include the idea of a divine being and a transcendent plane of existence and experience. Many religions emphasize human dependence on a divine being who — upon death — dispenses judgment and dispatches the soul to another realm of existence. Believers are bound to the collections of sacred stories, teachings, expectations, and practices of their tradition — either by birthright or by choice.

There was no mention of “critical” thought or systematic argument by this author. I don’t take that as proof that those who accept a religion as “true,” require critical thinking or the use of reason to create systematic arguments to uphold their faith. But it appears that religions tend to draw upon a much broader variety of sources for their “truths”; sources that would not pass muster for most theologians.

(Note to the reader: At this point during the sermon, I asked those in the audience to indicate by a show of hands, whether they understood Unitarian Universalism to be a philosophy or a religion. It appeared to me that those who voted were split 50-50.)

Let’s return to our original question: “Is Unitarian Universalism a philosophy or a religion?” There are a number of approaches that we might take to answer this question. I have chosen a way that works for me and that I hope will work for you. I also recognize that some may find my approach unsatisfactory. If nothing else, I hope that this discussion will lead you to think more deeply about our way of the spirit and what it means in your life.

I want to turn now to some of the foundational claims or core statements that define Unitarian Universalism. The first is the statement that Unitarian Universalism calls us to engage in a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” A related statement is that “our quest for truth is never ending.”

This would seem to push Unitarian Universalism toward the category of a philosophy. We are lovers of wisdom. Even our concern for “meaning” could be addressed by several categories of philosophy. We might look to the branch of philosophy known as “ethics” to help us discern the qualities of a good life or of good relations between individuals. “Political philosophy” could offer concepts that would be useful for the development of a just society and right-relations between individuals and institutions.

The claim that the search for truth is never-ending seems to deny the value of dogma and religious tradition, which tend to see “truth” as being fixed and static. Perhaps Unitarian Universalism is a philosophy.

Even though I know that many of us appreciate the historic Unitarian commitment to the use of reason in religious matters, I’m not convinced that the label “philosophy” fits best. It seems to me that our approach to the great questions of life draws from a wide variety of sources and disciplines. Logic and systematic argument may be one tool that we use in our never-ending quest for truth and meaning, but there are other tools that are also of value to us.

This idea awakened me to the possibility that the core difference between philosophy and religion might be discovered by asking how we “know” what we claim to know. Perhaps epistemology — another branch of the great tree of philosophy that asks how we obtain knowledge — may give us some clues that will provide the answer to Richard’s question.

I would ask you to consider a core value of our faith that I’ve struggled with for many years. Our governing covenant, which we call our Principles and Purposes, asks our congregations to affirm and promote several statements. While this document is not a creedal statement, many of us look to it for guidance for our individual lives. We also use it as a reference when we explain our faith to others.

The first claim that our congregations are asked to affirm and promote is “the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.” Let’s sit with that one for a minute. For me the word “every” is a stickler. Think about some of the people that you’ve heard about on the news lately. Recall the people who went about bilking others out of their money for years, the terrorists who blow up innocent people for the sole purpose of creating fear and destroying communities. What might you say about the inherent worth and dignity of a ruthless dictator who has forced dozens of NGOs to leave an area where thousands of vulnerable people depend on relief efforts that these agencies provided. I’m sure you can come up with similar examples of people who have committed terrible deeds. So I ask you, do these people have “inherent worth and dignity”? And if you answer “yes,” how do you know that this is true?

This is not a trivial or trick question. For it is this concept-of the inherent value of every human life that is the foundation, the heart, the keystone of our tradition. UU minister, Marilyn Sewell says that every other claim we make in our covenant, our Principles and Purposes, rests on this outrageous notion of human nature and human worth.

How did the committee, — that most sacred and revered institution of Unitarian Universalism — that developed this statement come up with this idea? Where does it come from? Surely critical thinking, dispassionate observation, and experience tell us that this statement is questionable at best.

Here are some possible sources. The Book of Genesis tells us that both male and female were created in God’s own image. We can find a slightly different version of our UU statement in the document called Humanist Manifesto II:

“The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires.

But there is an earlier expression of this idea that comes from the mighty pen of the Rev. William Ellery Channing in a sermon that he delivered on the occasion of an ordination in 1828. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with this name, Channing was the first openly Unitarian minister in Boston — back in the early 1800s!!) The sermon is titled called “Likeness Unto God.” In this sermon, Channing makes the claim that every human being has within himself or herself a spark or seed of the divine. This spark is the source of all that is good, compassionate and creative within us.

Channing taught that our purpose in life was to nurture this seed by developing our best character traits, our talents, and our abilities. This would allow us to live a good life for our own happiness. But the value of this work didn’t end with the individual. We were to share our gifts and accomplishments with others, and then encourage them to do the hard work of nurturing their own divine seed. Channing was convinced that this divine seed was indwelling in every person, regardless of class or of physical or mental abilities. Every person possessed something of God within.

We might grant this idea of a likeness to the divine or the perfect, but how does Channing address those people who do awful things. Channing concedes that there are people who do nothing with their divine potential with the result that their potential is obscured. If these attributes are “perverted or overpowered because of the appetites and passions,” then they are “ blotted out.” (It might interest you to know that Channing believed in hell.)

How, you might ask, did Channing know about this divine seed? Channing says that we derive this idea of ourselves — as well as our understanding of God — from our own souls and our own experience of the growth or unfolding of the “unbounded spiritual energy that we call God.” He goes further and says that ideas of moral perfection (which only God possesses) also come to us through the gradual development of our own moral nature, for better or for worse. Channing proclaimed that the “Good News” of Unitarianism was to share this radical vision of human nature with other people, and to encourage them as they did the work of developing the divine attributes that they possessed.

If you are unsure of what Channing means by this ability to apprehend or to know the truth of something through what he calls “the soul,” another example of Channing’s influence on our covenantal statement may be helpful. This one comes from the section that lists the sources of our “living tradition.”

Here is our first source: Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life. The list goes on to recognize the value of prophetic men and women through the ages, the sacred texts of the world’s religions, the arts, the sciences and the call of God’s love for us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Being first on the list does not mean that “direct experience” is of primary importance, and the words are sufficiently “poetic” as to be subject to a variety of interpretations. But you find that logic, reason, and science are included as sources of “guidance,” which is to say that logic tempers and guides us as we draw on the other sources. Humanist teachings are certainly important sources. Reason and logic are important tools that we use as we develop and hone our own religious stance that serves as a foundation for our lives. But we do not rely on reason alone. There is more, much more that informs our quest for truth. We are lovers of the truth, but we are also lovers of imagination, emotions, beauty, creativity, ritual, and experience — all of which offer us a rich variety of tools and ideas to call upon as we develop our own faith.

Is Unitarian Universalism a philosophy or a religion? I’m going with religion, though you may feel differently. However you understand it, Unitarian Universalism calls us to a rigorous life of self-development, not for the sake of fortune, recognition, or even self-satisfaction, but so that we can live to our fullest potential, in service to others. In our way of the spirit, this is the purpose of human life. Our congregation can and should be a place where we encourage one another in this work, sharing our struggles and celebrating our gains. Our focus is on this world, this life. But, as Channing says at the end of his sermon:

“We are to draw nigh unto God without forsaking [humans]. We are thus, without parting with our human nature, to clothe ourselves with the divine.”

May it be so!