Socratic Spiritual Tradition

Introduction to the Socratic Spiritual Tradition

2,500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Socrates started one of the world’s great spiritual traditions. This tradition has no creeds, ceremonies, or rituals. Nor does it have a leader whose ideas one must follow. Instead, it encourages each person to have a personal connection to the divine. It believes that each person lives a better life if she concentrates on doing God’s work in the world. Socrates believed that reason and critical thinking helped a person get through the social conditioning that blocked her from having a better connection with the divine. Thus, Socratic spirituality appealed to some of antiquity’s most intellectually capable thinkers, including Plato, the Neoplatonists, the Neopythagoreans, and the Stoics.

When the Christians established their hegemony in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Socratic spiritual tradition went underground. But in the seventeenth century, Herbert of Cherbury established deism by rejecting Christianity and turning back to the Socratic spiritual tradition, especially Stoicism. Most of the deists were part of the Socratic spiritual tradition.

Contemporary proponents of this tradition include some advocates of contemporary Stoicism, Liberal Protestantism, and Transpersonal Psychology.