Material, Materialism

Word Definitions and Meaning

What is :
material and the material world, materialism.

What Is Meant by the 'Material World' ?

material [ Latin mâteria (matter, solid, stuff) ] made up of matter or that which can be felt; stuff-ness, object-ness; being of a tangible/physical nature. Related words include corporeal, object (n.), and substantial. It's often said to be opposed to 'spiritual', 'supernatural', 'ideal', 'emotional', or 'intellectual'. To Christians, there is no wall of separation between material and spiritual; they draw life from each other. Indeed, if that wasn't so, we'd be wasting our time with all this 'spirituality' because we'd have no way to really get at it. All that lives is in some sense spiritual, yet also in some sense material. In that way, we're not different than Jesus. When the Kingdom comes, it is a material Kingdom (a 'new earth' and a 'new Jerusalem') as well as a spiritual one.

You can check for 'material' in the dictionary.

What Is Materialism ?

materialism: the belief that the bodily senses, used with human reasoning, can find everything that exists. (Except that other glove you lost....) Spiritual-talk is without meaning to a materialist, because 'spirituality' is about the undetectable and the invisible, and there are no such things for a materialist. Thus, material stuff is all that matters. A materialist considers us all material beings and nothing more or less. A materialist can have values, and can have an ethic and can live according to it. (Some radio preachers miss this truth when they criticize materialists.) However, in the end there is no meaning because there is nothing ultimate. Material just is, and because there's nothing else to measure it by, it will only have the value you attach to it. Pursued to its end, materialism is lonely, cold, and fatalistic. There's no 'underlying', no 'deep'. No religion is truly materialistic, though Marxism tried to be. Any spirituality worth looking at is either anti- or un-materialist -- spirituality comes from reaching for the realm of the unseen and the ultimate. It grows from the sense that there's more to life than meets the eye. Christian spirituality springs from understanding that nothing is purely material, yet all that we encounter is in some way material. God, who is spirit, loves us through material things or 'means'. (This view is sometimes called 'incarnational' or 'sacramental'.) So real Christianity can be both fully 'spiritual' and honestly 'material' -- but never materialist.

You can check in the dictionary for 'materialism'. Remember, as you read anything about it, that there are many kinds of materialism, just as there are many kinds of spirituality.