Religious Experience

Question 1

What are corporeal visions

Answer 1

Empirical in that they are supernatural experiences that are mediated through the physical senses
An example is the 18 visions of Mary that Bernadette of Lourdes experienced
She saw a ‘small young lady’ who identified herself as the immaculate conception

Question 2

Imaginative visions

Answer 2

Visions which are mediated through ‘the mind’s eye’ not through physical sight
Often take the form of dreams
An example is Joseph’s dream in which he was told that Mary was pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit and that he was to marry her

Question 3

Intellectual visions

Answer 3

There is no image but the subject of the experience claims to ‘see’ things as they really are
These are mystical visions
They are hard to understand as they defy description. They enlighten the soul
Teresa of Ávila was a mystic who had many such visions

Question 4

What are numinous experiences

Answer 4

Used by Otto
Experiences of the ‘wholly other’ unrelated to spatio-temporal experiences
Non rational and unique form of experience, totally outside our everyday experience
Refers to the presence and reality that cannot be understood with the senses or intellect

Question 5

William James

Answer 5

Sympathetic to religion but was not a member of any organised religion
The true purpose of humanity is union with the higher universe that gives the world it’s significance

Question 6

Ineffability

Answer 6

A private experience that makes sense only to other mystics
It cannot be described in words so negative language may be used

Question 7

Noetic quality

Answer 7

The encounter gives a genuine insight into truths
The consist of non- rational and intuitive rather than intellectual knowledge

Question 8

Transiency

Answer 8

The experience is usually short, almost always no more than 1-2 hrs
With time it becomes more difficult to reproduce in the memory but it’s continuing significance is seen in any further experiences
It has a life transforming effect on the individuals view of life

Question 9

Passivity

Answer 9

The experience controls the mystic whose will is unable to direct what happens
This may result in unusual activity E.g. Teresa of Ávila is said to have levitated

Question 10

Walter Stace

Answer 10

Saw little point in attempting rational proofs to God’s existence
God is either a mystery or nothing at all
The goal of all religious experience is union with God

Question 11

Introvertive mystical experiences

Answer 11

Sense experience is totally suppressed
There is no awareness of the world
There is no intellectual function
Ordinary human consciousness is replaced with mystical consciousness in which the ‘I’ is absent

Question 12

Extrovertive mystical experiences

Answer 12

Halfway house to introvertive experience
Normal objects are seen in the physical senses but they are transfigurées so that the non- sensuous unity of all things shines through them

Question 13

Challenges to verifying religious experiences from Freud

Answer 13

Religion is wishful filment by the unconscious mind
Idea of God helps control fears of unknown+ death
Religious experiences are just hallucinations caused by a need for control over our helpless state
Idea of God is comforting

Question 14

Religious response to Freud

Answer 14

Argument is just a hypothesis that cannot be tested so remains a hypothesis
It may be true that people wish for a religious experience and that they provide comfort but this doesn’t prove that experiences of God are false
Anthony Flew- even people who aren’t looking for God can find God
Freud outdated and arguments proven to lack credibility

Question 15

Challenges to verifying experiences from TLE

Answer 15

people who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) are prone to religious experiences suggesting they are nothing more than abnormal states if the brain

Question 16

Religious response to TLE

Answer 16

If god wants to give a person a religious experience it has to be processed by the brain.
Many such experiences are processed by the temporal and frontal lobes. These are the structures of the brain , therefore, through which God can bring about religious experience

Question 17

Challenges to verifying religious experience from the God helmet

Answer 17

Device which stimulates temporal lobes resulting in mystical experiences
If neuroscience can duplicate aspects of religious experiences then they are specific states of the brain

Question 18

Religious responses to God helmet

Answer 18

God is personal for theists and God can reveal himself in many ways
Persistent Friend Parable taught people to be persistent with God

Question 19

Challenge to religious experiences from drugs

Answer 19

Religious experiences can be caused by certain types of drugs showing they are nothing more than product of brain state

Question 20

Religious response to drugs

Answer 20

William James accepts these experiences as valid as God can reveal himself however he wants
The most important thing is the impact of the experience on the individual

Question 21

What is Swinburne’s principle of credulity

Answer 21

In the absence of special considerations how things seem to be to a person is how they really are. This is essentially about the believability of the individuals own personal experiences
‘What one perceives is probably so’

Question 22

What is Swinburne’s principle of testimony

Answer 22

In the absence of special considerations the experience of others is probably how they report them
In other words we should believe what people tell us provided there is no reason to no