Religious Experience 2 Flashcards
In which work did Hume define miracles?
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1777)
How does Hume define miracles?
Events that break the laws of nature and express a divine cause
What is the ‘Hard’ understanding of Laws of Nature?
The assumption that laws of nature are unalterably uniform and ‘violations’ are just misstated laws
What is the ‘Soft’ understanding of Laws of Nature?
They are not fixed or absolute and can have exceptions and so miracles require credible evidence
How did Augustine define miracles?
Not contrary to nature because there are hidden potentials for miracles placed in nature by God
How does Aquinas define miracles?
An event beyond the natural power of any created being
What are Aquinas’ 3 types of miracle?
- God does something which nature could never do
- God does something which nature can do, but not in this order
- God does something nature normally does, but without the operation of the principles of nature
What is an example of each of Aquinas’ types of miracles?
- Sun going backwards across the sky
- Someone living after death
- Someone being instantly cured of an illness
What concept of miracles is associated with R.F. Holland?
Contingency miracles
What is a contingency miracle?
A remarkable and beneficial coincidence that is interpreted in a religious way, not requiring breaking a law of nature nor divine intervention
What is the train analogy?
- child on train tracks
- just in time, the driver has a heart attack and so the train stops
- this may be interpreted as a miracle even though no laws of nature had been broken
What is Hume’s challenge to miracles relating to contradicting religion?
Religious traditions may counteract each other if evidence supports one religious idea but contrasts another
How did Hume conclude his challenges to religious experiences?
No testimony will be sufficient to establish a miracle, and no miracle can be a just foundation of a religion
How does Hume challenge miracles in relation to credibility of witness? (3)
- No miracle has a sufficient number of witnesses
- People are prone to look for marvels and wonders
- The sources of miracle stories are from ignorant people
What does Hume believe a miracle requires in order to be believed - relating to witness?
A quantity of educated, trustworthy witnesses to a public event in a ‘celebrated part of the world’
What does Hume argue about miracles resulting from ‘ignorant’ people?
There are no modern day equivalents to Biblical miracles, most stories originate from uneducated Galilean peasants
How does Hume challenge miracles in relation to testimony?
Miracles are by definition exceptional events, while people lying or being mistaken is common
What does Hume conclude on testimony?
Only a testimony so strong that its falsehood would itself be more miraculous that the alleged miracle is sufficient
What is required in order for a miracle to be defined as a ‘violation of the laws of nature’?
A uniform agreement on the law of nature itself
What is a constant experience?
A full, consistent proof
What does a variable experience require?
The weighing up of the proportionate probability of the evidence
What was Hume’s purpose in writing ‘Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’?
To convince people that the appeal to miracles could not demonstrate the truth of religion
What does Part 1 of Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding show?
The evidence against the occurrence of a miracle strongly outweighs the evidence in favour
What does Part 2 of Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding show?
Although in theory evidence in favour of miracles could outweigh evidence against, in practise this never happens
What does Carl Becker argue about investigation into miracles?
Miracles cannot be the object of historical investigation as they claim to involve a supernatural being, but they can be linked to other historical data
How do miracles affirm faith traditions?
Many claim only ‘true’ religions have ‘true’ miracles which function as a divine signature
What was established in 1969 by Alister Hardy?
The Religious Experience Research Unit
What was the purpose of the Religious Experience Research Unit?
Examine the extent and nature of religious experiences within people in Britain
What is faith?
An action of the will, trust and belief in a body of truths
What can faith be divided into?
Belief-that and belief-in
What is belief-that?
Making a claim that is objectively true
What is belief-in?
Making a claim beyond the world of experience into trust
How does belief-that become belief-in?
Through religious experience
How are religious experiences faith restoring?
Can remove doubts as a person opens themselves up to God
What is an example of martyrs who inspire faith in the face of opposition?
The origin of the Khalsa in Sikhism where 5 Sikhs were willing to die for their faith
Give 3 examples of events that renew commitment to faith.
- Amrit - Sikh initiation ceremony
- Rosh Hashanah - encourages amendment for sin
- Lent - promotes self-discipline and focus on God
How do religious experiences strengthen cohesion?
Experiences can becomes the foundations of religious events and the lifeblood of religious living
What did Jesus say about communal worship?
When 2 or more gather in prayer, he is there also
What is charismatic worship?
Expressive worship involving ecstatic religious experiences such as speaking in tongues
What is the emphasis of Christian charismatic worship?
Expectation of the Holy Spirit which works among worshippers
How can religious experiences promote faith values systems?
They can be a source of revealing ethical standards e.g. the 10 Commandments
In what work did Swinburne write about miracles?
The Concept of Miracles
In the occurrence of E, under what circumstances is L a law of nature?
- If there is good reason to believe E has occurred contrary to L, and it is unlikely that E will occur again
- If it would be false if modified to predict E
- If it gives correct predictions in all other conceivable circumstances
When can a non-repeatable counter-instance be identified as a divine miracle?
