scholars

Question 1

Rudolf otto

Answer 1

Religious experiences and revelations reminds us of the ‘wholly other’ nature of God- the numinous or divine being who transcends ordinary experience.

Question 2

Keith Ward

Answer 2

non-propositional- describes revelations as ‘divine self-disclosure

Question 3

Ninian Smart

Answer 3

religious experience= heart of religious faith (therefore behaviour and practice too)

Question 4

John Wisdom

Answer 4

Parable of the gardner- non propositional knowledge

Question 5

Richard Swinburne

Answer 5

5 main groups, two public and three private

Question 6

Caroline Franks Davis

Answer 6

dismisses the search for an easy definition of religious experiences as ‘fruitless’

• Visions- quasi-sensory
• mystical ‘a roughly debatable mental event which the subject is to some extent aware of

Question 7

Lord Fenner Brockway (humanist)

Answer 7

Soul mysticism: ‘I stood looking over the green ocean towards the red sunset. A great calm came over me. I became lost in the beauty of the scene. My spirit reached out and became one with the spirit of the sea and sky..’

Question 8

FC Happold

3X

Answer 8

identifies three aspects of mysticism:

1) soul mysticism: finding the soul
2) natural mysticism: belief that God is everywhere
3) God mysticism: uniting soul with God

Question 9

FC Happold

Answer 9

‘The word mysterium implies the idea of something wholly other than man; tremendum the ideas of awfulness, overpowering’s, and urgency’

Question 10

William James: mystical

Answer 10

noetic
ineffable
passive
transient
o	About mystical experience: ‘ some memory of their content always remains, and a profound senses of their importance’
o	‘They modify inner life’

Question 11

William James

Answer 11

Religious belief is central to religious belief

-religion leads to ‘consistency and stability’