Abstract
The paradigm of human flourishing proposes to direct efforts in all fields to achieve the development of people at the individual, community, and systemic levels. At the individual level, in recent years, there have been several proposals in the field of health sciences that recognize, among others, two indispensable dimensions for human well-being: meaning and spirituality. This chapter offers a perspective of current studies in which the sciences and humanities converge, updating the interest in spiritual knowledge at the service of human flourishing. We understand that the word spiritual implies a variety of meanings, from religious practices to mental states of tranquility, peace, and purpose of life in a secular sense.
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Notes
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Note: All translations of Spanish book quotations into English are our own.
- 2.
Peterson and Seligman (2004) cite several studies that highlight the benefits of spirituality as well as religiosity and the institutions that foster them. By providing a clear moral framework, they help construct meaning and offer a sense of purpose, hope, and emotional support (Maton & Pargament, 1987; Dull & Skokan, 1995). There is a relationship between religiosity, happiness, and purpose in life (French & Joseph, 1999) and between religious commitment and physical and psychological well-being (Krause, 1997). Religion plays an important role in co** with illness and psychological stress Crawford et al., 1989) and is associated with the ability to forgive (Rye et al., 2000), kindness (Ellison, 1992), and compassion (Wuthnow, 1991), and involvement in the church is often a predictor of altruism, volunteerism, and philanthropy (Hodgkinson et al., 1990; Mattis et al., 2000). Early religious and spiritual engagement plays an important role in promoting prosocial values (Mattis et al., 2000), and religiosity has been associated, in children and adolescents, with fewer antisocial activities (Johnson et al., 2001) and better academic performance (Donahue & Benson, 1995). Young people with higher levels of religious involvement perceive the world as a more coherent place (Bjarnason, 1998), and studies offer positive correlations between various measures of spirituality and religiosity and various adaptive personal and family aspects. Ryff and Keyes (1995) and Ryff and Singer (2008) have pointed out that full psychological well-being corresponds to a eudaimonic perspective in which, in addition to mastery of the environment, autonomy, and personal growth, it is considered necessary to find meaning in one’s own life, self-acceptance, and positive relationships with others. (Martínez, 2006) has called these approaches the scientific study of transcendental strenghts
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Thomas Aquinas, main representative of Catholic orthodoxy, wrote the Summa Against the Gentiles on the premise that it is possible to arrive at certain theological statements common to all human rationality, without the aid of supernatural revelation, and judge from there the religious versions, something not too far from the intention of Leibniz and the Christian rationalists and close to the philosophical argumentation of Maimonides (1135–1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed.
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Prolific author who attempts to synthesize philosophy, psychology, and religion. Representative of his thoughts is his book Integral Spirituality (2006). Although very popular, his proposals have been criticized in epistemology, psychology, and philosophy.
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The academic status of transpersonal psychology is still uncertain. Attempts to include religious and mystical experiences in scientific studies have not received widespread approval from the academic community, to which a certain widespread eclecticism in the movement contributes. The works led by R. Davidson point to a different path.
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Hernández-Baqueiro, A., Tamés-Muñoz, E., Cebral-Loureda, M. (2024). Actuality of Spirituality in the Paradigm of Human Flourishing. In: Dobre, C.E., Pavón, R.G., Estrada, F.D. (eds) Human Flourishing, Spiritual Awakening and Cultural Renewal. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55707-1_8
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