Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation: Learning from ...

Spirit”: the experience of transformation as an intrinsic aspect of a life lived in responsive relationship to transcendent meaning and power. Like the term spirituality, the word transformation has become ubiquitous and therefore ambiguous in its meaning. Even in the fields of psychology and spirituality, the term is now used in such a variety of contexts, in different ways, and for different purposes that it is difficult to clarify any common understanding beyond that of fundamental personality change.

The character and quality of spiritual transformation obviously depend on a complex set of subjective and objective factors. At the subjective level, the psychological, moral, and religious development of the person is determinative. At the objective level, the ultimate or “sacred” images, symbols, narratives, ideologies, and values around which a life is consciously and unconsciously organized condition the whole way of life adopted. My approach to transformation in the spiritual life in this book is framed broadly in terms of both the functional and phenomenological levels of analysis that have informed the treatment of spirituality. For the purposes of this study, it will be used synonymously with the term growth.

At the functional level, spiritual transformation implies an ongoing process of life integration through self-transcendence toward the horizon of ultimate value(s) one perceives. Transformation at this level refers essentially to the power of transcendent meaning and value to progressively structure and order human personality and human life. Here Paul Tillich's notion of “ultimate concern”¹³ and H. Richard Niebuhr's conception of the triadic structure of faith are illuminative,¹⁴ along with Fowler's elaboration of faith knowing in the context of faith development theory.¹⁵

Fowler's descriptions of faith stages describe progressively more elaborate operations of knowing and valuing that underlie consciousness and give coherence and direction to people's lives. The progressive composition of such coherence in the context of shared trusts and loyalties with significant others grounds their personal stances and communal loyalties in a sense of relatedness to a larger frame of reference or ultimate environment. It also empowers them to face and engage existentially with the limit conditions of human life, relying on that which has the quality of ultimacy and power in themselves and their lives.¹⁶ It implies a