Religious Experience Flashcards
Religious experience
- a religious experience refers to any kind of experience that happens in a religious context, others claim its a specific, life-changing event and may be perceived as supernatural
Ways a religious experience can happen
Direct - refers to events where God reveals himself directly and isn’t willed or chosen by the person
Indirect - experiences, thoughts or feelings about God that are prompted by events in daily life
Public:
1) ordinary experience - interpreting natural events as having religious significance
2) extraordinary experience - experiences that seem to violate the normal understanding of the workings of nature
Private:
1) describable in ordinary language - experiences such as dreams
2) non-describable experiences - experiences that go beyond human powers of description
3) non-specific experiences - looking at world from a religious perspective
Types of religious experiences
Mystical experience - experiences of God or the supernatural which go beyond everyday sense experience
Numinous experience - an indescribable experience which invokes feelings of awe, worship and fascination
corporate religious experience - a religious experience that happens to a group of people
conversion experience - an experience which produces a radical change in someone’s belief system (most compelling)
Rudolf Otto’s view on religious experience
- Otto argued all religious experience was numinous in nature
- according to Otto, the numinous experience is the key to understanding the spirituality of religion
- he believed that God could not be known via reason or sensory experience, the only way we can know God is if he chooses to reveal himself
- he felt religious language was inadequate and referred to it as a “schema”, an attempt to find clusters of words which approach the idea being expressed, although the idea in itself is inexpressible
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s view on religious experience
- claimed the essence of religion was based on personal experience, arguing that religious experience was at the heart of religious faith
- believed that religious experience is “self authenticating”, it requires no other testing to make sure its genuine
- he thought experiences could take many different forms objecting against the Catholic viewpoint that experiences should be tested against existing teachings and beliefs
William James’ view on religious experience
- believed religious experience stands at the heart of religion
- James proposed four criteria to help define a mystical experience:
1) Ineffable - experience is beyond proper description
2) Noetic - experience is not just a feeling, gives a deep and direct knowledge of God
3) Transient - experience is temporary, although its effects can be long lasting
4) Passive - experience is not initiated by the mystic, they have to sense that something is acting upon them - he believed that the spiritual value of religious experience is not undone if a psychological explanation can be found
Case studies of mystical experiences
St. Teresa of Avila - Teresa experienced a severe illness which left her in great pain, however during this period, she began to increasingly experience divine visions and an inner sense of peace. These visions transformed her life leading her to become a prolific writer and a prominent figure in the Catholic Church.
Dame Julian of Norwich - Julian contracted a grave illness and came close to death, at the end of her illness, she had several visions, or showings, that she understood to have come from God. She then spent the next 20 years reflecting on these visions and writing down what she had learnt.
St. Augustine - Augustine was sat in a garden and he claimed to have heard the “sing song voice of a child” telling him to “take it and read, take it and read” compelling him to pick up a Bible and experience it in a way he never had before
Case studies of conversion experiences
Saul of Tarus (St. Paul) - Saul was determined to purge Jerusalem of any trace of Jesus’ teachings, but on his way to Damascus a light from heaven flashed around him, he fell to the ground and he heard the voice of Jesus telling him to “get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do”. When he got up and opened his eyes he could see nothing so those with him led him to Damascus and for three days he was blind, and didn’t eat or drink anything. Meanwhile, Jesus appeared in a vision to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias and told him to go to Saul so Ananias found Saul at Judas’ house, praying for help. Ananias laid his hands on Saul, telling him Jesus had sent him to restore his sight and something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He arose and was baptized into the Christian faith.
C.S Lewis - he had a conversation with J.R.R Tolkien about Christianity, and 9 days later he was driven in the sidecar of his brothers motorcycle and he said “when we set out, I did not believe that Jesus is the son of God, and when we arrived, I did. Yet i had not spent the journey in thought.”
Case studies of corporate religious experiences
Fatima village - in 1916 a group of 3 children started seeing visions of a being that claimed to be an angel, then on the 13th May 1917, the children saw a vision of who they believed to be Mary and she told them to return on the same day each month. The children told others and each month large crowds began to gather at the spot. On the 13th October 1917, about 70,000 people gathered to see the vision but Mary only appeared to the children, however a miracle was reported to have happened on the same day, apparently witnessed by many
Toronto blessing - a pastor spoke about how he would get drunk in the spirit and laugh uncontrollably, in response to this the congregation erupted into pandemonium with people laughing dancing and even barking. These experiences were attributed to the Holy Spirit entering peoples bodies.
Richard Swinburne’s view on religious experience
- he discussed three distinct ideas under the subject of religious experiences:
1) The nature of God - if God does exist, it’s reasonable to suppose that this God would want to interact with and engage with his creation
2) Principle of credulity - we should usually believe what our senses tell us we are perceiving
3) Principle of testimony - in the absence of special considerations, we should usually trust that other people are telling the truth - argued we must accept these experiences as true unless somebody can categorically prove otherwise
- so many people have claimed to have religious experiences, that the sheer weight of the testimony counts as strong evidence for God’s existence
- thought religions experiences are more likely to happen to the religious, and that a religious person is more likely to recognise a religious experience for what it truly is
- thought in conjunction with other religious arguments for God’s existence, religious experience proves that God exists
A02
- many argue as religious experiences cannot be tested by others, they cannot be used as evidence for the existence of God
- Caroline Frank Davis argued against Swinburne’s Principle of Testimony saying we should only take someones word at face value when the issue is trivial, if the issue is of importance, we need more then someone else’s word for it
- while corporate religious experiences can seem more convincing, there is the possibility of group pressure that makes others conform
- people can interpret experiences differently, even if they have the exact same experience. So if one person views an experience as a religious one, another might interpret it as hallucinations or coincidence. Its impossible to tell conclusively which interpretation is the right one
- different religious faiths tend to encounter God in a way which match their religious beliefs, this demonstrates that such experiences are no more than wish-fulfilment
