what is a religious experience?
An encounter with the divine that leaves one without doubt that a higher spiritual force exists beyond ourselves.
what are the three types of Religious Experience?
Numinous, visions and Mystical
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what is a religious experience?
An encounter with the divine that leaves one without doubt that a higher spiritual force exists beyond ourselves.
what are the three types of Religious Experience?
Numinous, visions and Mystical
what is a Numinous experience?
Used to describe indirect experiences of awe and wonder in the presence of God – ‘the wholly other’
what is a Vision?
A direct vision of God or divine representative
what is a Mystical experience?
Used to describe experiences of union with the divine
what are Aquinas’ three types of visions?
Corporeal, imaginative and intellectual
what is a Corporeal experience?
is empirical and comes through the physical sense of sight. A supernatural vision of an object that is really present.
what is an Imaginative Vision?
the experiencer has no power to direct the experience
and will most frequently occur in a dream state, not
normal sight. Seen through the mind’s ‘eye’.
what is an intellectual vision?
has no image but the experiencer comes to ‘see’
things as they truly are. Cannot be described.
an example of a Corporeal vision
Bernadette (1844-1879)
While collecting firewood with her sister and a friend, the young Bernadette experienced a vision of a ‘small young lady’ dressed in white with a blue waist-belt. She claimed to have 18 visions in total, during which the lady identified herself as the Immaculate Conception, meaning the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. The vision were accompanied by the appearance of a spring of water, which has since become the source of documented miracles.
what’s the significance of
Bernadette’s experience?
The vision is corporeal as Bernadette saw the physical body of Mary.
It is also private as her sister and friend claimed to see nothing.
It is also auditory as during the 16th vision the lady says she is ‘the Immaculate Conception’.
There was the clear instruction to wash in the water from the spring and to build a chapel on the site for the faithful to visit. It had clear religious significance.
an example of an Imaginative vision
a) The vision was a dream beyond the Pharaoh’s control and seen with the mind’s eye.
b) Pharaoh’s account of the dream is vivid and the effect on him is dramatic.
c) The dream has entered Pharaoh’s imagination by God’s agency. Joseph tells him: ‘God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.’ (Genesis 41:25). Pharaoh recognises that Joseph is guided by the ‘Spirit of God’ which is the source of his illumination.
d) As a result, Pharaoh stores enough grain to prevent starvation in Egypt. He places Joseph in charge of the land of Egypt.
an example of an intellectual vision
St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
‘I was in prayer one day when I saw Christ close by me, or, to speak more correctly, felt Him; for I saw nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul. He seemed to me to be close beside me; and I saw, too, as I believe, that it was He who was speaking to me. Jesus Christ seemed to be by my side continually, and, as the vision was not imaginary, I saw no form; but I had a most distinct feeling that He was always on my right hand, a witness of all I did.’
what did william james believe?
what are William Jame’s four criteria for understanding mystical experiences?
what did william james believe about Mystical experiences?
how dose science and religion view religious experiences?
what were william james’ conclusions?
how did Rudolf Otto view Numinous experiences
a passage from Rudolf otto on Numinous Experiences
The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its “profane,” non-religious mood of everyday experience. […] It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of—whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.[3]: 12–13 [7] - Otto, Rudolf (1923). The Idea of the Holy
how can Numinous experiences be described?
John Macquarrie, a Scottish born theologian writes: ‘Otto holds that although the numinous is inconceivable, it is somehow within our grasp. We apprehend it in feeling… the feeling of the presence of an overwhelming Being- the numinous Being which strikes dumb with amazement.’
It produces feelings of stupor, black wonder, dumb astonishment, inadequacy, humility.
Otto's use of the term as referring to a characteristic
of religious experience was influential among certain
intellectuals of the subsequent generation. For example,
"numinous" as understood by Otto was a frequently quoted
concept in the writings of Carl Jung and C. S. Lewis.
an example of a Numinous experience
what did Richard swinburne believe about religious experiences?
what is Swinburne’s principle of
Credulity
states we should accept what appears to be the case unless we have clear evidence to the contrary. The way things seem to be is the way things really are.
what is Swinburne’s principle of
testimony
states that unless we have positive evidence that they are misremembering or are untrustworthy, we should believe the testimony of the experience.
Evaluating Swinburne’s claims
The blind men and the elephant
Five blind men come across an elephant. Each wanted to know what elephants were like, and began to touch the elephant. The first said the elephant was like a tree, as he only touched it’s leg. The second said the elephant was like a giant fan, as he had only touched it’s ear. The third said it was like a wrinkled vine, as he had only touched it’s trunk. The fourth man feels the tail and says, “An elephant is like a rope.” The fifth man is afraid. He doesn’t feel the elephant at all. The five blind men argue a long time about what an elephant is and based on their own personal experience each is right.
what are Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) beliefs?
what is Temporal lobe epilepsy?
what is the God Helmet?
How have the use of drugs effected religious experiences?
what are entheogens?
What is the good friday agreement?
Challenge: we only have the word of the individual who claims to have had the experience as evidence
Response: some experiences are group experiences (toronto blessing) that don’t rely on one person’s experience / testimony.
God could select individuals for an experience because he considers them trustworthy.
What about the effects of the experience – conversion.
Challenge: They are subjective / private experiences / feelings, so they are just ‘in the mind’.
Response: Lost of experiences are subjective and private but we still choose to believe them e.g. the experience of mental health, dreams, smells and tastes.
Challenge: They are ineffable and those who experience them cannot describe them, which really means that there is nothing ‘real’ to describe.
Response: The fact that language can’t describe an experience may say more about the limitations of our language then it does about the validity of the experience. James suggests that ineffability is part of what it means to have a mystical experience.
Challenge: There are natural explanations (e.g. under influence of drugs, alcohol etc.) to account for religious experiences.
Response: Gateway to understanding a higher reality
Challenge: There are contradictory experiences so they cannot all be true.
Response: Different experiences could be different individual or cultural ways of experiencing the same underlying reality.
Challenge: They are too extraordinary and rare to be believable and all normal experience counts against them.
Response: Swinburne would argue, through the principle of testimony and credulity that we should treat these extraordinary claims just like ordinary ones unless we have strong reason or evidence to doubt the validity of the experience.
what is the influence of religious experiences?
what is the value of religious experiences?