Scientia sacra

rdf:langString Scientia sacra

rdf:langString In perennial philosophy, scientia sacra or sacred science is a form of sacred knowledge that lies at the heart of both divine revelations and traditional sciences. It recognizes sources of knowledge other than those recognized by modern epistemology, such as divine revelations and intellectual intuition, the latter of which is considered a supra-rational form of knowledge based on the human intellect. Scientia sacra embodies principles and doctrines derived from reason, revelation and intellectual intuition, with the conviction that these sources of knowledge can be reconciled without conflict in a hierarchical order and employed in the human quest to understand different orders of reality. It views the universe as a unified reality centered on God—the Ultimate Reality—whose knowledge is beyond the reach of sense perception and reason. This notion may be traced back to traditional cultures and civilizations, particularly Islamic tradition, which was primarily conceptualized in contemporary language by the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr in his book Knowledge and the Sacred, originally published in 1981, containing his Gifford Lectures delivered that same year.