Christian Spirituality in the Background of Modern Conceptions of Spirituality: Outline of Issues

Abstract

The notion of “spirituality” is very popular in the contemporary times and therethrough is an ambiguous. The abundant literature of the object presents different conceptions of the spirituality, so we can qualify them as a “new spirituality”. The atheistic spirituality (or the spirituality without God) and the psychology of spirituality are the most distinguishes among them. The common feature of them is to base on written in human nature the ability to a transcendency. Also Karol Wojtyła in that ability to the autotranscendency sees the essence of spirituality, which manifests oneself in wide understanding of the culture and of the civilization. The author of the article proposes to name this basic form of spirituality which has its source in human nature the anthropogenical spirituality. If the ability to autotranscendency has a soteriological direction, it becomes then the religious spirituality. The Christian spirituality is her special form by virtue of the supernatural factor. Because its character is “from above”, it is not reducible to other form of spirituality. Contained in the last part of the article the methodological proposal admits to solve, from one side, the possible tension between different symptoms of the “new spirituality”, especially the spirituality without God, and the Christian spirituality. From the second side, it forbids to put an equals sign between them. On the background of different symptoms of “the new spirituality” and the psychology of spirituality, the Christian spirituality appears as a particularly remarkable the proposal of the transcendency and of the fulfilling of the human spirit.