Religious experience

Question 1

What is a corporeal vision?

Answer 1

empirical religious experience, so it is experienced through the physical sense of sight. For example, St Bernadette

Question 2

What is an imaginative vision?

Answer 2

the experiencer has no power to direct the vision, which is a sign that it comes from God. Given to the experiencer without being perceived by sight, such as in a dream. For example, the Pharaoh’s dream (that only Joseph can interpret, it is a warning from God)

Question 3

What is an intellectual vision?

Answer 3

no image, but those who experience them claim to now see things as they ‘really are’. Mystical visions so they cannot be described using ordinary language. For example, Teresa of Avila

Question 4

What is the Bible quote for numinous experiences?

Answer 4

“And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God”

Question 5

What is sui generis?

Answer 5

• Power or presence of a deity
• More than just intense feelings, our feelings about the numinous are Sui generis- of their own kind

Question 6

What is the mysterium tremendum et fascinans?

Answer 6

• These feelings are beyond the rational, and we are left with mysterium tremendum et fascinans- a tremendous and fascinating mystery
• This inspires feelings of awe and majesty, alongside dread and fear
• Together, the concept of the numinous as the mysterium tremendum et fascinans focuses on God’s transcendence

Question 7

What is Stace’s introvertive mystical experience?

Answer 7

total suppression of sense experience. Ordinary consciousness is replaced by a mystical consciousness

Question 8

What is Stace’s extrovertive mystical experience?

Answer 8

mystic still sees the world of normal objects with his physical senses, but these objects are transfigured, so non sensuous unity shines through

Question 9

How does Freud challenge religious experiences?

Answer 9

Freud argued that religion is wish fulfilment by the unconscious mind. Where people claim to have religious visions, these are simply hallucinations caused by our need to have some kind of control over our helpless state

Question 10

How does temporal lobe epilepsy challenge religious experiences?

Answer 10

• Sufferers of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) are sometimes prone to religious visions. This suggests that religious experiences are nothing but abnormal states of the brain
• Eg, in the New Testament, Paul hints at being afflicted by a condition which he calls ‘thorn in the flesh’. There is no way of knowing exactly what this condition is but the recounts of his conversion to Christianity have some symptoms that align to TLE, such as temporary blindness
• The hypotheses about TLE are supported by the God helmet experiment

Question 11

What is something, other than TLE that could be a cause of a religious experience?

Answer 11

Religious experiences can also be caused by hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD

Question 12

What is Swinburne’s Principle of Credulity

Answer 12

• How things seem to be is good grounds for a belief about how things are
• “What one seems to perceive is probably so”
• In the absence of special consideration, all religious experiences should be taken by their subjects as genuine and therefore should be grounds to believe in the existence of the subject they are depicting (God, Jesus)