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Religion and Human Experience

Rudolph Otto

“Mysterium tremendum et fascianas”

“Mysterium” means something that transcends beyond human boundaries. “Tremendum” indicates awe generated by recipient of holy. “Fascinas” is the pull of experience from holly, unable to drag self away. This means something unknowable (awesome dimension of power)

(Eerie, creeping of flesh)

Holy is a word that cannot describe and experience according to Otto because it has been schematised.

What is Religion?

One school of though its that it’s a humans response to mystery.

Marx describes it as “Religion is a sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of people”

Approaches

Religious experiences go from universality to diversity and then importance.

Communities take them differently. Individuals even more.

There is the anthropological approach that religion is what communities share in common

Sociological - gives a sense of meaning and an agreed way of interpreting the world. “religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community . . . , all who adhere to them." (Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (sociological)

Historical - Example sacredness and fights over the holy land

Theological - Concentrates on meaning and significance behind beliefs. Understand its concepts.

Ninian Smart provides the features to a religious experience (phenomenological)

• Ritual: Faith expressed through rituals, the outer form of behaviour
• Mythical Dimension: historical or non historical…myths refer to spiritual truth
• Doctrine of faith: Systematic codes of belief
• Ethics: Persuading followers to live my common set rules
• Social effects: The way in which religion customs society
• Experimental: Feels to be a part of self
• Material: Religions produce art work and artefacts

The religious experience can, as Moojen Momen says, “lead to a complete change in the way individuals think about themselves, a complete alteration in lifestyle, or a reorganisation of the individual’s conceptual world.”

Types of experiences are

• Conversion
• Mystical
• Prayer (divine presence or relationship_
• Public
• Private

W.T Stace also tries to define a religious experience

Unified Vision: (sense of harmony)

Timelessness (and spacelessness)

Sense of reality

Blessedness (joy happiness)

Appreciation of Holy

Paradox (normal rules of logic do not apply)

Ineffability

Loss Of sense of self

UV TAKES“S” SUNRAYS BEHIND AND HOLDS POINTING ITS LASER STRAINES

St Francis of Assisi called the moon his sister and the sun his brother as his religious experience made him feel in harmony with creation.

Rudolph Otto takes the line it’s numinous and god is transcendent beyond human understanding so he rejected these views. Many people objected said it made God feel impersonal and distant.

What leads to a religious experience?

1. Despair
2. Prayer
3. Nature
4. Participation of religious worship

Etc, music art drug illness relaxation birth

Conversions

Conversion is essentially the shift between one worldview and another more satisfactory worldview. In a religious context this could mean an individual shifting from one faith to another; from no faith to a new faith; changing denomination or simply rediscovering an old religious position.

Lewis Rambo describes it as “a process, gradual or sudden in self”

Lewis Rambo and Charles Farhidan

1. Context: politics of country, acceptability of religion
2. Crisis: experience, political, and leads to questions
3. Quest: inner motive, gain? Political? Or just going along with the crowd
4. Encounter: what happened to make conversion, who involved?
5. Interaction: How learn roles and adapt
6. Commitment: Is it short lived? Personal commitment if so to whom?
7. Consequence: Effect, long term and if results change

C C Q E I C C

EXAMPLE of conversion: Saul to Paul

1. Context: well educated rabbi/did training, was a major prosecutor of Christians
2. Crisis: Death of Christian Stephen who forgave his killers
3. Quest: Religious enthusiast and strict observance of rules
4. Encounter: On journey to Damascus
5. Interaction: meet Ananias
6. Commitment: Baptised and changed name to Paul
7. Consequence: Missionary and teacher, new important apostle, 3rd author of new testament

Rambo however also thought that conversion wasn’t always the starting point and sometimes faith came after the person (actions then faith)

Visions (private)

• Ninan Smart came up with three forms
• Visions to some cultures are seen as positive and to others not.
• Some scientists have speculated that that a highly developed right side of the brain is attained to creative and religious elements

Corporeal Visions (usually dead)

A figure that may be present in a luminous way, suggested it had been appreciated more deeply than usual. It is something that may be seen or heard without justification.

Imaginative Vision (soul and images)

A person imaginatively aware of a figure they can’t see. The experience is beyond control and accompanied by a feeling of holiness. It is short-lived usually and gived way to intellectual visions.

