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Mystical Experience
Becoming overwhelmingly aware of the presence of an ultimate God.
William James [Features - PINT]
- Passitivity; A strong sense of being taken over.
- Ineffibility; a state of experience unlike nothing else and the experience is too difficult to describe. [Christians believe that God is incomprehensible].
- Noetic quality; Experiences reveal insights that are beyond human reason and understanding. [Eg. Isaiah's experience in the temple in Jerusalem]
- Transiency; Experiences don’t last long and are imperfectly remembered
Stace
- Introvertive – looking inwards at ones own experience
- Objective – Outward circumstances: “lovely the woods, waters, meadows” – GERARD HOPKINS. Its all down to God.
Paul Tillich
- describes a mystical experience in 2 stages:
- An objective event / encounter
- Followed by a special understanding of that event, revealing its religious significance
- A divine union with God
- Loss of self, feel in Gods ecstasy
Criticism
- Spiritual elation, as it suggests salvations can only be found by attaining a magical goal, instead of through JC on the cross.
- Isolated from mortality and is totally focused on attaining the presence of the holy.
Examples of Mystics
Mother Julian of Norwich
She was a religious recluse who wished at 30 years old to be extremely ill, near to the point of drying without actually dying, so she could have the last rights and be cleansed by the mercy of God and live on to lead a more sacred life. This happened and at the end, when she got better, she received visions and revelations and this enables her to lead a life totally dedicated to God.
St. Teresa of Avila
A women stricken by illnesses, who over 20 years in her late life, received many mystical experiences and felt that God was in her.
Vision
- Religious experience distinguished by their visual element eg. Heaven and Hell or Living creatures in Ezekiel’s vision..
- Some public and others private, - often more clarity in dreams.
- Eg. Maritan apparitions are where the Virgin Mary has shown herself to people.
- Isiah had a vision of god in a temple.
- Joseph in Genisis could interpret peoples visions.
- Angels appear to the shepherd to tell them about JC
Miracle
- An event which is believed to have a divine or supernatural cause. [Hulme]
- EG. Many Christians travel to Lourdes in Franch because a young girl had visions of the V Mary there and many people believe they have been cured of diseases by bathing in the baths in Lourdes.
- In the bible there many healing stories and miracle about turning water to wine.
Revelation
- Revealed truth, disclosing truth through supernatural means, such as Moses and the burning bush.
- Aware of the divine through nature
- Mystical experiences with a strong noetic nature, could also be a revelation, such as Mohammed on the mountain
- Non theistic religions, such as a Buddhism, may see a moment of insight [eg. Meditation] as a revelation.
- Maybe a realisation coming to the end of reflection
- EG. Saul, Moses and the burning bush and Gabriel and Mary
Conversion
- A change from nothingness or from one religion to another.
- May suddenly change, or go through many stages
- Emergence into a new life, with new beliefs
- Experiences that have nothing leading up to them.
- Voluntary change
- EG. Saul on the road to Damascus, when he was going to persecute Christians and he had a revelation, *God spoke to him and said: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”. And from them on, he became Paul; a Christian.
Definition of Religious Experience
- One experience a spiritual reality, this can include God speaking to someone, or feeling Gods presence. Like Pauls conversion.
- Numinous: Otto’s sense of ‘awe and wonder’, when they experience God as the numinous. The realisation that God is very different from us, often a sense of Gods greatness and power. Some people have experienced this when they go into a cathedral. Example of Numinous is in the chapter of Isaiah in the bible.
Religious experience as an inspiration of faith
- Such as Sauls conversion to Christianity, he answered God and this inspired him to enter the Christian faith
- Also a religious experience such as Mother Julian of Norwich mystical experience inspired her to live her live faithfully to God.
- Mohammed on the mountain, he was inspired into faith by a religious experience, an acting by devoting his life to Islam, by praying.
Nature of the Bible
- Includes examples of religious experiences; Miracles, feeding of the 5000
- Rules: 10 commandments
- Example of a good Christian; JC
Religious experience can be trusted as inspiration of faith and practice
CAN BE
- Has been the basis for a lot of belief
- Source of spiritual insight
- Can be an example of how to mount a mystical experience [Mother Julian of Norwich]
CANNOT
- Subjective
- Open to fraud and error
- Not properly understood.
- People may make it up, or a vision could be a dream?
Scripture as an inspiration for faith
- Stories of Jesus, following the example of a good man, who helped people. Inspired believers
- Ten commandments
- In Islamic prayer, Surahs are recited, directly inspiring Muslims for faith.
- Hearing readings of the bible, could as a medium for the voice of God, its power to convert
- Ministers always refer back to the bible, for security of faith
Using scriptures a guide for religious practice
- 10 commandments in Christianity, rules of how people should live their life, the Christian way, it instructs them practically and spiritually.
- The Qur’an tells people specifically how they should prayer to Allah with a set of verses and movements.
- In the Bible, there of many stories, that can inspire Christians to believe in God.
- The Qur’an also has stories of the Prophet Mohammed, who Muslims should see as a perfect example of Islam.
- Can be used as readings to show Christians that God is all-powerful, for example the creation story.
- Worship is a way of life of a believer
- Examples of religious experiences, so people can judge their own experiences with those in the bible, such as the story of Abraham
- Christianity; If people do wrong, they go to hell
Scriptures can be interpreted in different ways
- Literally or Symbolically: Creation story, could be seven days, or seven stages. It could be interpreted as God showing his powerfulness.
- Fundamental / Conservative / Liberal: Feeding of the 5000 and the creation story.
Scriptures can divide people
- Fundamental, con or lib
- Ethical and historical issues based on religion. Eg. Divorce or Abortion.
HOWEVER
- it can also unite them, because they use the same scriptures eg. Bible to live a Christian life.
Purpose of scriptures
- Show God as centralised figure
- Inspiration for future generations
- Basic teachings of a religion. [Qur’an > Allah is supreme God]
Scripture is not the most importance source of authority because
- Out of date
- Subjective
- Lacks application to modern issues, eg. Euthanasia
Scripture is the most important source of authority because
- That’s what religious leaders base their ideas on
- Unchanged
- Bible, word of God
- Source of fundamental Christian principles
Sources of authority
- Religious scriptures eg. Bible
- Religious leaders eg. Pope
- Religious experiences
- Conscience
- Reason
- Tradition eg. Baptisms
- Scriptures maybe not be in touch with modern times, contradictory, eg. Abortion, or homosexuality.
Utilitarianism - How useful something is?
A system dedicated to how morally useful something is
Christianity and Environmental Issues
- The Earth belongs to God, not to humans to what they want with it.
- Pollutions makes God’s good world bad
- Pollutions means we are not taking care of the world, as we were told to do in Genesis
- We are not being good stewards of the world, if we pollute it.
- Pollution causes illness in humans and animals, and this violates the Christian principle of Compassion.
Kant and Pollution
- The universal law means that a law can be made that everyone can abide by at any time. This would be impossible to do with pollution because; no one would want to live in polluted air all the time. This rule would be irrational and contradictory. Both ideas were against Kant's idea of the Universal law.
- Treat humans as ends, not means. A business that pollutes the sees is seeing humans, as means to ends and this is unethical.
- We have a duty respect others and their rights.
- We should all live as law-abiding members of a country. Someone polluting the environment is not doing this.
Comments
These notes are aimed at A Level Religious Studies students for the module 'RS12: Studies in Religion and Human Experience'.
Originally written by BlondKelly18 on TSR Forums.
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