The University of North Carolina Press

200 pp., 6 x 9.25, 3 illus., notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN  978-0-8078-2995-0

Published: February 2006

Paper

ISBN  978-0-8078-5961-2

Published: February 2009

Wonder

From Emotion to Spirituality

By Robert C. Fuller

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Awards & Distinctions

A 2006 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

The attempt to identify the emotional sources of religion goes back to antiquity. In an exploration that bridges science and spirituality, Robert C. Fuller makes the convincing case that a sense of wonder is a principal source of humanity's belief in the existence of an unseen order of life. Like no other emotion, Fuller argues, wonder prompts us to pause, admire, and open our hearts and minds.

With a voice that seamlessly blends the scientific and the contemplative, Fuller defines wonder in keeping with the tradition of Socrates--as an emotion related to curiosity and awe that stimulates engagement with the immediate physical world. He draws on the natural and social sciences to explain how wonder can, at the same time, elicit belief in the existence of a more-than-physical reality. Chapters examining emotions in evolutionary biology and the importance of wonder in human cognitive development alternate with chapters on John Muir, William James, and Rachel Carson, whom Fuller identifies as "exemplars of wonder." The writings and lives of these individuals express a functional side of emotion: that the very survival of life on earth today may depend on the empathy, compassion, and care that are aroused by a sense of wonder.

Forging new pathways between the social sciences, philosophy, belief, and cultural history, Wonder deepens our understanding of the complex sources of personal spirituality and fulfillment.

About the Author

Robert C. Fuller is Caterpillar Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University and author of ten books, including Religious Revolutionaries: The Rebels Who Reshaped American Religion and Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America.

Reviews

"Fuller offers a carefully crafted analysis of religious experience that focuses on the connection between the emotion of wonder and personal spirituality. . . . Clearly written, with an excellent balance of theory and practical illustration, this convincing and compelling work makes a significant contribution to the understanding of human religiosity. Essential."
--Choice

"A cohesive, carefully written, and valuable exposition of the elemental importance of wonder as a component of spirituality. . . . Fuller expertly weaves together research in neurobiology, anthropology, and sociology to illustrate his claims about the workings of wonder as an emotional experience, so that when he finally places his own book within the larger project to understand 'spirituality in the flesh,' he has earned the reader's esteem by the care with which he establishes his categories."
--Journal of Religion

"Fuller leads us on a fascinating exploration of the connections between personality, emotions, and spiritual belief. This is a must read for anyone who is curious about the human instinct to believe in the unknown."
--Dean Hamer, author of The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes

"This exciting, groundbreaking inquiry illustrates how the study of religion is enriched through a focus on emotion. Fuller's analysis of wonder, which draws impressively on recent advances in emotions research in the social and behavioral sciences, philosophy, and cultural history, invites us to think about religion in a new way."
--John Corrigan, Florida State University

"The thesis of Wonder is a tight and telling one, namely, that the emotion of wonder is central to the human experiences of meaning, beauty, and spirituality, and that no anthropology, epistemology, or psychology can be complete without it. What impresses me most about this idea is how it throws new light on a number of intellectual topics, from the psychology of the modern 'spiritual seeker,' to the science/religion debates, to the very nature of religious studies as an academic discipline. What is it that scholars of religion are in fact really studying? And how is this different from the objects of the natural sciences? Very much in line with earlier thinkers such as Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Otto, Fuller makes a potent case that it is meaning, beauty, shock, paradox, and awe that define wonder, and that it is here that we best look for some of the deepest meanings of religious experience."--Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University