What is the general definition of religious experience?
Claims of direct experience with the divine/God and indirect experiences through ordinary experience
What is William James’ definition of religious experience?
“the feelings, acts, and experiences of individuals in their solitude so far that they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”
What are James’ 4 characteristics of a mystical experience?
1) Noetic
2) Ineffable
3) transient
4) passive
What was James?
A pluralist, pragmatist, and empiricist
What is the definition of transient?
it lasts a few minutes, but the significance and effects are long lasting and out of proportion to its duration.
What is the definition of passive?
the recipient feels as if they have “lost control” to a more powerful being.
What is the definition of ineffable?
The sensations they experienced are beyond verbal description.
What is the definition of noetic?
it has provided insight or knowledge grasped through intuition and perception.
What is St Teresa of Avila’s criteria for a religious experience?
1) It should fit with the church’s teaching
2) It should lead to a positive change in character
What 4 fruits did William James observe?
- A conviction of something beyond the material world
- A feeling of meeting a friendly power and responding with self surrender
- Feeling elation or freedom
- A change in the emphasis of one’s life
What is William James’ conclusion?
“The only thing it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find greatest peace.”
What is a mystical experience?
An experience of something beyond normal awareness
What is a numinous experience?
Otto defines it as the experience of the ‘wholly other’
What is a Conversion Experience?
A change of heart and turning around of one’s priorities, following a new direction in life
What is a corporate experience?
A religious experience shared with many people
What was Schleiermacher’s support of religious experience?
He said when we thought about it we all have a feeling of dependence and it is this intuition that gives an awareness of God.
What was Rudolph Otto’s support of religious experience?
He argued that numinous experience are at the heart of every religious experience. This is a personal relationship with the numinous and not the result of rational thinking but of rational thinking and an experience with the wholly other.
What was M. Buber’s support of religious experience?
He called religious experiences “I-thou relationships” because they are personal relationships different to any other.
What are some examples of conversion experiences?
- St Paul who on the way to persecute Christians saw Jesus in a vision. He converted to Christianity and became one of the most influential missionaries in faith.
- Nicky Cruz a New York gangster went through a religious experience and became a Christian
What did ED Starbuck say and how can he be used as both a support and critic of religious experience?
- Argued that there are two types of conversion:
1) the volitional type - a gradual slow development
2) the self-surrender type - a sudden pivotal experience followed by a change in lifestyle - He suggested that conversion mainly takes place in 15-24-year-olds and said “conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon”
- This suggests that religious experiences are normal and common but also could suggest that they are part of a psychological process, not an encounter with God
What is an example of corporate experience?
The Toronto Blessing that took place in 1990 in Toronto Airport Church and spread to other continents. The holy spirit is said to have manifested itself through speaking tongues, animal noises and uncontrollable laughter.
What are some criticism of corporate experience / the Toronto Blessing?
- Although some said it strengthen their marriage there are no serious fruits such as the changing of lifestyle
- Some argued that the experience is more demonic through the degrading acts the people performed
- Why would God choose this church rather the impoverished or in need?
- What does this reveal about God? No real noetic knowledge
- There could be psychological/sociological explanations such as mass hysteria
What are the psychological challenges to religious experience?
- Freud believed religion was just wishful thinking as we fear dangers and death and so create a superior being who is in control (like a father figure). He calls religion infantile regression.
- He also says St Paul’s conversion experience was a breakdown from the guilt of killing Christians
- L Feuerbach also argued God was a human projection “God is man written in large letters”
+ HOWEVER Jung accepted numinous experiences and said spirituality is needed for a healthy mind
What are the physiological challenges to religious experience?
- Brain scans on meditating monks have located operators in the brain which are active during a religious experience which suggests it is a physiological process
+ HOWEVER just because its physiological doesn’t mean it is meaningless
- Some argue that as religious experience is subjective it is only of value to the individual
- Different interpretations depending on culture could discredit experiences. Hume said Catholics experience Mary and Hindus experience Krishna.
+ HOWEVER James is a pluralist so would argue they a;l point to the reality of God
- Kant argues that we cannot experience the divine because he is part of the noumenal world and we are in the phenomenal world
- Some experiences are linked to fasting but Hobbes argues that if a man says God spoke to me in a dream it is no different to saying “he dreamed God spoke to him”
- Russell also said “there is no distinction between a man who eats little and sees God and a man who drinks much and sees God”
