Religious Experience Flashcards
What are corporeal visions
Something seen by the person in real life - an interaction
Example of corporeal visions
St. Bernadette
- Lourdes
- Mary spoke to her at spring
- water came from it
What are imaginative visions
They are imagined and completely beyond the individuals control
Example of imaginative vision
Joseph’s dream
- angle appeared to him and told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt
- prevented Jesus being killed by Herod
What are intellectual visions
A vision without any image, an enlightening of the soul.
Example of intellectual vision
St. Theresa of Avila
- had god ‘appear’ to her close beside her several times
- “present to the soul by a certain knowledge…more clear than the sun”
What type of vision was Moses and the burning bush
Corporeal
Evaluation of visions
+ significant change in people’s lives
+ acted upon and drastic change (Saul/Paul)
+ groups can see them
- visions don’t have to be the cause for the change
- science hasn’t discovered the reason yet
- often leads to god of the gaps
What is the numinous
Having a strong religious or spiritual quality, suggesting divinity.
What is sui generis
Unique if it’s own kind
What did rudolf Otto say about the numinous
We experience the ‘wholly other’
We respond to the holy.
Musterium tremedum eg fascinans = a tremendous and fascinating mystery.
God is transcendent, we are in awe of this
What did William James say about mystical experiences
- RE is primary, coming from god while organised religion is secondary as a response to RE.
- God is not the Judeo-Christian type
- There a psychological benefits of a union with god (inspiration to do good, energetic zest for life)
- They contain certain elements (Passive=beyond control, Ineffable=indescribable, Noetic=knowledgeable, Transient=short-length)
- There are a range of different levels (highly religious, not religious)
- God is present to us individually, true reality is private based on who we are in relation to god
What did Walter stace say about mystical experiences
- Non-sensuous and non-intellectual union with the divine.
- Visions and voice are NOT mystical experiences as they involve senses
- Two types
- extrovertive = sees normal objects but the non-sensuous unity shines through them (1/2 way)
- “everything appeared to have an inside, to exist as I existed” (N.M)
- introverted = awareness of the world is obliterated and mystical consciousness takes over (ineffable)
- “there was no river and no I. The I had ceased to exist” (Arthur Koestler)
What does swinburn say about the special considerations in religious experience
“In the absence of special considerations, all religious experiences ought to be taken by their subjects as genuine”
Special considerations:
- Reliability = if they are a known liar
- Truth = if what they’re claiming is obviously false
- Orign = if they have no reason to say God is the origin
- Another explanation = if there is a more obvious reason (hallucination)
What does swinburn say about religious experience
Principle of credulity
- we must accept what appears to be true unless we have clear evidence on the contrary.
Principle of testimony
- unless we have positive evidence that they are lying or cannot remember accurately, we should believe the, accurately.
