RE and miracles Flashcards
what are hume’s four pragmatic arguments against testimonies of miracles
- lack of quality testimony from a sufficient number of witnesses
- Humans are psychologically inclined to believe in the wondrous
- Belief in miracles about in ‘ignorant and barbarous’ nations
- inconsistent revelation
Pascal Boyer’s objection to miracles
miracle stories involve MINIMALLY COUNTERINTUITIVE CONCEPTS
Hick’s quote on miracles
‘A miracle… is an event through which we become vividly and immediately aware of god acting towards us’
Who argues about the relation of miracles and the problem of evil
Maurice Wiles
William James’ criterion for a mystical experience
Passive (beyond the person’s control)
Ineffable (impossible to put into words)
Noetic (impart otherwise unavailable knowledge)
Transient (temporary experiences)
what is the democratic fallacy and who commits it
Swinburne - just because people claim to have had religions experiences this does not mean that they come from a divine source
give a non-cognitive interpretation of a corporate experience
mass hysteria: psychological phenomenon where people behave differently in a large group
Swinburne’s argument relies on what two principles
principle of credulity
principle of testimony
Types of religious experience
- Mystical (James)
- Numinous (Otto)
- Corporate (Toronto blessing)
- Visions and voices (st Teresa)
- Conversion (st Paul)
Swinburne’s classifications
Public (corporate, conversion) 1. Ordinary (beauty of nature) 2. Extraordinary (breaks laws of nature) Private (numinous, mystical) 1. Describable (dreams) 2. Non- describable (direct encounter) 3. Non-specific
How does William James define religion?
‘…experiences of individual men in their solitude… so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they…consider divine’
William James’ 4 qualities of a religious experience
- Noetic
- Ineffability
- Transiency
- Passivity
Kimberly Rogers’ definition of numinosity
‘The emotional glow… different from what we experience in ordinary life…; an awe-filled encounter [with the divine]’
Rudolf Otto on the ‘mysterium tremendum at facinans’ numinous experiences
‘There is no religion in which it does not live as the innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name’
Replies to Otto?
- Buber says that god is not impersonal or other, but can be encountered in every day life: ‘In each Thou, we address the Eternal Thou’
- Schleiermacher says that experiences aren’t numinous but a feeling of dependence
Objections to corporate experiences
- they are just mass hysteria
- it doesn’t fit with biblical experiences so is not the way god works
- feelings are caused because of the group patchology
examples of visions
- st Teresa saw Christ at her side her inner visions (intellectual visions)
- Muhammad’s vision in the ‘Night of Power’ when he saw the Angel Gabriel and the Quran was revealed
- Bernadette’s vision at Lourdes (spring of medicinal water at the feet of Mary, corporeal)
St Teresa’s imaginative visions (her 3 types of prayer)
- Prayer of the quiet (meditation)
- Prayer of Union (more intense)
- Ecstasy spiritual marriage (ultimate state of contemplating the divine)
3 features of religious voices:
- Disembodied
- Communicates a revelation
- Authoritative
What voice does Augustine hear?
He heard the voice of a child playing but interprets this to be God communicating to him. Religious experiences aren’t always supernatural - could be natural things given a religious significance.
What does St Teresa say is needed for a voice to be genuine?
- it has to fit with Christian teaching
- you have to feel at peace after the experiences
People who say RE’s are Non-Cognitive
- logical positivists (non cog statements are meaningless)
- Wittgenstein, Hare, Braithwaite & Swinburne (unfasifiable)
- William James’ four-point phenomenological core
- Katz: doesn’t need to be cognitive to have meaning as they r interpreted only by the traditional in which they stand (echoes Alston)
The argument from religious experience
It’s only possible to experience that which exists, so the phenomenon of religious experience demonstrates the existence of God.
William James’ argument from RE as proof for God
all RE’s show the probability of God. The validity of RE is based on what it does to the person, as truth is what we make to be valuable to ourselves. So if it leaves effects on someone, t must be true.
