Spirituality and Hyperspirituality - Glenn Conjurske
Spirituality and Hyperspirituality
by Glenn Conjurske
The term “hyperspirituality” has long been employed as a sneer, in the mouths of the unspiritual—-Neo-evangelicals in particular—-directed against true spirituality. We suppose that this is generally the fruit of an uneasy conscience, for the ways and principles of the spiritual always condemn the ways of the carnal, and it is much easier for men to cast reproaches upon the spiritual than it is to change their own ways. These reproaches are in fact no more than an unworthy mode of self-justification, the faulty defending himself before he is accused, for the ways of the spiritual are a standing accusation against the ways of the carnal, though never a word is spoken.
I, however, have taken up this term and given it more honorable employment. One reader suggests that I may have been the first to do so. Be that as it may, the fact is, I felt a simple necessity for such a term, to designate a very common doctrinal and practical position. If I have been the first to use the term in this way, this is perhaps because I have been the first in our day to systematically oppose hyperspiritual doctrines and practices—-though some in the past have loosely classified such errors as “enthusiasm.” Many others have opposed its various elements, and opposed them cogently, without recognizing them as the components of a broader system. They saw the various streams, but not the common spring from whence they flowed. This, perhaps, because hyperspiritual tendencies are so widespread that there are few among the spiritual who are not more or less tinctured with them.
Understand, this term designates a position which its adherents are not likely to avow. Those who are hyperspiritual have no notion in the world that they are so. And these doctrines have a very broad appeal to the spiritual, precisely because they are hyperspiritual. They have always an appearance of a high degree of spirituality. They appear to be the ultimate of piety. They exalt the spiritual at the expense of the natural, and submerge the human in the divine. They always exalt the Creator, though it be at the expense of his creation. They always exalt the Giver, though it be at the expense of his gifts. Such notions are very taking, therefore, with those who wish to cast off carnality, and live to God. They are very popular, therefore, among the best sort of people, and it may be that for this cause there are few who are able to put their finger upon the common source from whence they arise.
In some matters I was certainly hyperspiritual myself a quarter of a century ago. But as I began to apprehend my error on one point and another, I began also to perceive the similarity of those errors one to another—-began to perceive also their likeness to the errors of others—-and so learned in time that all of these kindred errors in fact were one. They all flow from the same corrupt spring. That spring is hyperspirituality. Discovering that spring, I must needs have a term by which to designate it, and I found one at hand, perfectly suited, and scarcely to be improved upon. The fact that that term has long been used as a reproach against true spirituality does not concern me. Neither does it concern me that it will doubtless continue to be so used, for the fact is, if the term had been used first in an honorable manner, to designate a spirituality higher than the Bible prescribes or allows, the carnal would have been quick to take up the label, and use it as a reproach against any spirituality higher than their own. Many terms now in honorable use were first used as epithets of reproach against the spiritual. Such are Puritan and Methodist, yet the spiritual have not hesitated to take up these reproachful titles, and promote them to a higher occupation. So I have done also with “hyperspiritual,” nor can I repent of it. Once understand the thing, and the term is a simple necessity.
But some of my readers, in either speaking or writing to me, have so used the term as plainly to indicate that they have no notion as to what it means. Some have applied it to what I can only regard as the direct opposite of hyperspirituality. And I strongly suspect they do not understand the term because they do not understand the thing—-strongly suspect also that they do not understand the thing precisely because they are hyperspiritual themselves. I have written at length on this theme before, besides occasional references here and there, and it seems that some have thence taken up the term, without any real understanding of the thing. It behooves me, therefore, to define as plainly as I can the only thing which the term “hyperspiritual” can mean.
As the word itself indicates, it refers to being too spiritual, or to being “righteous overmuch.” It is carrying spiritual things too far, like the tree which was so straight it leaned a little the other way, as the Indian used to say. Unfortunately, there are a good many who are so straight they lean a good deal the other way, and this is no light matter. It is in fact thinking to be more spiritual than God is, and this is neither innocent nor harmless. It is generally the fruit of pride, and often directly in the teeth of Holy Scripture.
