Alex Tang
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Books Recommendation
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Medical Students /Paediatric notes
Our Spiritual Senses
Touch, taste, hear, see, and smell are how we interact with the physical world with our physical senses. Through the tactile sensor in our skin, our taste buds in our tongue, the vibration of our eardrums, the receptors of our olfactory glands, and light falling on our retina, we interpret and perceive our physical world as a reality. Since the Age of Enlightenment, we are increasingly drawn to believe in this reality as the only reality. Postmodernism posits that we have moved beyond ‘the God hypothesis’; a concept that we created God in order to help us feel safe and make sense of the physical reality. This ‘spiritual but not religious’ mindset nevertheless makes allowance for a spiritual realm, other than the physical one we are familiar with. If a human has senses to interact with the physical world, is it not conceivable for the human to have spiritual senses to interact with the spiritual one?
In the Christian tradition, these spiritual senses have been alluded to frequently in the Bible and writings of the believers. There are numerous examples of people seeing God (as burning bush, pillar of fire), hearing God (as a still small voice), touching and smelling in a wrestling match, and tasting as ordinated by Jesus in the future sacrament of the Holy Communion. These spiritual senses were highlighted by the patristic theologian Origen (c.185-c.254 CE) in his commentary of the Song of Songs as the highlight of the mystic experience in the text. I will mysticism as experiencing divine encounters with God. This was further explained by Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-c.395 CE) whose work greatly influenced Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventure. All of these theologians played a significant role in developing the Western mystical tradition. Julian of Norwich (late 1342-after 1416), an English anchoress, gave a precise definition of the spiritual senses when she described her visions which are published as Showings (long text),
And then we shall all come into our Lord, knowing ourselves clearly and wholly possessing God and we shall all be endlessly hidden in God, truly seeing and wholly feeling, and hearing him spiritually and delectably smelling him and sweetly tasting him (1978, 255)
Julian was referring to the five spiritual senses when she refers to ‘truly seeing,’ ‘wholly feeling’, ‘hearing him spiritually’, ‘delectably smelling him’, and ‘sweetly tasting him’. By noting ‘we shall all come into our Lord’ Julian seem to imply that we all have the spiritual senses. The Psalmist encourages us to “taste and see that the Lord is good…” (Psalm 34:8a).
If we all have spiritual senses, the question then arises whether we are using them. And do our spiritual senses become less sensitive or atrophied if we do not use them? In the physical example of a squint or ‘lazy eye’, the affected person see double (diplopia) because of the misalignment of the two eyes. It is confusing for the person to be seeing double so the person’s brain will ‘switch off’ one eye in order that the person can see well. The eye that was ‘switched off’ is a perfectly normal eye but since it was ‘switched off’, that eye is effectively blind. Could that be happening to our spiritual senses? Children are very good in using their spiritual senses. But as they grow older, these senses are slowly being ‘switched off’ as they are slowly inducted into a world that only believed in the physical.
How may we recover our spiritual senses? The Christian tradition has always used liturgy, church worship services, sacraments, and the spiritual disciplines as formative means of grace to help to restore and sharpen our spiritual senses. Spiritual disciplines such as prayers, Bible reading, meditation, silence, retreat, service, Lectio Divina, and Lectio Visio are especially powerful in sharpening our spiritual senses. Sharpened spiritual senses enable us to move easier to divine encounters with our Living God. Our God is a relational good. Our spiritual senses enable us to have a real relationship with God as with our human neighbours. As real as the physical and spiritual relationship, Adam and Eve have in the Garden of Eden. A Christian tradition that focuses on the cognitive and dwelling mainly on propositional truths devoid of spiritual experiences become dry and dogmatic. There is a need for the Christian tradition to be balanced by a spirituality that the spiritual senses provide. Gordon Smith (2017), professor of systematic and spiritual theology, rightly points out the church should be utilizing evangelical, sacramental and pentecostal principles. Such a church will be utilizing both our physical and spiritual senses.
Sharpening our physical senses helps us to better enjoy the wonderful creation that we are born into. Homing our spiritual senses helps us to connect with the spiritual dimensions of this same creation. We all will be poorer without our physical and spiritual senses.
Chinese New Year
25 January 2020
Reference
Colledge, Edmund and Walsh, James, 1978. Julian of Norwich Showings, Payne, Richard J. ed. The Classics of Western Spirituality, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press
Smith, Gordon, 2017, Evangelical, Sacramental & Pentecostal: Why the church should be all three, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press
