Scholars

Question 1

Swinburne on religious experience

Answer 1

a) everyone can see the same thing but has a different interpretation
b) healing: someone may be healed with clear evidence that a sudden change occurs. everyone witnesses the event but differs on its cause
c) a vision that can be described
d) mystical experience that cannot be explained in words
e) experiencing god over time through people, places and events

Question 2

Swinburne on God

Answer 2

• omnipotent, omnicient, perfect freedom, everlasting
• perfectly good and not influenced by irrational desires
• we have a moral obligation to people who give us things so we have a moral obligation to god
• the universe exists only because god allows it too
  omnipotence does not mean god can do the logically impossible- this is not a restriction on his power as logically impossible statements are non-sensicle

Question 3

Armstrong

Answer 3

• History of God 1993
• genesis identifies a supreme powerful and benevelant being who created light and order

-OT shows relationship between man and god. god is concerned with peoples welfare but also judges and destroys. god protects his people

.

• NT shows jesus as a message, messanger nd redeemer. hw shows us a personal compassionate god who wishes us to live moral lives.
• the church encourages people to celebrate sacraments, read scripture, pray and leads good lives to nurture their relationship with God.

Question 4

Ninean Smart

Answer 4

states that the experiential dimension of faith is usually what brings a person to faith.

Question 5

David Hay

Answer 5

found that 1/3 of adults claimed to have had a religious experience.
-Church Research Center found 1in3 Finns felt they had received help from god or an answer to a prayer.

Question 6

Walter Stace

Answer 6

Mystacism and Philosophy 1960
-created 8 point list to a religious experience

1- vision expressed by ‘all is one’

2- sense of timlessness and spacelessness

3-sense of reality that is not subjective

4-blessedness, joy and peace

5-feeling of what is happening to be holy or divine

6- there is a sense of the paradox and logic defined

7- ineffable

8- experience of loss of self

Question 7

Caroline Franks Davis on religious experience

Answer 7

1- INTERPRETIVE: meaning an event that has no specifically religious characteristics attributed to a divine source

2- QUASI-SENSORY: meaning the primary element is a physical sensation for example a vision

3- REVELATORY: meaning the enlightenment experience which makes their experience religious

4- REGENERATIVE: causing a conversion or renewal of ones faith

5- NUMINOUS: the believer experiences gods unapproachable holiness

6- MYSTICAL: meaning the sense of apprehending ultimate reality or a sense of oneness with god

Question 8

Caroline Franks Davis on Mystical Experience

Answer 8

1-sense of having apprehended an ultimate reality - closet one will come to seeing divine reality

2-freedom from the limitations of tie, space and ego

3-sense of oneness with god

4-sense of bliss or eternity

Question 9

F C Happold

Answer 9

• Study of Anthrapology 1963
• for the mystic himself the vision is completely authorative and he cannot describe it in rational terms.
• it is not possible to say that all mystics ‘see’ the same thing, or have the same experience, but they all agree and find some truth

Question 10

D T Sauzuki

Answer 10

describes the zen buhddist experience of ‘satori’ as the ‘sudden flashing of a new truth into ones self, hitherto undreamed of’

Question 11

Saint Theresa of Avila on Revelation

Answer 11

‘the lord introduces into the inmost part of the soul what he wishes the soul to understand’

Question 12

Alister Hardy

Answer 12

‘it is knowing quite different from intellectual knowledge what is meant by the concept ‘god is love’’

Question 13

McGuire

Answer 13

’ a process of religious change which transforms the way the individual perceives society and his/her place in it. altering their view of the world’

Question 14

W. James on Conversions

Answer 14

‘unifying of inner-self’

1- normal evolution

2- can be gradual or sudden

3- when self-divided individuals become unified (a]’sick souls’ who are split between natural and spiritual life b] ‘healthy minded’ who see two selves healthy and ideal)

4-volitional or self surrendering

5-passive or active

6-transforming

Question 15

Lofland and Stark

Answer 15

gave conversions 7 stages and applied to

1] Jesus Army

2]Friends of western buddhust order

-96% of JA and 76% of FOWBO went through the 7 stages including tension, religious problem solving and potential

Question 16

Lofland and Skonovod

Answer 16

described 6 petterns of a conversion. Moojan Momen summarised them as

1-intellectual

2-mystical (sudden and dramatic)

3-experimental with an emphasis on active learning

4-affectional involves contact and bonding with actual members

5-revivalist usingally involving arousals

6-coerced involving persuaion

Question 17

Teasdall

Answer 17

defined Mysticism as direct and immediate experience of ultimate reality for christians it is union and communion with god

Question 18

Pahnke

Answer 18

Psychedelic Review 1971

1-deeply felt positive mood

2-sense of sacredness and non-rationality

3-paradoxicality- logical contradiction (makes sense at time but not after)