If it is consistent with God’s character and otherwise unexplained
How does Swinburne argue against Hume’s argument of concerning contradicting faith claims?
Hume’s argument is only valid if 2 miracles are incompatible
What example does Swinburne give of 2 incompatible miracles?
- A tabernacle levitates when a Catholic priest prays for evidence of transubstantiation
- Lightning destroys the tabernacle when a Protestant priest prays to show transubstantiation is idolatrous
How does Swinburne argue against Hume’s argument for credibility of witness?
People are often honest and they can only be disproved by historical evidence, Hume’s ideas of ignorant nation is unjustified
What are Swinburne’s 3 principles for weighing up evidence?
- Different evidence needs different weight
- Empirical evidence can be used to weigh evidence
- Similar testimonies from many agents should be given more weigh that a lesser number of contrary testimonies
How does Swinburne change Hume’s arguments on miracles?
- Not a violation but a non-repeatable counter-instance
- Gives miracles deeper religious significance that just a violation of a law of nature
Acts 9:1-5
‘suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’’
Ritual - Mornen
‘ritual is probably the most common source of religious experience for the majority of people’
Conversions - McGuire
‘a process of religious change, which transforms the way the individual perceives the rest of society and his or her personal place in it, altering one’s view of the world’
Testimony of witness - Hume
‘there is not to be found in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning’
Ignorant and barbarous - Hume
‘if a civilised person has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors’
Laws of nature - Swinburne
‘some of them are so well established and account for so much data that any modification of them which we could suggest to account for the odd counter instance would be so clumsy’
Miracles - Aquinas
‘a miracle is… that which has a divine cause not that whose cause a human person fails to understand’
Miracles - Hume
‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent’
Challenge to Hume - McKinnon
‘the idea of a suspension of natural law is self contradictory… this contradiction may stand out more clearly if for natural law we substitute the expression for the actual cause of events’
Hebrew 2:4
‘God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles’
Hume’s belief of miracles - Craig
‘a miraculous event must surely be one which our experience tells us is highly improbable’
Fallibility of sense - Craig
‘they have no more status than a dream or hallucination’
Challenges to belief in miracles are effective:
- Testimony that counters our everyday experiences of the regularity of nature is likely to be unreliable
- Accounts of miracles are either intentionally metaphorical or historically unreliable
- The idea of the ‘Interventionist God’ challenges much of Christian theology
What is the idea of ‘God of the Gaps’?
The idea that God is often used as an explanation for gaps in understanding
Challenges to belief in miracles are ineffective:
- Contingency miracles are difficult to counter
- Laws of nature may be incomplete, limited or require development
- Physical evidence for miracles e.g. healing
Swinburne’s responses to Hume are valid:
- Hume rejects miracles regardless of evidence, even discounting witnesses of unquestioned integrity
- Argues God may reveal himself to different people through different religions
- Occurrence of miracles is entirely within God’s character, and purposeful
Swinburne’s responses to Hume are not valid:
- Accounts of miracles, in their age, are undeniably unreliable
- God is transcendent + ideas of interventionist God
- Ignores the resurrection of Jesus as being claimed to be proof of Christianity as the one true faith
Definitions of miracles are adequate:
- Consistent with out understanding of God’s operation
- If a natural law is unmodified, we have good reason to think it is accurate, and so miracles are violations
- Holland’s view is consistent with a non-supernatural world view, or a supernatural agent working within the laws of nature
Definitions of miracles are not adequate:
- Holland’s argument can result in any misunderstanding being called a miracle
- Aquinas’ view is outdated in our modern understanding of nature
- Hume and Swinburne portray a controversial interventionist God
Different definitions of miracles are contradictory:
- Violation of nature vs. natural courses and coincidences
- Contingency miracles are subjective whereas violations are objective
- ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ views of laws change the possibilities of miracles
Different definitions of miracles are not contradictory:
- Theories describe different types of miracle
- Every definition may be correct yet incomplete
- All support divine agency
Religious experiences impact belief and practice:
- The goal of prayer and meditation is to obtain a religious experience
- Religious experiences can confirm faith, a new religion or becomes sites of places of worship
- Religious experiences cause festivals and pilgrimages
Religious experiences do not impact belief or practice:
- Practice may be mechanical, lacking intention and so not for purposes of an experience - repetition lacks integrity
- Past experiences may be considered symbolically rather than historically
- Difficult to trace origins to religious experience - could be psychological
Religious experiences are essential for communities:
- Pilgrimages and festivals promote united identity
- Giving testimony allows experiences to be shared
- Shared worship and prayer is essential for experience
Religious experiences are not essential for communities:
- They can be divisive to communities
- They are not open to everyone - exclusive
- Reasoned faith does not demand religious experiences
