Religious Experiences Flashcards
St Augustine - Three Types of Vision
- corporeal: visions through physical signets supernatural experiences which are medicated through the physical senses
- imaginative: visions seen in the mind, mediated ‘in the mind’s eye’, often take place in form of dreams
- intellectual: no visual image, the experience illuminates the soul
numinous experience
- experience of the ‘wholly other’, related to spatio-temporal experiences
- experience which forms the asis of all genuine religion, non rational and unique form of experience
- not an everyday experience, emphasises on god’s transcendence
- refers to a presence and reality which cannot be understood with senses or intellect
Otto: “mysterium tremendm et fascinas”
mysterium = mysterious
tremendum - trembling
fascinas = fascinating
Walter State: Introversive vs Extroversive Religious Experiences
- introvertive: ultimate mystical experience, no sense of I - sense experience totally surpassed. no awareness of the world, ineffable (cannot be put into words)
- extroversive: half-way to a religious experience. still active, but normal objects are seen with the physical senses still going eg) aware of phone notifications
William James
- pragmatist: more concerned with practical considerations than ideals
- criteria for assessing the genuine nature of a religious experience; passivity, ineffability, noetic quality, transience
St Paul - Religious Experience
- ‘Saul’ travelled towards Damascus, intended persecute christians, he hard a voice from god asking “Saul, Saul why do you want to persecute me”
- received reply from Jesus, blinded for 3 days till a man names ananias placed hands on him to restore sight
- Saul CHANGED name to PAUL, went from persecuting christians to promoting christianity
St Bernadette of Lourdes - Religious Experience
Had the first in a series of visions of the Virgin Mary ages 14. 18 visions took place feb-july 1858, near to massabilelle grotto
Mary revealed the words “I am the immaculate conception”
During one vision, Mary told Bernadtte to drink water of a spring – there was no spring to Bernadette dug. Water started to flow ehere she had dug, the water still flows today – it has a reputation for healong
Today, five million people visit loudres, many seeking healing
Davey Falcus - Religious Experience
- author of ‘from gangland to god’
- by age of 7 was smoking and drinking, picked up bible and heard from Jesus after calling to him ‘son your sins are forgiven, go now and sin no more’
- life changed
Swinburne principle of credulity
- we should assume things are credible, unless there is evidence otherwise
- ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, unless we have evidence
- argues in a general basis
Swinburne principle of testimony
- we should assume people are telling the truth, unless proven othersie
- in absence of special considerations they experiences of others are probably how they report them
- focuses more on the testimony of the experience
comparative concept - Ockham’s razor
- the simplest explanation is the best. ‘shake off’ anything unnecessary, if something seems to be true it probably is
comparative concept - innocent until proven guilty
- uk justice system forms on the assumption that people are innocent until proven guilty
strengths of swinburne
- consistent with William James’s pragmatist belief that experiences should be judged by ‘fruit not roots’
- Swinburne takes into account ‘special considerations that may influence the reliability of someone’s testimony’ eg) acknowledges ppl like drug users and considers potential problems
- Swinburne’s approach reflects how humans navigate through life in general, we would not get through life by constantly demanding proof
weaknesses of Swinburne’s argument
- Swinburne is saying that normal experiences are reliable, therefore religious experiences are reliable for existence of god, how can we move on from being conceived of reliabilityy of the senses to reliability of mystical/visionary claims about god
- personal testimony is not absolute proof. Denis Dederot declared that if the entire population of Paris stated a man had raised from the dead, he wouldn’t believe it. link to utilitarianism: if everyone agrees doesn’t mean its correct
- Plato said we cannot trust out senses or empirical evidence as ‘the body is an endless source of trouble for us’, we cannot rely on any ‘evidence’ that we gain from our senses, as they deceive us, experiences can be a result of hallucinations, illnesses or substances
challenges to religious experiences
- we only have the word of people, who could be wrong or lying
- only certain people have received religious experiences, which showcases god has favouritism
- experiences can be explained psychologically, medically or by neuroscience
- Freud: visions are the result of subconscious fears and desires and are symptoms of mental illnesses
types of religious experiences
numinous, conversion, meditation, prayer, visions, voices
propositional revelation
reveals a truth about god
Peter Vardy on Religious Experiences
- Vardy argues that people’s presuppositions regarding religious experience will affect how they interpret events
- if they believe in god, they are more likely to believe religious experiences
- raises the question if religious experiences are objective/subjective
alternative explanation on religious experiences - Freud
- religious experiences may arise from social, rather than religious factors (eg group hysteria during religious worship)
- called religion a neurosis, as it can be a form of mental illness or derangement, religion + god are also a creation of the human mind so it could be a hallucination
non-proposistional revelation
revelation not necessarily entails focus being revolted, rather god making himself known
Dawkins on religious experiences
- symptoms of religious experience and psychosis are similar, this is an explanation for phenomenon and cannot lead to the existence of god
John Hick on religious experiences
- argued that christianity was best understood by non-propositional revelation as people experiencing the world were also experiencing the religious
William James - terms on religious experience
ineffability -> nature of religious experience beyond human words
noetic quality -> beyond the knowledge of normality transiency -> the short-lived nature of a religious experience
passivity -> religious experience sourced from the individual and having an effect on them
direct religious experience
- contact with god, ultimate reality
eg st paul to saul
indirect religious experience
- internal state of something other than this world e.g mystical experience of st mother Theresa