But many of my readers, I am sure, will thank me to come down from the abstract to the concrete. I therefore offer them as plain examples of hyperspirituality, “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” (I Tim. 4:3). This plainly teaches us that nature, as God has created it, has not been superseded by anything spiritual. It exists for us to receive with thanksgiving, and to use and enjoy, as much as ever it did for Adam. This is one of the things which hyperspirituality generally thinks to deny. But plainly, to refuse what God has given, on the ground that it is carnal, or unfit for the spiritual, is to claim a spirituality more spiritual than God’s. This is hyperspiritual. To refuse the gift is to reproach the Giver. To disown the creature is to impugn the Creator. And this, though it generally comes with a great appearance of spirituality, is usually no more than consummate pride, which supposes its own wisdom superior to that of Almighty God, or its own spiritual state so advanced that it has no need of those things which God has given for the common good of the whole human race. It exalts the spiritual at the expense of the natural, as though God were not the author of both, and submerges the human in the divine, as though we could impugn the creature without reproaching the Creator.
That man is fallen and corrupt we know very well, but his fall did not obliterate the similitude of God in him. That remains, and that is as much the work of God as the starry heavens. But hyperspirituality fails to distinguish between the works of God and the works of the devil in the human constitution, and therefore condemns them both together. To forbid to marry—-or to abstain from marriage—-or to abstain from the physical delights of marriage—-on the ground that this is some way carnal, or some way beneath spirituality, is in fact to reproach the God who created marriage, and so wrought it into the very constitution of human nature that he must say “It is not good for man to be alone,” and this while man was pure from all taint of sin. When Adam “walked with God in the cool of the day,” he was both sinless and married. How then can there be any evil in marriage? Some who allow the physical delights of marriage condemn the emotional delights of courtship, replacing everything natural with some kind of spiritual love, and resolving courtship into a mere spiritual discernment of the will of God—-to which love is a decided hindrance.
But it is the way of hyperspirituality to despise the natural, and think to replace it with the purely spiritual. It thinks to replace the human with the divine. It requires no fellowship, no friendship, no love, but that of God. It has advanced, by all means, high above Adam’s mere state of innocence, for it was not good for Adam to be alone, though he were alone with God, and though all his passions were under perfect control, untainted by the first breath of sin. But we absolutely deny that God has ever advanced any man in the flesh above the state of Adam in Paradise. Marriage remains “honorable in all,” as Paul says, and necessary for most, as he plainly teaches also.
Hyperspirituality, then, is plainly seen to stand against both Scripture and nature, both of which come to us from God.
But in speaking of those who forbid to marry, we have described one of the most extreme and glaring manifestations of hyperspirituality, the more readily to convey the principle to those who may be hyperspiritual themselves. There are many lesser forms, not so flagrant in themselves, and therefore not so easily recognized by those who have but a vague understanding of the matter, or who are inclined in that direction themselves. Of some of these we intend to speak further along.
But here we must face a plain fact. True spirituality exalts the spiritual over the natural, perhaps in the same manner that hyperspirituality does, but not in the same degree. This is precisely why we call hyperspirituality what we call it. It is taking things too far. It is an unwarranted extreme—-too much, if you will, of a good thing.
True spirituality, for example, prescribes that we “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” This is the way of true spirituality, and always will be. It lays not up for itself treasures upon the earth, but provides for itself bags which wax not old, a treasure in heaven that passeth not away. This is the general and characteristic conduct of true spirituality. But hyperspirituality will exalt the general to the place of the absolute, and will labor not at all for the meat that perisheth—-or, in a milder form, labor not enough for the meat that perisheth—-and so come into direct collision with both nature and Scripture. Paul calls this (II Thes. 3:11), “walking disorderly, working not at all,” with the result that they “are busybodies,” thus demonstrating what a short step it is from hyperspirituality to actual carnality—-if it is any step at all.
Again, true spirituality recommends a single life, in order to wait upon the Lord without distraction. Yet it maintains all the while that “marriage is honourable in all”—-and necessary for most. While it holds that “he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better,” it holds inviolate also that “he that giveth her in marriage doeth well.” Hyperspirituality is too shallow to apprehend this, and must slight and contemn—-or denounce and condemn—-what God calls good.
Where spirituality prescribes temperance, hyperspirituality prescribes abstinence—-and where wine is in question has gone so far as to call abstinence by the name of temperance.
