Religious Experience: Key Terms Flashcards
Define Anti-Realism
The idea that something can be true in a non-real way. Some beliefs may be true for the community of people that believe it (see Coherence Theory)
Define Buber
Knowing God through a personal relationship (“I-Thou” instead of “I-It”)
Define Coherence Theory
Anti-realist view of truth. Something is never absolutely true or false, it is ‘true for you’ if it coheres with a cultural/ linguistic system already present. Something can be true for someone and not true for others.
Define Correspondence Theory
Realist view of ‘truth’. Something is true if it corresponds with known facts. Based on Empiricism.
Define Empiricism
Knowledge is gained through experience
Define God Helmet
Persinger has made a helmet that can test brain patterns
Define Immanence
God as close and intimate; caring and guiding
Define Ineffability
Experience cannot be communicated through language
Define Medical Materialism
Reducing religious experience to biological/ medical factors and thereby ‘explaining it away’
Define Medjugorjie
A small town in Bosnia where, since 1981, six people has claimed to have visions of The Virgin Mary
Define Mystical Experience
An direct, unmediated experience of God
Define Noetic Quality
Experience provides evidence
Define Numinous
A feeling of awe and wonder associated with the presence of holiness
Define Objective
Open to Empirical testing and verification
Define The Parable of the Gardener
Story by John Wisdom about two people who interpret a patch of ground differently. One see’s the actions of a gardener (God), one only see’s Weed’s (no God)
Define Passivity
An experience occurs without any action on the part of the recipient
Define Pragmatism
Trying to verify in practical terms through the effects of an action
Define The Principle of Credulity
If a person says they have seen something, it is usually the case that they have
Define The Principle of Testimony
Unless you have good reason to doubt what someone says, you should assume its true
Define Realism
An idea that is opposed to Anti-Realism, and says that for something to be true it must be real in an empirical and verifiable way
Define Stigmata
Unexplained markings on a person’s body that correspond to the wounds of Christ
Define Subjective
Not open to Empirical testing
Define Transcendence
God is beyond understanding and more powerful than we can conceive
Define Transiency
Experience lasts for a short time
Define Induction
Moving from specific instances to a general conclusion; when you go to a school induction, you may see loads of little details, and then conclude those details happen at that school all the time.
Small to big
Define Deduction
Opposite to Induction (Big to small (general law)).
You may know something, and from there, you find the reasoning; “Cambridge University do well”- From here, you begin to find the specific reasons why; good teachers; good students; good resources etc.
Define Natural Theology
Defining the attributes of God through the observable world
Define Divine Theology
Understanding the nature of God through holy intervention/ divine activity/ revelation
Define Synthetic
Something is true or false if you see it to be so
Define Analytic
Logically looking at what makes sense
Define A priori
Reasoning that comes through theoretical deduction
Define A posteriori
Knowledge that comes from observation
