Existential Gratitude and Spirituality

This project hypothesizes that ‘existential gratitude’ is key to analysing the ‘spiritual but not religious’ (SBNR). Unlike everyday gratitude (e.g., thanking someone for a favor), existential gratitude pertains to gratitude for one’s existence. We suggest that existential gratitude is not only a virtue in many religious traditions, but one that also extends to the SBNR. This project explores (a) whether existential gratitude is essential to the SBNR; (b) whether existential gratitude is compatible with atheism/non-theism; (c) how it relates to human happiness and flourishing. We will address these questions through both theoretical analysis and empirically informed research to clarify working definitions of existential gratitude and to investigate the relation between existential gratitude and expressions of spiritual yearning. In addition to working closely with a team of psychology consultants and experts, we will organize a series of workshops bringing together researchers in philosophy, psychology, theology and religious studies to address each research objective. The science-engaged research and workshop proceedings will produce 12 journal articles as well as one ‘state of the field’ report and one psychological research prospectus. The project team will also deliver two books and two taught courses on gratitude and spirituality, as well as a number of public-facing publications which will disseminate the project’s findings to the wider reading public. The notion of existential gratitude this project develops will not only help scholars delineate between different types of gratitude, but also conceptualize different manifestations of the SBNR. As such the project will advance recent scholarly attempts to expand the study of philosophy and theology beyond the domain of concepts and beliefs, to the exploration of spiritual practices and affects like gratitude or wonder, affording more engagements with psychological and cognitive science.