Religious Experiences Flashcards
What is the typical Religious Experience argument that points toward the existence of God?
Starts with a kind of experience that is specified purely subjectively, in terms of its qualitative character, and then argue that it can only be explained from a higher power
Arguments against Religious Experience pointing towards the existence of God.
Human Experience is limited to material things, and since God is immaterial then how could we experience God
God is beyond human understanding, so if that is the case how can we identify and know what happens in a religious experience
When I say that I have encountered or perceived something, I am merely reporting how things seem to me. Nietzche “Revaluation of All Value”
“Pshcyological Crutch”
Counters to arguments against Religious Experience pointing towards the existence of God?
God does not completely defy human understanding. Aquinas analogy of Proportion. No reason as to why we can’t identify an object of their divine experience
Experience can give us ground for believing in something since we do it commonly everyday
In claiming the existence of objects, we use experience so why is it an issue if we do it when it comes to God
Arguments for RE being derived from Intuition?
Owens maintained that RE is a source of religious knowledge and that the way such knowledge arises is not from reasoning nor argument, but via intuition
Owen argued that intuition is necessary to grasp our understanding of the material world through the experiences our sense organs give us.
It is present also when we experience other people not just as visible, tangible, moving bodies, but as conscious selves with minds and feelings like our own
Owen suggests, between our intuitive awareness of other people and the believer’s intuitive knowledge of God.
This can be summed up as thus:
Just as a human person reveals their inner nature through their outer acts, so God reveals himself to us in the created order.
In this respect, our intuition of the reality of God, like our intuition of themselves, has a ‘mediated immediacy’
It is mediated by finite things and experiences: in the once case bodily movement, words
Thus, by intuition through Religious Experience God is known
Strengths of the Intuition Argument?
Refers to God as Personal which is in line with the teachings of the Bible
Criticisms of the Intuition Argument?
Different types of Certainty
Psychological Certainty and Rational Certainty
The feeling of certainty is not what makes us right, even though we may feel it
Being Right is not a matter of having some sort of recognizable state
It is a matter of having a recognizable state in some appropriate relation to various states of affairs
Eschatological Verifiacation?
Argues that you can empirically verify Religious Language
Because when you die and go to the afterlife you will be able to observe it then
Because you are fully God-conscious and therefore have experience supporting our previous experience
Evaluation of Eschatological Verification?
There is no proof of life after death.
Hick would argue that just because there is the probability that there is no eschaton, the argument that religious experience is not necessarily unverifiable remains
This is a weak rebuttal as it falls out of Ayer’s original method of verification
But God is Transcendent
So not everything is verifiable
Falsification?
Statements can only be meaningful if it is falsifiable
Meaningful exists when a statement can be tested against the universe
If something can be tested, it can be falsified
The Universe is the only thing we can observe so we must test theories against the universe
So, any statements which can’t be tested against the universe is meaningless
So to be meaningful, it must be falsified
Evaluation of Falsification?
All forms of language require from context, thus still holds meaning for some religious language is to follow thiestic lifestyle, thus gains meaning
Analogy of Proportion?
When we use words to describe God, we are describing an infinite being.
When we describe each other, we are describing finite beings
John Hick uses Baron von Hugel’s example of the term faithfulness
We can use it to describe a dog, a human or God
When we assert this about God, it makes our faithfulness seem tiny by comparison
Everything needs to be taken into proportion
Evaluation of Analogy of Proportion?
Attempting to use human concepts to describe the nature of an unknowable thing (which is bad)
Aquinas makes an important distinction between attributing things to God and noticing commonalities in his creation (C.C)
Verification + Falsification . Religious Propositions are meaning even if it is analogous
Flew –> Religion has died a death by a thousand qualifications
How does William James define/characterise/explain Religious Experiences?
They require 4 characteristics
1.) Ineffable –> Beyond the human powers of description
(St Teresa on explaining RL “I find it impossible”)
- ) Noetic –> Knowledge of the divine is obtained which is not otherwise available –> Direct communication
- ) Transient - Not Permanent. More specifically, the experience is short but has effects
- ) Passive - The individuals is not in control of what happens to them
They lead to a loss of anxiety, new knowledge and changed understanding of the world –> “The Marked Change”
How does Rudolf Otto Define/Explain/Characterise Religious Experiences?
Otto states in ‘The idea of the Holy’ (1936):
“The numinous is a mysterious, but nevertheless real object of experience, which evokes feelings of awe, wonder and fascination”
Numinous is therefore said to be an experience which offers evidence of the wholly other nature of God
They are Numinous –> Feeling of Awe and wonder associated with the presence of holiness
‘Mysterium tremendum et fascinas’
Latin Phrase introduced by Otto as a basic concept in religious experience “terrible mystery”
There is an overwhelming feeling of against something extremely powerful
Swinburne’s Characteristics of Religious Experiences?
Swinburne recognises that there was a wide range of religious experiences instead of looking for quality to define Religious Experiences by:
Public 1 - See God in a public object or scene
Public 2 - Where the laws of nature are violated.
Private 1 - An experience of one person, but an experience which can be described in everyday language
Private 2 - An experience of one person, and an experience which cannot be described in everyday lang
Private 3 - involves ‘God’