Intellectual Visions (awakening/enlightenment)

Person becomes aware of an abstract concept not a figure. This could be the essence of a soul or grace of God. It may be accompanied by a similar imaginative sensual experience, a call to a religious life, an inner peace of some sort.

Example of this:

France: Identifying herself as the Immaculate Conception, Mary appeared 18 times to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubrious between February 11 and July 16, 1858. The waters of the miraculous spring that appeared according to Mary's promise are world famous for their healing powers. She was a peasant and claimed to have had numerous experiences. It attracts a lot of tourists and people who claim to have been healed. Vision was declared authentic by the RC church and she became a saint after she passed away.

Visions

• Women were predisposition to the experience of men due to their psychological make up
• Generally women tend to conform and follow what is social. Men are more independent and pioneer more than women.
• Motherhood is clearly at the heart of creating, an attribute of God, indicating women are closer to god
• Women use feeling and men use sense
• Women are nurturers
• If women are spiritual why are all the greater artists men?

Women were raised when man falls or fails

Experience gives authority

3rd Type of Vision is Mystical

Mysticism,’ comes from the Greek μυω, meaning “to conceal”

Modern Liberal Hans Kung describes mysticism as closing of the senses to the outside world in order to loose oneself in God. As a specific catogry of experience mysticm involves thre spiritual recognition of truths beyond normal understanding.

The mystic uses prayer, meditation and deep contemplation to reach an altered state of consciousness wherein they will encounter a transcendent reality much greater than they are. This reality may be referred to as ‘God’ however you will see William James’s categories of mystical experience suggest that mystical experience is ineffable and thus impossible to definitively articulate

The nature of a religious experience, by William James

“The feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider to be divine”

Four principles to a mystical religious experience are….

St Bonaventure recorded three stages of a mysterical experience

1. Purgative: Purification by prayer and self denial
2. Illuminative: Spiritually enlightening experience, free of time and space
3. Unitive: reacting oneness with God, sense of serenity and bliss

Teresa of Avila was born in 1915. She was a rebellious and flirtatious teenager. Her farther could not handle her and therefore sent her off to the convent at the age of 16. At first she hated it and then began to love it. It was less strict than it had been with her father. Her relationship with God grew and she mediated Christ. She had left and returned. She was ill. She was paralysed for 3 years and claimed to feel Gods presence. After a period of strict religious observances, they halted and she claimed god was lifting her body into the air. She wrote her experiences down and analysed them. She though God was keeping her disciplined within faith and not singling her out. Her writing became influential.

It was in this order her mystical progression progressed

• Prayer- meditation
• Intense prayer and feeling at union
• Ecstasy with God, loss of self control
• Spiritual marriage with God

Revelations

“I do not understand so that I believe. I believe in order that I understand” Hippo

Veracity of a Religious Experience

Problems arise in trying to find out the truth. William James performed experiments with nutrious oxide and anaesthetics that produce similar results to religious experiences.

The bible gives some advice of how to determine truth

• Emphasises commitment rather than emotion or feelings
• Produces improvement in persons behaviour
• Actions for justice and against social wrongs
• Leads to humility not pride
• Marked leadership but not controlling
• Believes in regardless of miracles or signs
• Consistent with message of the scriptures

80% of peopople in UK feel presence of something higher than themselves

Individual=subjective and difficult to measure against others experience

Principle of credulity

This is the mean or the process by which you establish the truth

“In the absence of special considerations, if it seems that x is present to a person, then probably x is present”

What one perceives to be the case 'X', is probably the case unless:

• The subject 'S' was unreliable
• If similar perceptions are shown to be false
• If there is strong evidence that X did not exist
• If X can be accounted for in other ways

Things you can do according to Swinborne is

1. Challenge the description: If experience is godlike its beyond proof, therefore description of experience is false and its an experience the recipitant didn’t understand
2. Challenge subject: Are they ill? Can it be explained psychologically or is it dependent on God?
3. Challenge object: Then do pigs fly?
4. Challenge to conflicting claims: My experience is my faith

Principle of Testimony

“In the absence of special considerations it is reasonable to believe experiences of others are possibly as they report them”

This approach is a sceptic view; sceptic comes from “skeptikos” Greek word for “thought”