4-ineffability

5-persisting positive change

Question 19

Rodolph Otto

Answer 19

god is ‘wholly other’

Via Negativa - beyond grasp of human reason. Speaking of what God is not- the words limit gods power

Via Positiva- development of linguistic skills to describe god

Question 20

Keith Ward

Answer 20

is religion irrational

• wards key point is that belife in god involves commitment to ‘seeing to whole universe as an expression of a supreme mind or spirit and to see you daily life as an encounter with that spirit’.
• modern physics suggests that reality may be more complex and multi-dimensional than we had previosly thought. this in itself allows the possibility of a supreme personal mind to exist in a way that is not detectable through ordinary sense data
• revelation is the communication by god of the purpose of creation and human life and a way to achieve it.
• such revelations must occur in specific historical contexts, and they, or human interpretations of them, will be subject to the general process of historical development as human knowledge and experience change and grow.
• tribes will try to induce visions by using haluciongenics
• if there is a god he would want to communicate himself in some way and make himself known - divine self disclosure. Therefore is religion itself a revelation/ rel exp

Question 21

William James on conversions effect

Answer 21

‘unified and conciosly right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on belifes’.

therefore the belife and convictions gained as a result of the conversion help strengthen the individual, reshaping their outlook on life completely.

conversions follow a pattern of despair and emptiness leading to a new found realsiation of the importance of faith

Question 22

Dionisus the Psuedo-Areopagite

Answer 22

engagment with god means

1-purifications of all that hinders our approach to God

2- illumination from God

3-union with God

“the most divine knowledge of god is that he is know through unknowing”

Question 23

Kierkgaard

Answer 23

belived that describing god in various terms and trying to proove his existance was a misrepresentation of god. true faith and true realisation of god involves a new insight into onesself, a deeper awareness of ones own nature ans a sense of personal change. christian tradition is that we come to understand and know certain truths through reason and revelation.

Question 24

William James on Mystacism

Answer 24

PINT

P-passivity (cant make happen)

I-ineffable

N-noetic (insight into divine)

T-transient (temporary)

Question 25

Validity of rel exp in the Bible

Answer 25

1] emphasis on commitment not emotions 2] produces an improvement in the individuals life 3] leads to actions against social wrongs 4] leads to humility 5] marked by leadership the guides 6] believes regardless of miracles 7] consistent with the message of the scripture

Question 26

Caroline Franks Davis on verification

Answer 26

DESCRIPTION: by describing god is describing something that is unabled to be proved SUBJECT: mental illness and unreplicable as they are 'internal' so are not dependent on external CONFLICT: all religions claim to be true but only one is

Question 27

Hume on verification

Answer 27

"what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an abassador from heaven" -people will take advantage of our desire to believe by producing false testimonies.

Question 28

James on verification

Answer 28

experiments with nirtous acid and anathestics which produced rel exp

Question 29

Oxfords Rel Ep reseach unit

Answer 29

1987 | indicated that up to 80% of people in the UK had been aware of a precence or power beyond themselves.

Question 30

Swindburne on verification

Answer 30

PRINCIPLE OF CREDULITY: if they say they have, they probably have. "One can recognise someone but this does not entail that one can describe them" PRINCIPLE OF TESTIMONY: change in lifestyle

Question 31

Feurbach on verification

Answer 31

in order to mak us feel secure in an uncertain universe, our imagination projects an ideal picture of ourselves and calls it god. Rel Exp are in the conciousness of the infinate, the concious subject has for his own object the infinity of his own conciousness"

Question 32

K ward on verification

Answer 32

1) Publicly accessible 2) repeatable 3) general laws will explain why an event occurred under certain conditions 4) propositions can be precisely and clearly formatted 5) aims at total objectivity 6) advance by measurement 7) experimental control 8) predictive 9) data should be describable 10) convince all observers beyond reasonable doubt

Question 33

Jesus on verification

Answer 33

Who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are wolves. You will be able to tell them by their fruits, a good tree produces good fruits but a rotten tree bad fruits. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit"

Question 34

Saint Theresa of Avila on verification

Answer 34

It should be within the traditions of the church it should be discussed with the spiritual advisor there will be a noticeable and profound change in the individuals life

Question 35

Freud on verification

Answer 35

It is a phenomena that must be illusionary

Question 36

Limits to the principle of credulity

Answer 36

1) They are perceptual claims E.g. on drugs 2) Background evidence might make it impossible to believe an experience 3) Other observers of presents and did not see it 4) There is an alternative explanation

Question 37

Caroline frank Davis on revelation

Answer 37

1) sudden aquisition of knowledge 2) revelatory 3) external agent 4) received with utter conviction 5) ineffable

Question 38

Happold on mysticism

Answer 38

1) identity fades 2) timelessness 3) understanding that the ego is not real