This chapter introduces Object Spirituality as a novel theoretical framework that moves beyond both premodern metaphysics and modern anthropocentrism. Drawing on Speculative Realism, Object-Oriented Ontology, and Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of “divine inexistence,” the chapter proposes that spirituality emerges not from human consciousness or transcendent realities, but through the communication and intensification of relations between objects themselves. It distinguishes between “things” and “objects,” suggesting that spirituality arises as things become objects through relational intensifications. Using the Christian maxim lex orandi, lex credendi as an analytical scaffold, the chapter critiques the limitations of premodern, modern, and postmodern spiritual paradigms. It then outlines a methodology informed by phenomenology, hermeneutics, and speculative materialism, culminating in a preview of the book’s structure—a critical genealogy of spirituality discourse, theoretical foundations of Object Spirituality, its core elements, and its practical implications. This framework reconceptualizes spirituality as an emergent property of object relationships within a contingent reality that remains open to the radical possibility of divine emergence—the God who may be.

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Introduction: Object Spirituality—Beyond Metaphysics and Anthropocentrism

  • Calvyn Clarence du Toit

摘要

This chapter introduces Object Spirituality as a novel theoretical framework that moves beyond both premodern metaphysics and modern anthropocentrism. Drawing on Speculative Realism, Object-Oriented Ontology, and Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of “divine inexistence,” the chapter proposes that spirituality emerges not from human consciousness or transcendent realities, but through the communication and intensification of relations between objects themselves. It distinguishes between “things” and “objects,” suggesting that spirituality arises as things become objects through relational intensifications. Using the Christian maxim lex orandi, lex credendi as an analytical scaffold, the chapter critiques the limitations of premodern, modern, and postmodern spiritual paradigms. It then outlines a methodology informed by phenomenology, hermeneutics, and speculative materialism, culminating in a preview of the book’s structure—a critical genealogy of spirituality discourse, theoretical foundations of Object Spirituality, its core elements, and its practical implications. This framework reconceptualizes spirituality as an emergent property of object relationships within a contingent reality that remains open to the radical possibility of divine emergence—the God who may be.