Not all beliefs are provable as they rely on the dimension of faith Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you don’t see (hebrews2 vs1)

Religious Authority

• Religious institution is a collective institution
• Source of authority determine truth

Authority

• Someone who sets rules
• Power and control
• Perceived wisdom
• Their example and actions
• Tradition becomes authority (their scriptures are holy)

Founders

• Figurehead
• Example
• Inspiration
• Gods representative
• Especially enlightened
• Person of whom god acted

Religious authority in Islam

Sunnah – “the way of the prophet”

This book contains morals, ethic codes and demands on Islam

Hadith - sayings collection

Shariah - prominent Islamic law

• Callipahar Umar- Put it together 20 years after the prophers death
• Uthman after the prophet became in power
• Quran means recitation and has been recited in Arabic
• Quran-surrah-verses (nott chronological)
• Suras are in order of length
• Sunmi- literally perfect, and shias not as much
• Hafiz- knows of by heart
• Story of how it came down
• No one can write like it
• Quran gives eschatology (purpose of human existence)

How does experience become authority?

Experience is first hand and knowing something in detail. Experience is knowledge in something you have mastered. An experience in comparison to someone who has known gives that person authority. Authority is a higher level.

Example: Prophet (sws) - experiences in which are revealed the holy book for Muslims. The authority is that people look up to him, observe his actions and saying and relate it to what they do.

History is full of examples of those who have had religious experiences which have caused conflicts leading to spiritual movements. Conflicts with institutions static authority

Experience becomes scripture

Scripture becomes law

Law becomes infallible

Infallible maintains authority

Authority produces stability

Scriptures

Texts

• Inspired
• Authoritive

Ports of collective writings are known as CANON

Canon comes from the Greek word “Kanon” meaning rules

Other types are through oral traditions such as the Vedas (means knowledge)

The families of priestly wise men, comprehend the essential truths and transmitted their content and meanings orally. In Islam the revelations were written down sometimes on banana skin by the prophet, his wife or friends.

The establishment of the canon is a long process and often controversial. It took centuries to gather the appropriate information for the Christian canon and any form of consensus on its content. There is still a great deal of dispute. Catholics and Protestants acknowledge different numbers of books in the old and new Testaments.

Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism and Islam hold the idea of inerrancy in their scriptures to various degrees. This means the scripture teaches no error and is the key to authority. Its infallible and gods way of communicating.

Leaders

Tradition

Handling down of rituals and beliefs

Christianity earlier was faced by Gnosticism, where tradition became valued.

Gnosticism comes from “gnosis” word for knowledge. They claimed that the present material was evil and that the word of the spirit was good.

Scriptures­ = Interpret = understand = Christian

St Iraneus says to do this and look at historical content from the community of the scripture

Working out the role between religion and tradition

• Karl Barth (1886 – 1968)
• He was a protestant theologian
• Viewed as word of God speaking to people pf the age through scripture and saw tradition as the record of ways in which message of scripture had been received at different times by different people
• For Barth tradition should show “love and respect” but not held in any way equal to scripture

Islam- tradition is crucial

Quran established code is guidance

Sunnah example of prophets life

Hadith- sayings

Experience

How reliable is a personal guide to learning about reality?

In one sense it’s a primary guide

Do you need to have experienced god in order to believe in him?

St Pauls experience was unexpected where Jesus spoke out to him. It went against his religious authority. His experience of conversion ruled over scripture and his authority.

SUBJECTIVE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Tradition= stability and continuity it’s a same renewal

Religious experience= source of reform and renewal, lead to deception , instability, disillusion

Philosophical scepticism

Thomas Hobbes= what is the difference between people who spoke to god in a dream and someone who says them saw god speak to them in a dream

BUT

William James acknowledges whilst claims of a religious experiences subjective and unlikely to convince those who hasn’t had experiences of similar things. He felt they could enrich society and give hope.

“the heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hand” (psalms 19:11)

Where is reason in religion?

Are religious experiences different from ordinary experience?

Are religious experiences veridical (do they point to something external to the experiencer?)

Mystical experiences often speak of unity with the divine. From a theistic point of view God and humanity are not to be equated.

BUT - could this unity be not of substance but a unity brought about by the love and grace of God in the sense of a closeness of relationship?

