P1 - Verifying Religious Experiences

Question 1

Key features of a religious experience

Answer 1

• a non-empirical occurrence (doesn’t require prior knowledge or experience)
• perceived as supernatural
• described as a mental event
• can be spontaneous or can be through intensive training and self-discipline

Question 2

Impact of a religious experience

Answer 2

• draws them to a deeper knowledge or awareness of God
• not a substitute for the Divine, but a way to bring people closer to the divine
• experience for each individual is unique, it cannot be shared with anyone
• genuine religious experiences seem to be encouraging, they don’t condemn the individual, but help them live a better life and help other people

Question 3

What was James’ view on religious experiences

Answer 3

religious experiences draw on the common range of emotions (happiness, fear, wonder) but they are direct at the divine

Question 4

What was Paul Tillich’s view on religious experiences

Answer 4

religious experiences is a feeling of ultimate concern, demanding a decisive decision from the one receiving it

Question 5

What was Ninian Smart’s view on religious experiences

Answer 5

“a religious experiences involves some kind of ‘perception’ of the invisible world, or a perception that some visible person or thing is a manifestation of the invisible world.”

Question 6

What was Martin Buber’s view on religious experiences

Answer 6

God reveals himself to people on a personal level as they experience him in life and in the world (through people and nature). We experience God via the ‘Eternal Thou’

Question 7

What are the three types of religious visions

Answer 7

• corporeal
• imaginative
• intellectual

Question 8

What is a religious vision?

Answer 8

something seen other than by ordinary sight, not normal with the physical eye. They are often found as other types of experience. Augustine of Hippo explained it through three types of vision

Question 9

What are Corporeal visions?

Answer 9

through the physical sense of sight, the experiencer sees a supernatural vision of an object that is really present

E.g. Bernadette of Lourdes saw a vision of Mary, she saw a ‘small young lady’ who identified herself as he Immaculate Conception

Question 10

What are Imaginative visions?

Answer 10

occurs most frequently in dreams, where the experience is ‘seen’ or imagined with the ‘eye of the mind’ and is completely beyond the individual’s control

E.g. Joseph’s dream where he was told that Mary was pregnant through the Holy Spirit and he was to marry her

Question 11

What are intellectual visions?

Answer 11

has no image, those who experience this claim to ‘see’ things as they really are

E.g. St. Teresa of Avila ‘saw’ Jesus during the prayer…
‘I saw nothing with the eyes of the soul… the vision was not imaginary, I saw no form’
‘I saw nothing with the eyes of the body’
‘I had a most distinct feeling… of His near presence’
These are spiritual illumination

Question 12

What is sui generis

Answer 12

unique or in a class of its own. it is an experience of something ‘wholly other’, beyond what can be grasped and perceived

Question 13

What is non-rational

Answer 13

it is beyond rational and cannot be explained

Question 14

What is Mysterium tremendem et fascinans

Answer 14

‘a fearful and fascinating mystery’, a tremendous power of awe and majesty, fear and terror, overpoweringness, energy or urgency

mysterium – refers to something far removed from humanity that can be experienced but not understood, it elicits the response of awe and wonder

tremendum – refers to the fearson experience of God’s overwhelming majesty and energy, creates a sense of human nothingness and sinfulness, and consequently absolute dependence on God

fascinans – the compulsive and attractive nature of the experience creates the desire for a relationship with this being, despite its fearful nature, it creates an awareness of the need for salvation

Question 15

What does Otto suggest that a numinous feeling is

Answer 15

sui generis, non-rational, mysterium tremendum et fascinans

Question 16

What is the mysticism

Answer 16

the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality may be attained through experience.

Question 17

What are the 4 qualities of a mystical experience (William James)

Answer 17

1. Passivity – the experient feels that they are passive, they recieve something that is offered
2. Ineffability – Indescribable, can’t be described by ordinary language
3. Noetic quality – it provides information or knowledge
4. Transiency – it doesn’t last long

Question 18

What are the two types of religious experiences (Walter Stace)

Answer 18

Extrovertive and Introvertive experience

Question 19

What is introvertive experience

Answer 19

total suppression of sense experience, awareness of the outside world is obliterated. Non-intellectual as the ‘I’ is replaced with a ‘mystical consciousness

Question 20

What is extrovertive experience

Answer 20

involves sense experience, a ‘halfway house’ to an introvertive experience. Objects are transfigured so that non-sensuous unity shines through them

Question 21

What are characteristics of a introvertive mystical experience

Answer 21

• the unitary consciousness; the one; the voic
• nonspatial, nontemporal
• sense of objectivity or reality
• blessedness, peace, etc
• feeling of the holy, scared, or divine
• paradoxicality (seeming to be self-contradictory)
• alleged by mystics to be ineffable

Question 22

philosophical challenges in verifying religious experiences

Answer 22

• we only have the word of the recipient (c: there are group experiences)
• experiences are highly subjective, personal, ‘interpretations’ (c: those who have it will claim its objectivity real)
• inability to describe mystical experiences shows its not real (c: ineffability is key characteristic, its difficult to investigate but doesn’t mean they aren’t real)
• so alien to experience (c: many different people have reported religious experience)

Question 23

Freud’s challenge to religious experiences

Answer 23

religion is wish-fulfilment by the unconscious mind – god helps us control uncertainties in life, those claiming religious visions and mystical experiences might simply be hallucinations to help us

Question 24

Neuroscience challenges to religious experiences

Answer 24

those with temporal lobe epilepsy might have religious experiences due to abnormal states in the brain

religious experiences may also be stimulated by electricity on temporal lobes in the brain. This is proven by the God Helmet where those being stimulated experiences similar symptoms

Question 25

Hallucinogenic drugs challenges to religious experiences

Answer 25

‘entheogens’ e.g. LSD, mescaline and psilocybin may cause intense spiritual and religious experiences

Walter Pahnke did a scientific study on 20 theology students and found that those given psilocybin experienced feelings similar to religious experiences

Question 26

responses to scientific and psychological challenges

Answer 26

• Freud’s theory is a hypothesis which can’t be tested, doesn’t prove that God is false
• TLE and drugs, god may use these to communicate with people

Question 27

Swinburne’s principle of credulity

Answer 27

• in the absence of special considerations, how things seem to a person ins how they really are
• essentially about the believability of the individual’s own personal and private experience

Question 28

Swinburne’s principle of testimony

Answer 28

• in the absence of special considerations, we should believe what people tell us
• this is essentially about the reliability of what others claim about their personal experiences

Question 29

points against Swinburne’s approach

Answer 29

• a huge leap from saying that normal observable sense experiences are reliable to claiming the same for religious experiences, which are metaphysical
• others can confirm claims about ordinary sense experiences, while religious ones are often private
• even if every experient was convinced that it was an experience of God, that doesn’t mean God is the right explanation

Question 30

points supporting Swinburne’s approach

Answer 30

• transformation in lifestyle is a powerful argument for the genuineness of religious experience
• other people claims to such experiences combined with transformed lives gives support
• argument for the existence of God from religious experience both strengthens and is strengthened by inductive arguments studied in proving God’s existence