Religious Experience

What are the four types of religious experience?

Visions, sensory, intellectual, conversion

What is a vision?

In a religious context, seeing something either with ordinary vision or spiritually, and understanding it to have deep religious significance.

Give an example of a vision religious experience

In Acts 10, Peter has a vision where he realises Christians don’t need to keep the food laws of Judaism.

What is a sensory experience?

Somebody is awake and conscious, and has an encounter with an external reality that can be experienced with the senses.

Give an example of a sensory religious experience

St Bernadette reported seeing visions of a lady by a stream in Lourdes. The figure she later identified as Mary told her to drink the water, which ran clear.

What is an intellectual experience?

Gaining a deeper understanding of God within the soul or has information imparted to them.

Give an example of an intellectual experience

Joseph had a dream of angel Gabriel telling him not to worry, and that Mary was going to give birth to the Son of God.

What is a conversion experience?

A radical change of belief resulting from an encounter with an external reality

What are the two types of conversion experience, and give an example of each

• Individual conversion - St Paul on the road to Damascus

• Communal conversion - The Toronto Blessing

What is the difference between an active and passive conversion?

• Active - the person takes initiative to search for answers, e.g. by reading Bible

• Passive - the person doesn’t know they’re looking for God and is taken by surprise

What is mysticism?

Religious experience in which the sense of self is lost, in an encounter with God or an ultimate reality.

Give an example of someone who is said to have had mystical experiences

St Teresa of Avila

Identify some common features of mystical experiences

• Transcendent - beyond space and time, not of this world.

• Ecstatic - transformed to a state of complete bliss

• Unitive RE - identity overwhelmed and become part of God/the universe

What are the three types of prayer?

• Worship and thanksgiving

• Petition

• Confession and repentance

Give a quote from Teresa of Avila about the importance of prayer

“And anyone who has not begun to pray, I beg, for the love of the Lord, not to miss so great a blessing.”

Explain Teresa’s garden analogy for the process of prayer

• Meditation - set aside distractions/anxieties and focus on God. Compared to watering a garden using a bucket to draw up water from a well - hard work.

• The Prayer of Quiet - no effort to pray, but are able to rest in it. Compared to using a windlass to draw water - much easier.

• Union - soul becomes unified with God, senses go into a trance. Compared to siphoning water from a river to water the garden.

• Rapture - soul is gathered up in God and soars away from the created world - hard to describe. Compared to a garden watered by rain sent down from heaven.

Explain Teresa’s mansions analogy for the stages of prayer

• 1st mansion - point of entry where soul easily distracted

• 2nd mansion - warmer than previous, knowledge of moving through prayer

• 3rd mansion - learning self-discipline, makes mistakes

• 4th mansion - Prayer of Quiet

• 5th mansion - soul in union with God

• 6th mansion - ecstasy but pain, torn between God and worldly concerns

• 7th mansion - soul transcends reason and is in unity with God

What is William James’ book on religious experience called?

‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (1901)

What are James’ four characteristics of mystical experience?

• Ineffability

• Noetic

• Transiency

• Passivity

What is ineffability?

Being difficult or impossible to express in normal vocabulary.

What does noetic mean?

Feeling of being given an understanding of important truths

What is transiency?

Lasting only for a short time

What is passivity?

Being acted upon, they are recipients of the experience rather than initiators of it.

What is Rudolf Otto’s book on religious experience?

‘The Idea of the Holy’ (1923)

Why did Otto write his book?

As a Christian, he thought that in the discussion of God and religion, there was too much emphasis on the rational (James’ POV)

What did Otto mean by the numinous?

The feelings evoked by a non-rational sense of being in the presence of God.

What are Otto’s characteristics of the numinous?

• Creature-consciousness

• Wholly other

• Emotional respose

What is creature-consciousness?

Awareness that you have been created and are not independent, small compared to God.

What is the ‘wholly other’?

The numinous is completely different from anything else, and cannot be mistaken for other kinds of experience.

What is the emotional response?

Mixture of dread and love, fear and attraction due to the holiness of God.

What is mysterium tremendum et fascinans?

A fascinating and awe-inspiring mystery.

What did Otto mean by mysterium?

A sense of the strangeness or otherness of God.

What did Otto mean by tremendum?

Feeling of being overwhelmed by a presence much greater than oneself.

What did Otto mean by fascinans?

Being terrified and filled with wonder simultaneously, can’t tear yourself away.

Which scholar defended religious experience and in what book?

Richard Swinburne in his book ‘Is there a God?’ (1979)

What is the principle of credulity?

We should believe the evidence of our senses, unless we have evidence to believe otherwise. If it seems to us that we are experiencing God, we should generally trust our senses.

What is the principle of testimony?

We should, in general, believe what other people tell us, unless we have reason to believe they are not trustworthy. If generally trustworthy person says they have experienced God, we should believe them.

What three challenges to religious experience does Caroline Franks Davis identity?

• Description-related

• Subject-related

• Object-related

What are description-related challenges?

Based on the idea that the account of the experience is illogical or implausible. E.g. Is the story consistent? Does it contradict things we already know?

What are subject-related challenges?

Based on the idea that the person who said they had the religious experience is unreliable. E.g. drinks/takes drugs, epileptic, illness, fasting, extreme tiredness.

What are object-related challenges?

Based on the idea that the thing that was experienced is beyond credibility, does not exist, or cannot have been present. People use this on the account that they think it is highly improbable that God exists.

What does Franks Davis conclude?

Challenges against religious experience fail - although some alleged reports should be treated with scepticism, others have been profound and shouldn’t be dismissed.