religious experience - visions Flashcards
what makes a religion experience religious
- God: fear, union, peace
- intervention
- leads to knowledge that couldnt be gained in another way
- improbable events happen why
- cant be explained by science
- types: dream, healing, enlightenment, special revelation, seeing God
- impossible made possible by God
- outside normal experience
- ineffible
- spiritual
william james and categorizing religious experience (common core)
type of experience, what type of union
- all apparent differences between religious + rel experience –> common core (all religions are seeing the world in the same way, james is aligned with pluralism)
- they are experiences are experiential, like perception
- arent connected to any particular mode of sense perception
- person feels immediately aware and connected to God
- awareness of God blocks everything out temporarily, distinction between person and experience blurs (mystical union)
william james’ ideas of what a religious experience is
- heart of religious experience is an immediate sense of the reality of the unseen –> contrast what we are aware of in a rel ex with the usual ‘visible world’
- awareness of the unseen may be inarticulate, beyond even an ability to think in any usual terms about it (conceptualization comes after)
-genuine nature relies on the ‘fruits of experience’ –> need to have a lasting impact on life
5 fruits of rel exp according to james
james: a religious attitude is ‘solemn, serious and tender’
1. visible world is part of a spiritual universe which gives it meaning
2. a harmonious relation with the spiritual universe is our true purpose in life
3. harmony enables a spiritual energy to flow into and affect us in the visible world
4. new zest which adds itself like a gift to life
5. an assurance of saftey a feeling of peace and in relation to others a preponderance of loving emotions
william james’ view on religion
- all religion points to the feeling that there is something wrong with us
- corrected by becoming in touch with a higher power
- realising this is connected to an awareness of being in touch with something more in rel ex
what is pluralism (and others)
- all gods are the same
- all religions are the same and equal
- skeptic: is this not psychology, humans all have the same need and choose religion for this
- exclusivist: only some are genuine
- some are somewhat right (inclusivist)
richard swinburne on religious experience
why does he believe religious experiences occur
- apologist, philosophy today shows God exists
- argues that if God exists he would want to interact with his creation and in particular, human beings capable of knowing him –> defines rel ex in the existence of God
5 categories:
- exper through a common public sensory object (icons, sunsets)
- exp through an unusual public sensory object (burnign bush)
- esxp through a private object describable in sensory language
- exp of God through a private object that cannot be described in normal sensory language (feeling/seeing something that cannot be described)
- exp not mediated by any sensory object (nothing is seen or heard, a point beyond exp)
ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila
- mystical vision experience
- vision is transient (temporary) –> ‘that i could not wish to be rid of it’
- encounter with an angel, with sexual descriptors
- links to people think about God and the ideas about him (relationship with God can be anthropically translated into the devotion of human lust)
visions and ninian smart’s definition
- described religious experiences as involving ‘some kind of perception of the invisible world..or a perception that some visible person or thing is a manifestation of the invisible world’
- the perception of the invisible world can take the form of a vision
things reported in visions from religious people
- religious figures, bernie and mary
- places, nanak and heaven
- the future, john and revelation
- fantastic creatures, ezekiel
- an event in which there is a message, clear or unclear, peters vision
corporeal visions
Internal: a subject that cannot be seen is present
External: A subject that can be seen is present; visual perception of the supernatural only seen by the viewer→ (guru Nanak and heaven, burning bush)
imaginative visions
- a person is imaginatively aware of a figure they cannot see
- the experience is beyond their control and is accompanied by a feeling of holiness
- usually short and may give way to intellectual visions
intellectual visions
- person becomes aware of an abstraction or concept, such as the essence of a soul or the grace of God
- may be accompanies by a similar imaginative or sensual experience such as a persistent light, an inner peace or a call towards religious life
group or individual visions
- group: visions seen by more than one person (angels of mons 1914)
- individual: bernie and mary @ lourdes (18 occasions)
teresa of avila intellectual vision descriptions
jesus christ:
- intellectual: seeing with other sight, ‘i saw nothing with the eyes of the body’
- not seeking the experience, passive, ‘i was extremely afraid at first, and did nothing but weep’
teresa of avila explaining the differences between intellectual visions in comparisons to others
- explains the ‘light’ of an intellectual vision is an illumination of the understanding of the soul
- '’there is a light not seen, which illuminates the understanding’
- different fruits of experience = knowledge
- cannot know god through scripture of any means –> concerning epistemology
- to teresa, they represent the highest level of mystical union with God and desire to contemplate god as he really is
what is self mortification
self harming to feel god, motivated by the suffering of christ
‘examine visions as a type of religious experience
- what is a rel experience: wide definition, ninian smart, swinburne etc
- vision and content (ninian smart)
- types of vision + examples from scripture
- teresa of avila, difference between intellectual and imaginative
- all visions lead to knowledge, william james would argue this knowledge is the fruit of the experience
‘vision experiences are reliable evidence for the existence of God’
- shared experience
- credibility of the witness
- checking with others
- no alternative explanations
- physical evidence
- changes in a person
- consistency
- permanence in the effect, fruits will go rotten
- reliable
- proof for who? athiests or believers
- what god are we proving?
william james and the varieties of religious experience
- the notion of variety of experience related to the Darwinian theory of the variety of species –> Amazonian river + fish species gathering (studied their responses the environment)
- gifford lectures: 1901-2, lectures given in the uni of Edinburgh about the variety of rel experience
- bring together experiences in the belief they are a valid form of data for science (rigorous methods to collect and analyse diverse data like a scientist)
- the category of religion is problematic as james said experience is not limited to religion, and it was a classified catering term for specific experiences (objective state of experience and the inner state)
- philosophy of pragmatism: value of things in terms of the truth, outcomes and use value (matthew 7 20 ‘fruits not the roots’) = truth of religious experience
- he uses account of rel experience but doesnt accept it –> analysises it but is critical of it
- outlines a descriptive survey of all the relevant accounts, gives it a critical assessment of its validity
william james and common characteristics of experience
- james stabilising the category of religion: not a single principle/essence; rejected the idea of specific forms of rel exp, only human experience –> religion is classificatory (rel love and fear)
- no religion, but objects we class as religious –> common storehouse of human emotion: emotional experience of religion relate to physiological structures of human emotions
- classifying features of rel experiences: looks at feelings, acts and experiences and cuts out institutional structures of that examination of religion (data of experiences)
- reality of the unseen is key in experiences:
- sick soul: divided experience, struggle
- conversion, mystical, life etc
healthy minded religion:
- healthy minded feel spontaneity of the joy of life itself –> sense of wonder of the universe
- Sense of positiveness of God in the universe/B: sense of harmony with the world and the consciousness
sick soul
- suffering in the world and moving towards final redemption, melancholy –> overcoming turmoil to gain salvation
- need to experience something to reach the religious, positive state