Why do some people have religious experiences whilst others do not? Do some people lack the capacity for such experiences in the way that some people have no ear for music?

BUT - John Hick argues that God is hermetic [hidden] so as not to override human freedom, otherwise they would have to be obedient to God and worship him. Therefore religious experience can only take place within a context of faith?

BUT - Don’t some religious experience occur outside a context of faith?

Glossary terms

• a posteriori reasoning
  • Reasoning from experience and observation, rather than from theories andbeliefs. A type of propositional knowledge which is dependent upon the evidence of experience.

• a priori reasoning
  • Reasoning that is not based on observed facts or studies. A type of propositional knowledge which is not directly dependent upon the evidence of experience and is often reliant upon definition.

• Categorical Imperative
  • As formed by Kant, this means that an act is immoral if cannot be made into a

rule by which everyone could live.

• Empiricism
  • The philosophical theory that all knowledge is derived from experience.
  • Experience always means sensory experience, i.e. experience that depends on

one or more of the five senses.

• external visions
  • An image that is seen by all of the people at an event.

• God as Immanent
  • The idea that God is near, or to be found within oneself, or inherent within everything.

• God of the Gaps
  • The theory that God is the answer to questions and problems that science is otherwise unable to resolve.

• inspiration of scriptures
  • The idea that the divine inspired the writers to write the scriptures, or that the writers were inspired to write by their religious views. This is separated in some sources from the idea that the scriptures were revealed. Other sources use the terms .revelation and inspiration. interchangeably.

• internal visions
  • Seen only by an individual.

• Literal interpretation of scripture
  • The belief that what is written in sacred texts is entirely true and accurate, rather than being metaphorical or containing factual inaccuracies.

• Literalism
  • A belief that every word of the Bible is literally true, e.g. Mark 16: 18

• literary qualities
  • That is of scriptures, narrative, symbolism, irony, etc.

• Liturgy
  • The ritual of public worship in Christian

• Mystical experience
  • A special category of religious experience of a supernatural and spiritual nature. This is a complex term which has been explored by many writers such as William James and WT Stace. The highest form of mystical experience is considered to be a .Mystical Union..

• mystical union
  • The union between God and the soul.

• organic conversion experience
  • A self-surrendering form of conversion, where the individuals loathe what they become but cannot do anything to change it.

• passive conversion experience
  • When subjects feel themselves changed by an external power and have not taken an active part in being converted.

• religious authority
  1. The various groups that lead the world faiths;
  2. Something or someone having power over others due to their religious status, e.g. individuals, institutions, texts, conscience, etc.
  3. Experts on scriptures or teachings who are consulted for information.

• Religious experience
  1. An experience of something spiritual;
  2. An experience in which the presence of the numinous is felt;
  3. Any experience that is given a religious interpretation.

• Road to Damascus
  1. The place upon which St Paul was converted to Christianity;
  2. Any sudden change of heart by a person, especially one in which their previous beliefs have been reversed.

• St Paul.s conversion
  • A key event in the history of Christianity, when St Paul changed from being its greatest persecutor to its greatest champion, recounted in Acts Chapter 9.

• St Teresa of Avila
  • Important Christian mystic (1515-1582), whose visions focused on the person of

Christ.

• salvation
  • The idea that sinful humanity is reconciled with God through Jesus (Christianity).

• Scripture as a inspiration for believers
  • The idea that what is in the scriptures should help strengthen the faith of believers.

• Sectarian differences
  • The differences, often bitterly contested, between different groups in the same world faith, such as Shi.a and Sunni in Islam.

• secular authority
  • Non-religious states, bodies or organisations that have some form of power over the people.

• self surrender
  • When subjects feel themselves changed by an external power and can do nothing

• Symbolic interpretation of scripture
  • A view that parts of scripture are not to be taken literally, but should be seen as allegories or metaphors.

• symbolism of life and death
  • How various religions view and mark these key points in a human’s existence.

• Testimony
  • When someone stands up to recount their experiences, often in a religious context.

• textual tradition
  • The written doctrines and thoughts of a particular religion.

Comments

The notes are suitable for someone studying the topic of religion and human experience for A Level religious studies. The are aimed for the AQA exam board, but will also be suitable for other exam board specifications.

These notes were originally written by lawzer in this post on TSR Forums.