Religious Experience

Question 1

Definition of religious experiences

Answer 1

Non-empirical mental events which draw people to God

Question 2

Which type of experience are religious experiences

Answer 2

‘Genuine experiences’

Question 3

What does a religious experience change for a person

Answer 3

Their beliefs

Question 4

Definition of visions

Answer 4

Empirical events were something is seen/heard/felt - personal proof that God exists

Question 5

Corporeal visions

Answer 5

• Figure is externally present
• Empirical the experience physically sees something

Question 6

Explain Seal’s conversion

Answer 6

• Murderous threats to disciples and persecutes Christians
• Light from heaven flashed and he fell to the ground
• A voice said ‘Seal, why do you persecute me?’
• Seal asked, who the voice was, the voice replied ‘I am Jesus’

Question 7

Why was Seal’s conversion impactful?

Answer 7

For 3 days, he was blind and didn’t eat or drink, this led him to convert to Christianity and become St Paul

Question 8

Explain St Bernadette’s vision

Answer 8

• Went to Maisabielle to collect bones and dead wood
• Crossed the stream and heard a noise like a gust of wind ‘I saw a lady dressed in white veils’
• She made a sign of a cross and said the rosary with her and the lady told her to drink from the spring

Question 9

Why was St Bernadette’s vision impactful?

Answer 9

Led to the establishment of Lourdes as a major pilgrimage site attracted faith. The spring is believed to have healing properties showing the power of faith

Question 10

Imaginative vision

Answer 10

• Something seen in the ‘minds eye’
• Either a dream or in the mind alone

Question 11

Explain Pharos dream

Answer 11

• Standing by the Nile
• 7 ugly gaunt cows ate 7 healthy cows, represented how famine was about to occur on Egypt

Question 12

Why was Pharos dream impactful?

Answer 12

Allowed Pharo to seek advice of Joseph on how to prepare for the Famine, allowing Egypt to survive

Question 13

Explain Jacob’s dream at Bethel

Answer 13

• Saw a stairway resting on earth, reaching heaven, the angels of God were ascending/descending on it
• The lord said ‘I am the lord, the God, the father of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac’
• He promises Jacob he will be blessed and have lots of descendants

Question 14

Why is Jacob’s dream at Bethel impactful?

Answer 14

Shows God’s promise to Jacob, reminder God is always faithful and with his people

Question 15

Intellectual

Answer 15

• Brings knowledge and understanding
• No figure is seen/heard internally or externally

Question 16

Explain St Teresa of Avila’s prayer

Answer 16

• Saw ‘Christ near me’
• Not physically, but more of a feeling
• ‘I saw nothing with the eyes of the body or eyes of the soul…I have a distinct feeling’

Question 17

Definition of numinous experiences

Answer 17

Shows the power of God

Question 18

Who proposed numinous experiences

Answer 18

Rudolph Otto (Protestant theologian)

Question 19

Rudolph Otto’s book

Answer 19

‘The idea of holy’

Question 20

Numinous experiences emphasises how __________________ God is

Answer 20

Transcendent

Question 21

Which question did Otto aim to answer in numinous experiences

Answer 21

‘What makes religious experiences different from other forms of experience?’

Question 22

State the answer Otto concluded to his main question in numinous experiences

Answer 22

‘Numinous experience is one that relates to power of a deity or spirit’

Question 23

Explain why numinous experiences are non rational

Answer 23

They’re totally outside our senses, we cannot reason our way to understand the

Question 24

What is Otto referring to in numinous experiences when he uses the term ‘Sui generis’?

Answer 24

Unique of it’s own kind

Question 25

Explain how Moses (Exodus 3:7) links to numinous experiences

Answer 25

God replies to Moses after he asks who the burning bush is…’I am who I am’ - shows God’s power, he is beyond description

Question 26

Explain CS Lewis’ interpretation of numinous experiences

Answer 26

Said if a tiger is in the room next to you, you wouldn’t feel sacred, but, if a mighty spirit was in the room next to you, but if a mighty spirit was in the room next to you, you would be extremely scared.

Question 27

Describe how CS Lewis said the visions would make you feel (numinous experiences)

Answer 27

• ‘Uncanny’ - unique
• ‘Dread’ - overwhelming fear
• ‘Wonder’ and ‘Inadequate’

Question 28

Explain the quote from Swinburne relating to numinous experiences

Answer 28

‘Under it my genius is rebuked’ - made to feel completely small and limited

Question 29

Explain the quote ‘mysterious, tremendum, et fascinates’ in relation to numinous experiences

Answer 29

• Mysterious - mystery of experience - felt but cannot be described
• Tremendous - because of the awe inspiring terror, almost sense of dread in presence of overwhelming being
• Fascinating - being drawn by it
• Human is small compared to power
• Encounter is inexpressible
• Reaction is to leave everything and follow the power, like Peter did when he witnessed Jesus’ miracle.

Question 30

Mystical experiences

Answer 30

Where one feels a sense of union with the divine. It involves spiritual recognition of truth which we normally won’t consider or understand

Question 31

4 key features of mystical experiences

Answer 31

1. Develops knowledge and understanding of ultimate reality which is normally hidden from their way of thinking
2. Feeling of freedom from limits of time and space
3. Feels sense of unity with divine
4. Feels sense of bliss

Question 32

Mysticism is the ______________ a human can ever come into meeting the _______

Answer 32

Closest
Divine

Question 33

Main scholar in mystical experiences

Answer 33

William James

Question 34

What did William James propose in mystical experiences?

Answer 34

He created a set criteria for an experience to be a mystical experience (PINT)

Question 35

Explain William James’ PINT

Answer 35

1. Passivity - not in control, experience takes complete control
2. Ineffability - beyond description
3. Noetic - new knowledge will be gained about something
4. Transiency - time, can’t last over 2 hours, or below 30 minutes

Question 36

William James’ view on alcohol and mysticism

Answer 36

‘Has the power to stimulate mystical faculties of human nature’

Allows people to open up their minds from being dull and closed when sober

Question 37

James’ view on nitrous oxide

Answer 37

‘Stimulates mystical consciousness’

‘Depth beyond depth of truth seems revealed to the inhaler’

You can seek the truth and it allows for genuine mystical emergence which provides genuine knowledge of God

Question 38

What did James and Stace both believe?

Answer 38

There is little point in trying to prove God’s existence through reason

Question 39

Key quote from Walter Stace showing God is transcendent and ineffable

Answer 39

‘Either God is a mystery or he is nothing at all’ - only time you will successfully understand him is through a genuine experience like a mystical experience

Question 40

Stace argued that during mystical experience you become…

Answer 40

Non-sensuous and Non-intellectual

Question 41

Stace argued there are 2 types of mystical experiences. List these.

Answer 41

1. Extroversive
2. Introversive

Question 42

Introversive mystical experiences

Answer 42

The most important - takes complete control of sense
- Involves ‘turning inward’ without the uses of senses and finding unity with the divine

Question 43

Extrovertive mystical experiences

Answer 43

These use the physical senses as a way of finding he one
- He agues extrovertive turns to physical things thorough their senses and often sees God through them e,g, God present through a burning bush
- You have to think about the experience as it happens