Religious Experience Flashcards
What are corporeal visions?
Comes from a sense of sight.
In a corporeal vision, a person will see an object that has religious experience clearly, in the same way that they can see any other object around them
What is an example of a corporeal vision
St Bernadette saw visions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France. These vision opened a spring of water said the have healing properties (approx. 70 healing miracles have taken place there since, and it is a place of pilgrimage
What is an imaginative vision
Occur most frequently in dreams.
• In this type of vision, the person experiencing it has no control – showing
that this vision comes from God.
• This vision is seen in the mind.
• Despite occurring in the mind, these visions have real effects of the people
who receive them, making them change their behaviour.
What is an example of an imaginative vision?
Genesis 41 - Pharoah’s dream about the 7 fat and thin cows
What are intellectual visions?
Have no image to be perceived.
• However, they give people an awareness of how things really are/the true
nature of the world.
• People experience an “illumination” of the soul and proof that God exists.
• This is a type of mystical experience, so cannot be described in human words
What is an example of an intellectual vision?
Mother Julian of Norwich – a “cloud of unknowing” descended upon her revealing to her the true extent of God’s greatness in comparison to her.
What did Rudolph Otto say about religious experiences
Rudolph Otto (1869-1937) • Otto argued that all religious are numinous – “relating to the power (or presence) of a deity.” These feelings are also beyond human reason, so they cannot be explained rationally, or put into human words. • Numinous experiences often involve feelings of awe and wonder, but these can also be related to fear – people feel frightened by the unknown and by being made aware of the power of God being so much bigger than themselves. They are described as “sui generis” – unique or in a class of their own.
- God as the ‘wholly other’
What are scientific criticisms of religious experiences?
Freud: religion is wish-fulfillment of the unconscious mind. We believe in God
to overcome the fear of death and the unknown – this need can cause
hallucinations which confirm the existence of God, but in reality religious beliefs are “infantile and neurotic.”
Some people who have TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy) have religious visions and mystical experiences as one of their symptoms. This has led scientists to suggest that religious experiences are caused by chemical changes in the brain. It has even been suggested that religious figures from history had this condition – St Paul is said to have been unwell with an undisclosed illness and some people have hypothesized that this was TLE.
What is an example of a numinous experience?
Biblical examples: Moses encountering the burning bush, not understanding the experience but knowing he is experiencing a greater power, he asks “who are you?” and God replies “I am the I Am.” This shows that God’s nature cannot be described in
human language.
What did William James say about religious experiences?
believed that mystical
experiences consist of four distinguishing features.
They are ineffable, that is they can not adequately be described by the human language.
They are noetic; they convey some knowledge of the universe.
They are transient - they do not last long and may only happen once in a life time – showing that God is transcendent (outside of space and time).
They are also passive; the person has no control over them.
In all religious experiences James identifies a feeling of deep inner peace, joy, great emotional intensity and an unshakeable claim that God has been encountered in a bipolar event.
These experiences could be used to prove religions other than the Classically Theist ones – such as Buddhism.
These feelings can be brought about in ways other than prayer and worship – for example, they could in his opinion be brought about whilst under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs.
What does Walter Stace think about religious experiences
Religious experiences are mystical, he argues that God must be a mystery to humanity as otherwise he would not be an omnipotent, transcendent God that is worthy of worship. “Either God is a mystery, or he is nothing at all.”
To understand God and his nature, and to be able to completely understanding a religious experience in a realist way, we would have to ourselves be omniscient beings. This is because only God can understand God, humans are on a lower level.
He therefore rejects visions, as these are experiences that people seem to be able to understand.
He focuses on mysticism – particularly through having a revelation in the world of a higher power existing:
Introvertive – looking inwards at ones own experience.
Objective – Outward circumstances: “lovely the woods, waters, meadows” – GERARD HOPKINS. Its all down to God.
Why are religious experiences hard to verify?
Subjective
Transient
Non-universal
No scientific proof
Emotional
Occam’s Razor
General Criticisms of Religious Experience
As most forms of religious experience are regarded as ineffable, they actually cannot be understood in reality. This makes it impossible for them to be verified (proven) or even discussed, as they are personal and cannot be expressed in words.
All our normal experiences count against religious experiences – we always subscribe our experiences to having some kind of concrete cause – whether it is physical/bodily, environmental or emotional. Religious experiences can therefore be easily explained as having a more likely explanation (e.g. Occam’s Razor logic).
Religious experiences could be incorrect, or lies – this is the same as a criticism of miracles. Hume’s view would support the idea that religious experiences are falsifications or misunderstandings, stemming from the human love of awe and wonder.
Counter-Argument - Swinburne:
Religious experiences make the existence of God highly probable, based on
two principles:
The principle of credulity – it something seems to be present, it is likely that it is present. Furthermore, in any religious experience it cannot be proven that
God was not present, so it is credible to argue that as He seemed to be, He was.
The principle of testimony – if reliable witnesses report religious experiences, then we should believe them. If you are skeptical, you should prove it false, rather than demand that the witness proves it to be true.
Scientific criticisms of religious experiences:
Freud: religion is wish-fulfillment of the unconscious mind. We believe in God to overcome the fear of death and the unknown – this need can cause hallucinations which confirm the existence of God, but in reality religious beliefs are “infantile and neurotic.”
Some people who have TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy) have religious visions and mystical experiences as one of their symptoms. This has led scientists to suggest that religious experiences are caused by chemical changes in the brain. It has even been suggested that religious figures from history had this condition – St Paul is said to have been unwell with an undisclosed illness and some people have hypothesized that this was TLE.
