Religious Experience Flashcards
Types of religious experiences
Visions - seeing, hearing or feeling the presence of a supernatural figure or event
Conversions - a change in belief or lifestyle
Mystical experiences - a sense of unity with God or the absolute reality
Prayer - the recipient directly seeks a connection with God or the divine
Features of visions
INTELLECTUAL aspect – gaining new knowledge or understanding
SENSORY element – appearing to come through the senses
IMAGINARY or DREAM based – visions occur in the unconscious mind that could not happen when awake
CORPOREAL visions – it seems as if there is something physically present
INDIVIDUAL – often only one individual can experience the vision. Others close by may not see the same thing
Features of conversions
Moral - change in lifestyle is key
Intellectual - change in belief is key
Gradual - happening over a long period of time
Sudden
Volitional - freely chosen by the recipient
Self-surrendering - accepted after a period of resistance
Passive - happens without them seeking it
Active - recipient does something to encourage the conversion
Transforming - changing someone so much that they are like a new person
Features of mystical experiences (William James)
Passivity– they happen to the recipient.
Ineffability – they cannot be properly described in language.
Noetic quality – they provide special knowledge or understanding.
Transiency – they are short-lived, but have a lasting effect on the recipient.
The numinous
A sense of being in the presence of an amazing power and yet feeling separate from it.
Hans Kung
Mysticism involves a closing of the senses to the external world and a dissolving of the self, seeking salvation through union with God.
Kung says mysticism developed as a reaction to institutionalised religion.
St Bonaventure
Classified three stages of mystic experience, which he called the ‘mystic way’:
1. The purgative stage – in which the mystic is prepared and purified by prayer and discipline (or ascetism)
2. The illuminative stage – in which the mystic enjoys an experience which is emotionally and spiritually illuminating
3. The unitive stage – in which the mystic enjoys a sense of oneness with God
Features of mysticism
UNITIVE – sense of oneness with God or the divine
TRANSCENDENT – beyond ordinary limits of space and time
ECSTATIC – sense of joy, peace or bliss
INEFFABLE – impossible to describe in ordinary language
NOETIC – giving some kind of new knowledge
PASSIVE – the individual is not in control of the experience but is overwhelmed by it
TRANSCIENT – the experience does not last a long time
St Teresa of Avila
Thought of the soul as an ‘interior castle’ with seven ‘mansions’
Examples of Mystical Experiences
Alfred Tennyson
Mother Julian of Norwich
Examples of Visions
The Magi’s warning
St Bernadette’s visions
Saul on the road to Damascus
The miracle of the sun at Fatima
Examples of Conversions
C.S. Lewis
John Wesley
Swearing Tom
Saul’s conversion
Caroline Franks-Davis’ three categories of challenge
Description based challenge
Subject based challenge
Object based challenge
Description based challenges
When any event is described that claims itself to be an experience of God/Divine then a claim is being made for which there is no proof.
If the experience is inconsistent/contradictory with normal everyday experiences, then it’s not valid and a misunderstanding of the part of the recipient.
Subject based challenges
The recipient is unreliable as a source; they can be suffering mental illness, delusions, substance misuse. Therefore there is mistrust of their experiences and the claims are then dismissed.
Object based challenges
The suggestion of God having been experienced is no more likely than a claim of having seen an alien. So why should we believe someone who has claimed to see God any more than we should someone who has claimed to have seen an alien?
Anthony Flew’s Falsification Principle
Religious believers allow nothing to count against their beliefs, then all religious statements, including accounts of religious experience, are meaningless because there is no criteria that you can use to disprove them.
The parable of the gardener
One explorer says to the other, “There must be a gardener because there are flowers growing.” The second explorer doesn’t believe this because a good gardener would remove the weeds from the area. But he is willing to test this, so they sit down and wait for the gardener who doesn’t turn up. The first explorer thinks that maybe they just keep looking away when the gardener arrives, so they set a number of traps. Each time a new trap is installed the gardener is not seen. So is there a gardener?
Well the first explorer’s answer is that the gardener is silent, then invisible, and undetectable. The second explorer then replies, “What’s the difference between that and no gardener at all?”
Richard Swinburne - principle of credulity
If we think we experienced something, we probably did
Richard Swinburne - principle of testimony
If someone tells us something is true, they probably believe it is
William James - pragmatism
Truth is not something which is objective, it is subjective.
We should treat any religious experience as being true if it enhances the recipient’s life in some way.
What actually caused the experience (e.g. drugs, wishful thinking, a dream) is irrelevant.
William James - pluralism
People interpret their experiences based upon their cultural and religious background, so we should expect them to be different. e.g. blind men and the elephant
Faith
A combination of trust and belief
Belief in - related to an attitude of trust
Belief that - acceptance of propositions
Value of religious experience - affirming belief systems
Often a pivotal religious experience for an individual marks the point at which they start teaching a new religion, and their experience is seen to give them authority.
Sometimes a key figure within the religion has an experience which is seen to confirm their role or task. They often go on to deliver revelations from God, and the experience confirms that person’s authority to do so.
Value of religious experience - promoting faith value system
Religious experiences are often the source of ethical standards within a religion.
For example God spoke to Moses through the burning bush. This established him as a prophet. He then received the 10 Commandments and the laws of the covenant to give explicit moral guidance.
Value of religious experience - strengthening community cohesion
Communal religious experience in the form of worship or pilgrimage contribute towards the cohesion of the religious community
Value of religious experience - restoring faith
Both personal experience and hearing the experiences of others can help people who have doubts and are struggling with their faith.
This may come through prayer or reading scripture, or through communal rituals with other members of the religious community.
Value of religious experience - strengthening faith in the face of opposition
Prayer and meditation often give people the strength to face difficult situations – they gain a sense that God is with them in times of persecution.
Aquinas’ three kinds of miracle
‘events in which something is done by God which nature could never do.’
‘events in which God does something which nature can do, but not in this order.’
‘events which occur when God does what is usually done by the working of nature, but without the operation of the principles of nature.’
Hume’s definition of a miracle
Breaks the laws of nature
Brought about by a deity
Lacewing’s primary roles of miracles
Miracles as signs of God’s power and existence
Miracles as signs of God’s benevolence and involvement in the world
Miracles as validation of religious leaders or prophets
Lacewing’s secondary roles of miracles
Miracles as expressions of God’s will
Miracles as tests of faith
Miracles as signs of the sacred
Miracles as moral lessons
Miracles as foundations for worship
Miracles as catalysts for conversions
Miracles as a response to prayer
Challenges based on the laws of nature - Hume
If we did 150 experiments and they give two different results, we may be uncertain of the outcome of the next experiment.
If, however, in our 150 experiments most gave the same result, we would be fairly certain that the outcome of the next experiment would be that.
Laws of nature are based on the sense experience of millions of people over time
Challenges based on testimony - Hume
There have never been enough reliable witnesses of a miracle
Because miracles engender surprise and wonder, and these areagreeable emotions therefore people tend to believe them
Accounts of miracle tend to come from ‘ignorant and barbarous nations’
Each religion which claims miracles asserts itself against other religions thereby cancelling each other out
Swinburne on testimony
What counts as a reliable witness and how many would count as enough?
Evidence from one religion does not necessarily cancel out the others unless they claim that miracles are examples of mutually exclusive revelation.
