The Role of Spirituality Today: Between Tradition and Novelty

Authors

  • Dan Chițoiu

Abstract

Spiritual experience today is in some ways, close to the way we consider scientific experiments: both can be understood as a form of trial. The follower of a spiritual path needs to meet requirements of verification of their experience comparable with those of scientific experiments. Yet unlike science the results of such spiritual trials is the experience of a reality beyond our common sense perception. To express the contents of this experience is extremely difficult. When we look at history, any description of such experience is always seen as a novelty. This is due to different cultural and social backgrounds, and different “fields of experience”. Today, we are in a time when we can better appreciate the requirement for rigour in following a spiritual path as well in connection with the concreteness as we find in the science. Contemporary spiritual experiences, conducted as trials within actual contexts, can offer new answers to actual social and cultural challenges. And it can lead to forms of spirituality which are resonant with contemporary scientific understanding.

Author Biography

Dan Chițoiu

Dan Chițoiu is a professor at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania. He is deeply involved with intercultural philosophy and an active member in the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP). He can be reached at: dan811@yahoo.com

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Published

2018-06-12

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 1 (2018): January - June 2018

Section

Articles

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