religious experience

• corporeal visions

  image comes through physical sense of sight

  st bernadette of lourdes and joan of arc
• imaginative visions

  not through physical senses, through dreams or imagination

  joseph's visions and pharaohs dreams
• intellectual visions

  no image, an experience

  st teresa of avila
• st teresa of avila

  i saw christ at my side ... i was conscious of Him, for neither with the eyes of the body or of the soul did i see anything
• numinous religious experiences are experiences of awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent god

  Isaiah - 'Woe to me ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord almighty'

  Blaise Pascal - 'sweet and total renunciation. total submission to jesus christ'
• rudolf otto argues that the non rational aspect of religion is important

  numinous is an experience of creature feeling - a sense of dependency on something real and powerful
• mysterium - wholly other, taken up in the experience

  tremendum - inspiring awe or unease, overpoweringness and energy

  et fascinans
• all religious experience is numinous in nature according to otto
• otto evaluation

  confusing as to whether knowledge of God is gained

  implies they are once and for all

  other types of religious experience are well documented
• passive - not under the control of the mystic

  ineffable - beyond description

  noetic - revelation from god

  transient - not permanent
• william james accepts there is a psychological cause for religious experience but does not think this rules out supernatural cause
• william james provided empirical evidence of effects of religious experience

  william james believes what is true has great value for us and therefore the effects of religious experience conclude there is truth in religion
• mysticism - w.t stace

  only non sensuous and non intellectual

  the central characteristic is a oneness where the 'senses nor the reason can penetrate', transcends senosry intellectual consciousness
• introvertive mystical experience - introspectively to find the One at the bottom of the self.
• extrovertive mystical experience - outward through physical senses to find the One

  minor strand

  sees the Unity shine through normal sense perception

  halfway house

  still sensory intellectual
• stace's characteristics of mystical experience

  1. The Unitary Consciousness; the One; the Void; pure consciousness
  2. Nonspatial, nontemporal
  3. Sense of objectivity or reality
• psychological objection

  feuerbach - god is man written in large letters

  freud - obsessional neurosis caused by a fear of death and childhood desire for a father figure. idea of a mirage

  • response from jung - development of spiritual aspect is essential to psychological wholeness
  • response from james - we aren't just psychological events
• kant's objection

  it is logically impossible to experience god

  empirical realm, human senses are limited so how can we experience an unlimited god?

  • alston - normal sensory perception
  • c.d broad - blind society w/ sceptics
• sociological objection

  marx said religion is the opium of the people

  form of alienation from yourself preventing you from being able to relate to the world

  • positive force for change and source of hope and comfort
  • opium is the opium of the people
• swinburne's defence

  principle of credulity - accept what we see unless there's clear evidence of the contrary

  principle of testimony - believe what we hear unless there's chance of it being untrue
• swinburne's considerations

  testimony - known liar

  credulity - impossible

  both - not possible to show god did it, can be explained in a mundane way
• verification objection

  not possible to use the scientific methods of observation, hypothesis and testing

  • science cannot observe a non empirical reality
• temporal lobe epilepsy objection

  abnormal brain function - st paul may have suffered tle

  • impossible they're all from epilepy
  • could be the mechanism god uses
• persingers helmet objection

  god helmet - weak magnetic fields that cause they individual to feel as though they are having a religious experience - brain deprived from self stimulation and sensory input and 'defaults' to sense of infinity

  • not a causal link, may only accompany the actual experience
• kierkegaard - there is no 'objective' way of reaching god
• the influence of religious experiences

  • founding of religions
  • inspiring
  • life changing and positive
  • pilgrimages