Religious Experience

Religious Experience

1. Categorising religious experience

   • Swinburne's five catergories
     • Experience of God mediated through a common public object.
     • Experience of God mediated through an unusual object.
     • Experience of God mediated through a private object that is described in sensory language.
     • Experience of God mediated through a private object that cannot be described in normal language.
     • Experience of God not mediated by any sensory object.
   • Feelings
     • Schleiermacher and Otto claim that religious experiences are not intellectual experiences that give us information, but that they are primarily deep feelings which are deeper than reason. They argue that the revelation of God via these experiences is non-propositional (they don’t provide objective truths) and they that theology behind these experiences comes after when the believer tries to describe it. Schleiermacher argued that these experiences are a sense of absolute dependence upon ‘a source of power that is distinct from the world’. Otto argues that these feelings are authoritative and are prior to reason and argument.
     • It is unclear how truth claims can be based upon them if reflection occurs later. It can be argued tat emotions are not more fundamental that beliefs and behaviours, but arise from them.
   • Perceptions
     • William Alston argued that religious experiences are a type of perception. Alston argues that within perception there is a perceiver, a perceived object and the phenomenon. Studies into brain science have indicated that there are certain areas of the brain that are activated during religious experience, thus suggesting that humans have the ability to experience supernatural phenomena. Alston suggested that humans may not be limited to 5 senses.
     • One difficulty is that the qualities that believers perceive, God’s love and beauty, are not sensory.
   • Interpretation
     • The difficulty with the views on religious experience as feelings or perceptions is that assumptions must be made about what is causing the experiences. Wayne Proudfoot (1939-) suggests to define religious experiences as events which one takes to be religious, thus avoiding this problem. Very ordinary events may be termed religious experiences. An example of this would be Augustine’s conversion experience which many have been triggered by hearing children signing.
     • It must be noted that just because the experiencer gives then event a supernatural explanation doesn’t mean it has one! The question as to the truth of the experience is left open and it is recognised that experiences, even if genuine, are wrapped up in interpretative language when they are described.
   • Direct religious experience - where God reveals himself directly to someone who has not chosen to have the experience.
   • Indirect religious experience - thoughts and feeling about God come through everyday events, such as seeing a beautiful sunset.

2. William James

   • Mystical sates of consciousness are the root of religious experience.
   • James suggests 4 characteristics of mystical experience:
     • 1. Ineffability - they are beyond description.
       • "A state of mind as mystical is negative".
     • 2. Noetic - they give deep insights and knowledge.
       • "insight into the depths of truth".
     • 3. Transient - they last for a short period of time.
       • "When faded, their quality can but imperfectly be reproduced in memory".
     • 4. Passive - they mystic has the sense of being acted upon.
       • "as if he were grasped and held by a superior power".
   • James doesn't dispute that religious experiences have psychological explanations based on humans physiology. All our mental states are due to physical causes; a hereditary condition may provide part of the explanation of the experience.
   • The origin of an experience is irrelevant to the possible value of that experiences. The materialist should question all mental states, not just those that bring about religious.
   • Why do we question the judgement/claim from a believer on their religious experience when we don't question a scientist ideas?
   • James uses the work of Jonathan Edwards to back up his claim on pragmatism (you should look at the results of a thing in order to determine whether it is valid).
   • Argued that mystical experiences mostly happen to sick souls who need to achieve happiness and unite the divided self.

3. Visions and voices

   • Theresa of Avila
     • "not with the eyes of the body, but the eye of the soul".
     • Had a religious experience in which an arrow was thrust into her chest and filled her with an over whelming sense of His holiness.
     • She could have been masturbating.
   • 3 features of voices as religious experience:
     • 1. Revelatory - the voice reveals something about God.
     • 2. Authoritative - to those who have the experience, the message communicated has God's authority.
     • 3. Disembodied - the voice appears to come from no particular body.
   • The vision or voice could simply come from the person's subconscious and so has a psychological explanation.

4. Numinous experience

   • Rudolf Otto
     • Coined the word 'numinous', which is a sense of being in the presence of an awesome power.
     • A numinous experience is a sense of the presence from the divine and yet at the same time, you are conscious of your distinction from it.
     • Often seen as a 'type' in its own right, separate from mystical experience.
     • Mysterium tremendum - helps explain the core of religious experience. 'Mysterium' has two elements, it is wholly other and completely different from all other experiences. 'Tremendum' involes 3 elements: awe, overpowingness and energy.
     • Numinous in religious experience - elements of religion will be the key to understanding God and the numinous does this through giving us a realisation of greater power.
     • Numinous in real life - some experiences are peaceful "come sweeping in like a gentle tide" and some are faster moving "thrilling vibrant".
   • Otto's ideas contrast with the views from Martin Buber (1878-1965) who claimed that there are 2 types of revelation:
     • I-thou relations - a shared intimate personal relationship, a mutual interaction.
     • I-it relations - when we stand in relation to something as an object which is entirely separate from us.

5. Conversion experience

   • St Paul was converted on the way to Damascus and as a result changed from being a persecutor of Christians to becoming one of the most important Christian leaders.
   • A transformative experience which often results in religion becoming the centre of the person's life, replacing previously held priorities.
   • We have no way of saying whether the experience was true or not, except for the effect it has on the life of the individual.
   • The individual could be deceiving themselves or the conversion experience may be the result of stress, hormones etc.
   • "As with all religious experiences, these events are hallucinations. They are the product of childhood insecurities." - Freud.
   • "The principles of credulity and testimony suggest that, unless we have a reason to disbelieve experiences, we should give them the benefit of the doubt" - Swinburne.

6. Corporate religious experience

   • If many people claim that they had the same experience then it becomes more difficult to doubt it.
   • On the 13th October 1917, about 70,000 people gathered and claimed that they saw the sun dance in the sky.
   • Toronto Blessings - when people go unconscious in spiritual bliss.
   • Corporate religious experience could be the result of mass hysteria.
   • There is no reason to suppose that a corporate religious experience is any more true that a personal one.

7. Revelation

   • Definition: an enlightening or astonishing disclosure; the communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency.
   • In monotheistic religions, revelation is the process in which God makes himself, his will, and/or other information known to mankind.
   • Four types of revelation:
     • General revelation - the revelation of God is based on creation and therefore it is available to all human beings. God's revelation of himself and his will to all persons at all times in all places.
     • Special revelation - revelation of God directed to human beings in a special sense. God's revelation of himself and his will to particular person at definite times and places.
     • Propositional revelation - faith in believing that certain facts are true; 'belief that'; God reveals truths about himself and his will for mankind.
       • It is not certain that the revelation is genuinely from God.
       • It is not clear how an eternal God can act in a spatiotemporal way.
       • If scripture reveals facts about God, it is still limited by human language.
     • Non-propositional revelation - an attitude of trust and relationship; gives you the information to allow you to have faith; 'belief in'; revelation is just an experience of God.
       • There is no direct knowledge of God revealed as the revelation is the result of human understanding and interpretation of events.
       • There is no absolute certainty about what is revealed, unlike propositional revelation.
   • If you take a propositional view of the Bible, you take a literal interpretation, do you believe in Genesis 1 or 2? There are contradictions within the Bible.
   • The Bible has become more of a 'human document' due to the redactors who have added their ideas when copying and translating the Bible.
   • Liberal scholars have shown that the Bible has different writing styles and so this suggests that the Bible was stitched together by 4 different groups of people over 800 years.

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