Religous Experinces- Value For Faith

Question 1

Are religious experiences significant in adding value to faith?

Answer 1

-Religious experiences are significant in influencing and giving value to an individual’s religious faith because they provide believers with a sense of God’s reality whilst also having transformative, life-changing effects
-These experiences can take various forms, including visions, mystical experiences and numinous encounters.

Question 2

How are religious experiences important in adding value for faith?

Answer 2

-One way in which religious experiences influence faith is through their ability to provide personal assurance of God’s existence
-William James concluded from his research into the impact and transformative effect of religious experiences, that they shared common elements such as being passive, ineffable, noetic, transient and passive
-This inevitably leaves the individual in no doubt that God exists and has sought out a relationship with them, often resulting in a change of life perspective
-James argued that “they carry with them a feeling of authority,” showing how people who have religious experiences often accept them as direct evidence of divine reality

Question 3

What examples of religious experiences show its transformative effect and how it can add value to faith?

Answer 3

-This transformative effect can also be understood with reference to St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus where a religious experience led to a radical change in belief and outlook on life for Paul
-This example, along with St Teresa of Avila and many others in religious traditions, plays a crucial role in inspiring movements and converting people from atheist to theist and morally better people

Question 4

How do Religius experiences still add value to faith if they can’t be empirically verified?

Answer 4

-Despite the inability to empirically verify religious experiences, they remain highly influential in the lives of believers as they become the primary value of understanding God. For example, St Thomas Aquinas stated that all his life’s work up to the point of directly encountering God was like ‘straw in the wind’
-In other words, religious experiences provide an insight into God that no reading of scripture or following of doctrines can come close to offering

Question 5

What does H.H Price suggest about Religius experiences and their value toward faith?

Answer 5

-HH Price suggests that religious experiences often strengthen ‘belief-in’ God as they provide a personal, direct encounter with the divine that deepens an individual’s commitment to faith that goes beyond that of intellectual understanding gained from religious practice and observance
-This means that religious experiences can be undeniable and real, rather simply ‘belief-that’ a God could exist because scripture or religious tradition teaches that this is the case