Religous Experience

Question 1

What is a religious experience?

Answer 1

Religious experience can be divided into claims of direct experience of the divine or God, and claims of indirect experience of God through aspect of ordinary experience

Question 2

What are William James Fruits?

Answer 2

William James believed that we should focus on the positive outcome rather than the cause, he said that ever religious experience share for features: Ineffable (cannot be put into words), noeric (give insight into the truth), transient(short-lasting) and passive (not under a persons control) he used the analogy of “Fruits, not roots”.

Question 3

What is ineffable?

Answer 3

Cannot be put into words

Question 4

What is Noetic?

Answer 4

Show insight into the truth

Question 5

What is transient?

Answer 5

Short-lasting

Question 6

What is passive?

Answer 6

Not under a persons control

Question 7

How does F. Schleiermacher support James ideas of a union with the greatest power?

Answer 7

He claimed that we all have a sense, or feeling, of total dependence if only we stop to reflect on it. He called it ‘a sense of absolute dependence’. This is a basic intuition that we are all capable of developing, and it lies deeper than the level of ratio¬nal thinking. It is this intuition which gives us an awareness of the reali¬ty of God and religion.

Question 8

What was James argument against psychological factors being the reason to RE?

Answer 8

James concluded that although there were psychological elements to religious experiences, the divine could not be ruled out. “The only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.”

Question 9

What was Schleiermacher influence on Rudolph Otto?

Answer 9

In The Idea of the Holy he states that numinous experiences are at the heart of all religious experience. This is a personal experience of the numinous is not the result of rational thinking or reasoning, but is a form of direct intuition, an experience of the “wholly other”.

Question 10

What is a life changing RE and who is a good example to use?

Answer 10

Some experiences are life changing – we call them “conversion experiences”. The most famous of these was St. Paul who, on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, saw Jesus in a vision. He converted to Christianity and became the most influential missionary for the faith, turning it into a religion which spread throughout the Roman Empire. Paul described the experience as having been “re-born”.

Question 11

E. D. Starbuck (The Psychology of Religion) notes two types of conversions, what were they?

Answer 11

E. D. Starbuck (The Psychology of Religion) notes two types of conversions:
1) the volitional type – gradual change and slow development of new moral and spiritual habits.
2) the self-surrender type – a sudden, pivotal or crisis experience (physical / emotional) followed by a change of life in which the subject ceases struggling against and surrenders to the new psychological center.
Starbuck suggested that conversion mainly occurred in 15-24 year olds and said ‘conversion is in its essence, a normal adolescent phenomenon

Question 12

What drawing does Wittgenstein use for religions experience?

Answer 12

The rabbit and duck drawing

Question 13

How did John Hick develop Wittgenstein’s ‘seeing-as’ theory?

Answer 13

‘Experiencing as’ If two people watch a beautiful sunset, one might see it as a vision of gods work, whereas someone else might view it as a vision of beauty. It all depends on how we experience the experience.

Question 14

What did Rudolf Otto believe about religious experience?

Answer 14

He developed William James view and explores in ‘The Idea of the Holy’ the idea of numinous to describe an encounter with God, which is an encounter with the Wholly other. The wholly other signifies that God is not a being among beings but rather of a completely different order form anything in ordinary experience.

Question 15

What is Rudolph Otto’s phrase “mysterious tremendum et fascinans’?

Answer 15

A mystery tremendous and fascinating

Question 16

What does immanence means?

Answer 16

God is in the world active with us, opposite to transcendence