What is the Kind of Excellence We Aim at?

Is it Achieved?

Abstract

The kind of ‘Excellence’ that we aim at theological and philosophical institutes calls for a revision to my mind. More often than not, it has been interpreted in terms of ‘achievement, performance, out-put, management’ etc. All these are valid indicators to some extent. However, the excellence that we aim at is of a different ‘category’; it entails a different way of perceiving and a different way of understanding. In the deepest sense of the word, it is a religious perception – an ability to look at reality from the ultimate perspective (to borrow Tillich’s phrase) or to be ultimately concerned. I do not mean here a dichotomous understanding of the ‘sacred and secular’; rather ‘excellence’ entails an integral perception that enables one to see reality (people, events, science, culture, and religions) in their totality, in their inter-connectedness, in their love-relationship. Excellence is a religion-epistemological category in our ‘philosophical - theological’ frame of reference...