Secular versus Religious Enlightenment

A dialogue on the nature of God and enlightenment

Image by Robin Benad, from Unsplash

The following is a dialogue I had with another Medium writer who goes by the name of Sender Spike, on the nature of enlightenment. I defend a secular, naturalistic view, whereas Sender Spike defends a more traditional, monistic kind of mysticism.

This was a written dialogue in which we both addressed the questions, “What is enlightenment? In other words, what is a person’s highest goal in life, in philosophical and religious terms?”

Modernity and Secular Enlightenment

BEN CAIN: Traditionally, in perennial philosophy and spiritual practices, enlightenment meant realizing that God, the ultimate source of reality has been with us all along. God’s been with us because God is everywhere, and we have backdoor access via self-consciousness. We ought to realize that we, too, are manifestations of God. When we take ourselves to be independent, free, rational, naturally self-sufficient persons, minds, or egos, we identify only with certain illusions that cause us needlessly to suffer.

Then another institution arose in Europe, which has been called (somewhat problematically) “modernity.” Its hallmarks are skepticism, science, liberty, and progress. What the spiritualist calls…