Philosophy: Religious Experience

Question 1

What is a religious experience?

Answer 1

Any type of experience which happens within a religious context.
Subjectivist - A religious experience is true for that person but not for anyone else

Objectivist - Religious experiences are true for everyone

Question 2

Swinburne’s groupings

Answer 2

Experiencing a normal non-religious object or event that is seen as
the handiwork of God e.g. night sky.
* Experiencing a very unusual public object e.g. resurrection of Jesus.
* Experiencing private sensations that can be described e.g. Joseph’s
dream of the angel. Muhammad and the night of power.
* Experiencing private sensations that are not easy to describe e.g.
Nicky Cruz.
* Non sensory experience. Can’t explain what it was in particular that
made them think it was God, it just felt like it.

Question 3

Mystical experience

Answer 3

A direct experience of God - hearing voices / seeing visions
A union with God where a spiritual truth is reached e.g. John of the Cross

Question 4

William James’s pragmatic theory

Answer 4

Interested in the practical effects of a religious experience. True for the person who experienced it, not for anyone else. A genuine experience has all 4 hallmarks.

Question 5

James’s hallmarks

Answer 5

Noetic - People learn noetic truths which would be difficult to learn through an ordinary experience.
Transient - long lasting effect
Passive - God has taken control of the person
Ineffable - The experience is ineffable and so shows it was not an ordinary experience and has come from God.

The fruits of a religious experience were proof. The individual becomes less selfish, calmer and more loving

Question 6

Otto and the numinous

Answer 6

Fundamental to religion was that people should have an encounter with natural forces which would be an “awe inspiring, fascinating mystery”. The divine in an experience would have three main qualities:
* 1. A realisation that God is incomprehensible (mystery). One might meet God and see his work but will never fully understand God.
* 2. God is recognised as being of ultimate importance.
* 3. During a religious experience God will be both attractive and dangerous. The person will feel privileged to have had the experience but will recognise that God can not be controlled.
Otto gives the example of the feeling which came over people after a storm destroyed a partially built bridge on the Rhine. When the storm abated, an eerie silence descended on the river, evoking a strange sense of awe and fear at the power of nature. Otto believed that this experience of the numinous or holy, lay at the root of all religions

Question 7

Swinburne Credulity

Answer 7

In our every day lives, when we experience something, we usually experience it as it is e.g. if I see a tree on a walk, I have seen a tree on my walk and I have not been deceived. Swinburne says that as this is the case, when people claim to have had a religious experience, it is unlikely that they have been deceived and so we should believe that they have had the experience. We should only not believe that the experience happened if we can show that it cannot have happened e.g. If I say I saw a tree on my way to work and it can be shown that there are no trees on my way to work!

Question 8

Swinburne Testimony

Answer 8

Considers the person claiming the event. Swinburne says that people do not usually lie, so if they say that they have had a religious experience, we should believe that they are telling the truth. We should only not believe them if we know that they are prone to lying and can prove this.

Question 9

Criticisms of James’s hallmarks

Answer 9

Some religious experiences are not transient e.g. Muhammed - 26 years of revelations.
Underhill - some are not passive, mystics put themselves in the position to have a religious experience.
Ineffable - some people can describe what happened to them in detail

Question 10

Key scholars: Overview

Answer 10

Mackie- people can be decieved
Hume- people love the miraculous and supernatural
James- sheer certainty, fruits
James- hall marks, links to attributes of God
Wiles- why would God choose a select few?
Freud- projection of the human mind/Oedipus complex common to all
Davis- not all can have a physiological or psychological explanation
Underhill- not passive
Milgram experiment- obedience and conformity within groups