Religious Experience Flashcards
What is an introvertive experience
The ultimate mystical experience. There is no sense of I- sense experience is totally suppressed. There is no awareness of the world and there is no intellectual function. Ineffable, sense of the holy, sense of absolute peace, sense of paradox
What is an extrovertive experience
Half way to an introvertive. Sense experience is still active, normal objects are seen with the physical senses. But they are transfigured so that the non-sensuous unity of all things shines through them
Williams James criteria for religious experience
P - passivity : you are passive in the experience - you cannot indicate or direct what happens. It happens to you; the experience controls you
Ineffability - it cannot be articulated into words; you may only be able to say what it was not
Noetic Quality - it contents deep insight into truths. This is non-rational and intuitive knowledge (rather than intellectual)
Transience The experience is short (e.g. 1-2 hours) However, it has a lifelong impact on the individual
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.” (Beyond human control and understanding.
These experiences could be used to prove religions other than the Classically Theist ones – such as Buddhism – the experience of nirvana for example could be understood through his 4 criteria.
The influence and impact of Sr Paul’s religious experience
- book of acts tells the story of Saul travelling to Damascus in order to continue persecuting Christians
- as Saul travelled towards Damascus, he had a religious experience- hee was blinded by a bright light from heaven and fell to the ground. He then heard a voice from heaven ‘Saul, Saul why fo you persecute me
- when Saul was speaking he received the reply ‘I am Jesus, who you are persecuting’
The influence and impact of St bernadette of lourdes religious experience
Bernadette haad the first in a series of visions of the visions of the virgin mary aged just 14
- the 18 visions took place between Feb and July 1858 near the ,massabielle groto
- Mary revealed herself with the words ‘I am the immaculate conception’
- during one visions, on 25th February, Mary told bernadette to drink water of a spring- as there was no spring, Bernadette dug. Water started to flow from, where she had dug; the water still flows today with a reputation for healing
Richard swinburne principle of credulity
We should assume things are credible unless we have evidence e that proved otherwise. We ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, until we have evidence that we are mistaken
Principle of testimony
We should assume people are telling the truth unless we have evidence that proves otherwise (innocent until proven guilty) IN THE ABSENCE OF SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS ARE PROBABLY AS THEY REPORT THEM
Strength of swinburne
Takes into account ‘special considerations’ that may influence the reliability of someone’s testimony. For example: some people are proven liars, some people are drug users or suffer from mental health disorders, some people have ulterior motives for making such claims. His acknowledgement of this strengthens his case - it shows he has has considered potential problems
Consistent with William James’ pragmatist belief that experiences should be judged by their ‘fruit not roots’. Transformation is lifestyle and outlook is a powerful (and observable) argument for the genuineness of a religious experience.
Swinburne is making an inductive argument that seeks to investigate the probability of God’s experience. Swinburne therefore acknowledge his method is not absolutely perfect, but it still ultimately makes God’s existence more probable than not (to more than 50%)
Swinburne’s approach reflects how human beings navigate through life in general- we would not be able to get through life if we demanded absolute proof
What did Otto say about relgious experiences?
Otto argued that all religious experiences are numinous – “relating to the power (or presence) of a deity.”
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.
Religious experiences are an experience of God as the wholly other. Showing people that God is different from anything else in the universe and the realms of human experience. These feelings are also beyond human reason, so they cannot be explained rationally, or put into human words. This relates to the concept of ineffability.
These experiences always show that God is transcendent: beyond space and time.
Walter Stace (1886-1967)
“Either God is a mystery or He is nothing at all.”
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. This is shown in the quote “Either God is a mystery, or he is nothing at all.” – if we did understand God, we ourselves would have to be omniscient, omnipotent beings. 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 defines mystical experiences as non-sensuous and non-intellectual
meaning that they do not involve the physical senses, and that when we
have them we lose our sense of self (the “I” consciousness) in favour of a higher power.
He rejected many experiences that could be “mystical”, such as visions,
voices and the powers of the occult- all of these rely on the senses.
Visions are not mystical because they are sensuous, and the definition of mystical is non-sensuous, specifically having no shape, form or colour.
Mystical experiences can be introvertive or extrovertive, meaning the
experiencer loses their sense of self, accepting a higher power or being (in the case of an introvertive experience) or keeping your sense of self but being made aware of the existence of a higher power (in the case of
extrovertive).
Freuds criticism of religious experience
Freud was a materialist.
Religion is a psychological illness – a neurosis.
Religious people seek a father figure because of the Oedipus Complex and God fulfils that imaginary role.
The aim of psychoanalysis was to outgrow religious belief
Religious experience is illusory wish fulfilment – fantasy
Teresa of Avila’s experience of the dart of love would be seen by a Freudian as the product of repressed sexuality.
Ramachandran criticism of religious experience
Did experiments to discover that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy are far more prone to religious experiences, so the temporal lobe is a
particular focus for these experiences. This shows that religious experiences may be caused in the brain alone, and they are not caused by an external factor like God or the Holy Spirit.
What is a corporeal vision?
Comes from a sense of sight.
In a corporeal vision, a person will see and object that has religious experience clearly,
in the same way that they can see any other object around them.
This is a reality view, as an Angel, God or religious figure such as a Saint is believed to
really be appearing within the world in order to give a specific message, or personally
prove to an individual that God exists.
They can be described as “empirical” in nature – this means that they are experienced
by the senses of touch, taste, hearing, smell and sight. This is a realist perspective, as
the belief is that the vision is really affecting a person’s physical being.
