Religious Experience Key Terms/Definitions and Concepts

Religious experience
1. many different definitions!
2. Lash
  1. He thinks that there is only experience, that is interpreted in different ways.
3. William James
  1. Varieties of Religious Experiences
    1. focuses on personal side - the "feelings, acts and experiences of individual men, in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they consider divine".
4. General features
  1. non-empirical nature
  2. a mental event
  3. spontaneous
  4. or brought on by long periods of training.
  5. unique
  6. life-enhancing
5. Main classifications
  1. Vision
    1. Three types
      1. Intellectual vision
        brings knowledge of God
        e.g. Julian of Norwich
      2. Imaginary vision
        that strengthens faith, e.g. Jacob's ladder, Muhammed's Hijrah
      3. Corporeal
        where a figure is visibly present and may communicate with the seer
        e.g. Bernadette of Lourdes
      4. Though types can overlap, e.g. Julian claimed to see the crucified Jesus bodily in front of her.
  2. Conversion
    1. Where a religious experience radically changes a person's religious view, often through an intensive experience, sometimes by choice (volitional) and sometimes involuntary (self-surrender).
    2. Famous example: Paul's conversion (Acts 9)
    3. Edwin Starbuck wrote about conversion. And William James wrote a chapter on it in his book, making reference to Starbuck's ideas.
    4. There are intellectual conversions, where there is a conflict of systems of thought. For example Martin Luther after reading Paul's letter to the Romans. And John Wesley: 'I felt my heart strangely warmed'.
    5. Moral conversions, where there is a conflict of the view of right and wrong, e.g. 'Swearing Tom'.
    6. Social conversions - conflict of which cultural group we owe allegiance to, e.g. Paul became a Christian
  3. Mystical Experience
    1. aka Mysticism
    2. William James - defined 4 types.
      1. Ineffability
        means the experience is beyond description, for example Teresa of Avila - "I wish I could give a description of at least the smallest part...but..I find it impossible"
      2. Noetic quality
        imparting knowledge
        e.g. Julian of Norwich's hazelnut: 'it is all that is made'
      3. Transiency
        where the experience doesn't last long
        e.g. Bucke's experience of 'cosmic consciousness' as reported in James' Varieties book.
      4. Passivity
        Teresa of Avila described mystical experience like being pierced by a divine dart of love,
    3. Happold - talked of the mysticism of love and union and the mysticism of knowledge and understanding.
      1. Augustine - "our hearts are restless till they rest in thee"
      2. Platonists talk of 'gnois' or the 'secret knowledge of God'
      3. And then he said there are 3 aspects...
        Soul Mysticism
        e.g. Buddhist meditation
        Nature msticism
        e.g. Wordsworth: "a motion and a spirit that impels all things"
        God mysticism (e.g. Sufis)
Arguments about whether religious experience can be evidence for the existence of God
1. Richard Swinburne
  1. Says that the belief in God is reasonably possible based on all of the classic arguments for God (e.g. Cosmological, Design argument)
  2. Based on this, he devised two principles
    1. The Principle of Credulity
      1. Something should be accepted unless there are good grounds for thinking it may be mistaken i.e. falsification rather than verification.
    2. Principle of Testimony
      1. We should believe what people say unless we have good grounds for doubting someone.
  3. A Realist
2. William James
  1. He rejects all the traditional arguments for God
  2. Tries to put feeling and experience before philosophy, which he considers to be the 'add-on' extra of each cultural creed. Below this is the 'backbone; that's common to all people's experience of religion.
    1. Feeling is the 'deeper source of religion'
    2. Philosophy and theology are 'secondary'. Philosophy 'finds arguments for our conviction'.
  3. In mysticism there's an 'eternal unamity' - the experiences are all the same.
    1. The existence of different religions and believes are good because it reflects different personalities.
  4. Religious experiences are different to ordinary experiences and so form an identifiable category, and so he would disagree with Lash, who thinks that there's only 'experience' but with different interpretations.
  5. He concludes on Mysticism that:
    1. 1. Mystical states are absolutely authoritative to those that have them
    2. 2. No authority extends to people who have not had them
    3. 3. They break down the authority of rational empiricism, showing that there are other forms of consciousness 'other orders of truth'.

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