Key philosopher - types of visions
St Augustine of Hippo
Types of vision
Corporeal
Imaginative
Intellectual
Corporeal vision
Empirical (verifiable by observation)
Sees a supernatural vision
Imaginative Vision
No power to direct the experience
Dreams
Intellectual
No physical image
See things as they really are
Philosopher about nature of experiences
Otto
Otto’s Numinous
- Common to all religious experiences
Numinous characteristics
- Encounters with the holy/sacred
- ‘Wholly other’ emotions
- Non-rational, cannot be explained
- Mysterium tremendum et fascians
Philosopher of mystical experiences
William James and Stace
Mystical Experience
- A direct and intimate experience of God
- Sense of union with the divine
James’ characteristics of mystical experiences
- Passivity, beyond control
- Ineffable, cannot be described
- Noetic, new knowledge
- Transiency, cannot be sustained for a long time
Stace’s classification of mystical experiences
Extrovertive:
- Normal objects in the world are transfigured so the non-sensuous party shines through them
- Mystic looks outwards, through the physical world
Introvertive:
- Suppresses the senses
- The mystic loses awareness of the physical world and their physical consciousness is replaced by a mystical one
- Turns inwards and finds oneself, perceives their oneness with the divine
- This experience is superior
Stace’s view
A mystical experience is
- A non-sensuous, non-intellectual union with the divine
- Our senses and rational intellect cease to work
- Replaced by pure consciousness and sense of self dissolves
Challenges from science
Freud’s wish fulfilment
Drugs
Freud’s wish fulfilment
Theists believe in God to help them control their fear of the unknown
Visions are hallucinations caused by the need to have some control over one’s helpless state
Drugs
Hallucinogenic drugs are also known as entheogens meaning they can generate the divine from within and cause people to have intense spiritual experiences
e.g. Hindu festival of Shiva
Challenged to RE
- They are only witnessed by the individual which makes them untrustworthy
BUT Toronto blessings - They are like emotion and so cannot be empirically proven
BUT this does not mean it is false - Little in common between the God experienced and the classical God of theism
BUT they are ineffable so this is expected - Links between experiences and drugs and alcohol
BUT Rowe: it is valid to use drugs to initiate interaction with the divine - Contradictory experiences
BUT Many types
Verification principles
Correspondence theory
Coherence theory
Pragmatic theory
Logical Positivism
Correspondence theory
- Does the event correspond with the real world?
BUT this is often impossible to check
Coherence theory
- Relates a statement to other known truths in a system of thought, we check if similar things have happened in the past
BUT we don’t know what to believe, or when to alter our system
Pragmatic theory
- If the theory is true then it will have a positive result
BUT it is a matter of opinion
Logical Positivism
- It must be empirically verified
BUT we cannot do this
Philosopher logical positivist
AJ Ayer - if an experience is ineffable then it is meaningless
Philosopher relating to verification
Swinburne
