Religious Experience Flashcards
What is a religious experience(stanford dictionary definition)?
-subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework
-this concept originated in the 19th century, as a defence against the growing rationalism of western society
What are the 3 types of religious experience on the specification
1.visions
2.numinous experiences
3.mystical experiences
What are the 3 types of visions?
corporeal visions
imaginative visions
intellectual visions
What is a corporeal vision?
-empirical experiences(involve our 5 senses)
-involving sense experience particularly vision and hearing
-The experiencer can interact with what is seen and heard
Give an example of a corporeal vision
-St Bernadette experienced a vision of a ‘small young lady’
-She claimed to have experienced 18 visions in total in the course of which the lady identified herself as the ‘Immaculate Conception’(the Virgin Mary)
-The visionary experience was corporeal since Bernadette saw the physical body of Mary
What is an imaginative vision
-Seen by the eye of the mind rather than by direct sight, usually in dreams and are beyond the control of the experiencer
Give an example of an imaginative vision
Joseph’s dream on Matthew 2
The effects of the vision was dramatic; it lead Joseph to stay with Mary even though he was going to leave her as a result of her pregnancy out of wedlock
What is an intellectual vision?
-It has no image
-Those who experience this kind of vision claim to ‘see’ things as they really are
Give an example of an intellectual vision
St Teresa of Avila claimed to ‘see’ Jesus when she was in prayer.
Teresa was afraid at first but as Jesus spoke to her, she felt calm and comforted
She said she saw him as he really was, not as an image but as a presence
What is a numinous experience
An experience of awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God
It is an awareness of human nothingness when faced with a holy and powerful being
Who is Rudolph Otto?
He was a protestant theologian who used his vast knowledge of sciences, comparative religion and oriental traditions to try to analyse religion
In ‘The Idea of the Holy’-Otto tried to identify what it was about a religious experience that made it religious rather than just an experiment
He wanted to show that it was fundamental to religion that individuals should have a personal encounter with nature. That encounter would involve a sense of awe and mystery; a feeling of strangeness
What did Otto say regarding religious experiences ?
“There is no religion in which it does not live as the innermost core snd without it no religion would be worthy of the name”
Who is Otto influenced by!
Schleimacher
Who is Schleiemacher and what were his beliefs?
-a theologian
-religious experience is ‘self-authenticating’:
it requires no other testing to see if it is genuine.
-In the Roman Catholic tradition, the experiences of mystics had to be tested against the Church’s teaching and against Scripture before they were considered to be genuine, whereas in Schleiermacher’s view, the experiences should have priority and the statements of belief should be formulated to fit them.
