The Characteristics of Religious Experience

(Originally written February 27, 2007 in Book 13)

Philosophy of Religion 2nd Edition
Norman Geisler & Winfried Corduan

Part 2 The Characteristics of Religious Experience

In order for an experience to be a religious experience it must:
1) Involve awareness of the Transcendent
2) Involve a person making an ultimate commitment to the Transcendent

Religious Experience Involves an Awareness of the Transcendent

Whatever the description or name for the Transcendent, there is something, real or unreal, which goes beyond the individual in which or by which he transcends his finite conditions.

Some Paradigms for the Meaning of Transcendence

Paul M. van Buren believed that all language used as God-language or its equivalent is a dead language.

Ian T. Ramsey holds that metaphors and odd words have a power of disclosure. These odd phrases, metaphors and tautologies have deeper meanings than can be linguistically expressed.

The need for self-transcendence

"Religious experience involves the need to transcend the unalterable displeasures of life" (30).

Peter Koëstenbaum's description of religion: "man's effort to do something about the desperate condition of his own finitude" (30-31).

Sigmund Freud depicted religion as the human search for a cosmic father.

Rudolf Bultmann defined religion as a human longing to escape this world by discovering a sphere above this world.

Walter Kaufmann - Religion is rooted in man's goal to transcend himself. Man is the ape that wants to be god and man is the God-intoxicated ape.

Jean-Paul Sartre believed man's project is to become God.

A human being is that which needs self-transcendence.

Koëstenbaum held that love is an "a priori category by which the religious person unifies his world and overcomes the opposing otherness and attains self-fulfillment" (31).

Religious experience characteristically involves some means by which a person can self-transcend or "go beyond his own frustrating limitations" (32)

Chris Linehan: Then would not a failure to transcend one's self be a failed religious experience, but a religious experience nonetheless?

The Necessity of the Transcendent Other in Religious Experience

In order to have a religious experience one must believe that a Transcendent thing exists outside of one's self.

Religion is an "I-Thou" relationship, not an "I-I" relationship.

The Unity of Meaning of the Transcendent

Friedrich Schleiermacher argued that multiplicity of content of experience and expression is necessary for the complete manifestation of religion.

William James held that this plurality is necessary to fit the plurality of human needs.

William James argued that all religions have three common characteristics:
1) That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe
2) that union with that higher universe is our end
3) prayer is a process wherein work is done and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects within the phenomenal world

James held that the basic cognitive content of all religions have:
1) an awareness that there is something wrong with us as we naturally are
2) an awareness that we are saved from this wrongness by making proper connection with higher powers

Religion and the transcendent

Religious experience implies a dimension that is called the Transcendent

The transcendent is with whom religious experience happens. The transcendent is many things and not limited to any conceptualizations of a personal or impersonal God.

Religious experience always involves a transcendent dimension.

Religious experience involves both self-transcendence and a transcendent realm.

"In order to go beyond, there must be a Beyond (real or imagined) toward which as in which the religious experience moves" (35).

The Transcendent discloses itself and evokes a response from the individual experiencing the Transcendent.

Religious Experience involves a total commitment

Religious experience involves an a awareness of the Transcendent and an awareness of it as ultimate and as demanding an ultimate commitment.

In religion, individuals give a total commitment to the whole universe.

Experience is religious in nature if it involves ultimate commitment to the Ultimate.

Religious experience involves at least two fundamental factors:
1) An awareness of the Transcendent
2) a total commitment to it as the ultimate

"Religious experience is universal. It involves two basic elements: an awareness of the Transcendent and a total commitment to the Transcendent" (39).

The Transcendent is necessary to the fulfillment of man's fundamental drive to transcend.