Religious Experience Key Terms/Definitions and Concepts

Religious Experience Key Terms/Definitions and Concepts

1. Religious experience

   • many different definitions!
   • Lash
     • He thinks that there is only experience, that is interpreted in different ways.
   • William James
     • Varieties of Religious Experiences
       • 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".
   • General features
     • non-empirical nature
     • a mental event
     • spontaneous
     • or brought on by long periods of training.
     • unique
     • life-enhancing
   • Main classifications
     • Vision
       • Three types
         • Intellectual vision
           • brings knowledge of God
           • e.g. Julian of Norwich
         • Imaginary vision
           • that strengthens faith, e.g. Jacob's ladder, Muhammed's Hijrah
         • Corporeal
           • where a figure is visibly present and may communicate with the seer
           • e.g. Bernadette of Lourdes
         • Though types can overlap, e.g. Julian claimed to see the crucified Jesus bodily in front of her.
     • Conversion
       • 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).
       • Famous example: Paul's conversion (Acts 9)
       • Edwin Starbuck wrote about conversion. And William James wrote a chapter on it in his book, making reference to Starbuck's ideas.
       • 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'.
       • Moral conversions, where there is a conflict of the view of right and wrong, e.g. 'Swearing Tom'.
       • Social conversions - conflict of which cultural group we owe allegiance to, e.g. Paul became a Christian
     • Mystical Experience
       • aka Mysticism
       • William James - defined 4 types.
         • 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"
         • Noetic quality
           • imparting knowledge
             • e.g. Julian of Norwich's hazelnut: 'it is all that is made'
         • Transiency
           • where the experience doesn't last long
             • e.g. Bucke's experience of 'cosmic consciousness' as reported in James' Varieties book.
         • Passivity
           • Teresa of Avila described mystical experience like being pierced by a divine dart of love,
       • Happold - talked of the mysticism of love and union and the mysticism of knowledge and understanding.
         • Augustine - "our hearts are restless till they rest in thee"
         • Platonists talk of 'gnois' or the 'secret knowledge of God'
         • 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)

2. Arguments about whether religious experience can be evidence for the existence of God

   • Richard Swinburne
     • Says that the belief in God is reasonably possible based on all of the classic arguments for God (e.g. Cosmological, Design argument)
     • Based on this, he devised two principles
       • The Principle of Credulity
         • Something should be accepted unless there are good grounds for thinking it may be mistaken i.e. falsification rather than verification.
       • Principle of Testimony
         • We should believe what people say unless we have good grounds for doubting someone.
     • A Realist
   • William James
     • He rejects all the traditional arguments for God
     • 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.
       • Feeling is the 'deeper source of religion'
       • Philosophy and theology are 'secondary'. Philosophy 'finds arguments for our conviction'.
     • In mysticism there's an 'eternal unamity' - the experiences are all the same.
       • The existence of different religions and believes are good because it reflects different personalities.
     • 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.
     • He concludes on Mysticism that:
       • 1. Mystical states are absolutely authoritative to those that have them
       • 2. No authority extends to people who have not had them
       • 3. They break down the authority of rational empiricism, showing that there are other forms of consciousness 'other orders of truth'.