Anything which sets aside the physical, the natural, or the human, naturally appeals to the hyperspiritual, yet true spirituality also sets aside the natural in a measure. Thus while true spirituality prescribes fasting, on proper occasions, for proper ends, hyperspirituality must “fast twice in the week,” merely for the sake of fasting, or so that it may say, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.” And here we see also the common connection between hyperspirituality and pride.
To sum up the whole. On the one side, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,” (I Tim. 5:6), yet on the other side (as the same apostle tells us in the same epistle), God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” (I Tim. 6:17). Here are both sides of the question, both equally true, and by facing both of them men may learn their actual spiritual condition. True spirituality embraces both of these apostolic sayings, and heartily approves them both. The carnal, on the other hand, are apt to be very uneasy with the statement that “she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,” while the hyperspiritual will be equally uneasy with the fact that God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” Carnality wallows in pleasures. Hyperspirituality declines to enjoy the things which God richly gives. True spirituality finds the middle path of truth, and enjoys the good things which God richly gives—-food and drink, love, courtship, and marriage, birds and flowers, meadows and mountains, shade and sunshine, sunsets and moonlight, music and laughter—-yet it uses all these things in moderation, with a becoming self-denial, thanking God for all, yet subjecting all to the higher purposes of the spiritual and the eternal. Even Adam in Paradise could not spend the live-long day kissing Eve, for God had given him work to do—-and we have a higher work than Adam’s. Yet Adam could spend every waking minute sharing with Eve, and praising God for her existence. If God was not too spiritual to create these pleasures, and to give them to man, far be it from his creatures to be too spiritual to enjoy them. This is in fact to condemn the Creator, and claim a wisdom or a spirituality higher than his. This is hyperspirituality.
Carnality enjoys the illegitimate pleasures, which God forbids, and unduly indulges in the legitimate, which God gives. Hyperspirituality declines to enjoy the legitimate pleasures which God has created—-or enjoys them only at the expense of a bad conscience. Spirituality stands in the middle—-and must usually endure reproaches from both sides, being called hyperspiritual by the carnal, and carnal by the hyperspiritual. Yet the middle ground of spirituality is the ground of faith, and of happiness too. “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” (Rom. 14:22). Carnality must rightfully condemn itself for what it wrongfully allows. Hyperspirituality cannot rightfully allow what it wrongfully condemns. Faith both allows what God creates and gives, and condemns not itself in the use of it. Here is happiness, and this is true spirituality.
And here I must mention what I believe to be one of the primary reasons for the popular appeal of hyperspirituality. Shallow men are much given to easy ways, and hyperspirituality is both shallow and easy. It requires no wisdom, no thought, no hard wrestling with difficult questions. Where the spiritual allows some pleasure, he must yet enjoy it with self-denial and moderation. He must determine how much he may allow, on what occasions, and for what purposes. These things he must determine by spiritual principles, by wisdom, by exercise of heart and conscience, by examination of motives, by searching into the effects of such indulgences upon his own soul, and upon his example and testimony to others. All this the hyperspiritual can pass by. They can settle all such questions with one stroke. “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” This is easy, much too easy, while on the other side it plunges them into something which is much too hard. The self-denial in such a position must be anything but easy, but this is “will-worship.” It is harder than anything God requires of them, and in some cases harder than they can bear, and is in general a great flowing fountain of pride, while at the same time it fosters hard thoughts of God, whom it cannot help but regard as a hard master, who has created within us various desires and capacities, and surrounded us with the very things which would satisfy those desires, but required us to abstain from them.
Hyperspirituality would make angels of men—-slighting and setting aside all those desires and capacities which distinguish men from angels—-but it finds them to be but men still. Nor will it receive any help from God in the matter, and while attempting to make angels of men, it may make very devils instead, as the whole monastic system abundantly testifies. God prescribes natural means, and requires men to use them. God says, for example, “To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” Those who refuse this need not expect any supernatural grace to keep them from fornication, or from burning. Men may one day be “equal unto the angels,” and so marry no more, but that will not be till heaven and earth shall pass away. To endeavor to bring such a spiritual state down to this earth here and now, we must fight continually against both Scripture and nature, or, to speak the plain truth, we must fight against God.
Glenn Conjurske