A third feature of a religious experience would be that it is ‘transient’. “The religious experience does not last for long” (Cole). It may only last for a few minutes or hours. The moment of the experience is however more significant despite the duration of it. It is comparable to a dream where one may dream something that happened for days whereas the dream itself was only a few hours or minutes long. The experience is remembered vaguely, but is recognised when it reoccurs. The people at Knock witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St John the evangelist and St Joseph; they stood and watched in the rain for three hours or so. God is omnipresent and wholly another nature. Transiency shows the omnipresence of God in the world and that He is intervenes. He allows humans to have a glimpse of Him to notify them that He is there or as a sign.
Lastly, ‘passivity’ is another feature of a religious experience. Having undergone this unusual experience, it has no alternative explanation but God. The recipient may feel that they are “taken over by a superior power” (Cole). At the Toronto blessing people were overcome by something they believed was the Holy Spirit. This shows the nature of God being omnipotent, He wants people to have faith in Him so He takes away scientific evidence and gave us free will to accept or reject Him. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6)
If someone trusts their senses on a normal daily basis, it is reasonable and rational to believe and trust them at the time of an unusual occurrence including religious experiences. “If it seems to a person that X is present then X is present”. (Swinburne). For example, if one was to cross the road and saw a vehicle approaching, they would trust their senses and not cross the road until it was safe; on a daily basis we rely on our senses. The world is what we experience it to be. We have to accept our senses. God is creator who gave mankind their five senses and created man in His own image. . “So God created man in his own image...” (Genesis). Humans rely and trust their five senses. He gave man freewill in choosing whether to believe in God through His signs. If He didn’t give humans’ freewill then He would not judge them which shows His benevolence.
Our senses are subjective and misleading. For example, our senses can be tricked by optical illusions; we may see something in one form when it is another. There are also magicians who can trick our minds when they perform magic tricks. Therefore our senses are not always reliable even though we may rely on them. As religious experiences are a posterior, they are inductive as well meaning there are many possible conclusions to the experience; hence we can only rely on probability for an answer which may not necessarily be true. When we see a series of random dots, some of us may see it form into a face while another will see it to form into something entirely different. Similarly, two people who are listening to the exact same music or eating the exact same food may have a different response. Bernadette was the only one who could see the Virgin Mary in the grotto, those who followed her could not see anything; it looked like Bernadette was talking to herself.
Sir Alister Hardy set up the Religious Experience Research Unit (RERU) in Oxford. He carried out an anonymous survey which surveyed the people regarding whether they had a religious experience or not. He received a surprising percentage of 25-45% who said that they had a religious experience. As it was anonymous with no incentives. At the Toronto blessings, people were feeling the Holy Spirit personally and spoke in tongues, people claimed to feel His transcendent nature, and His omnipotence allowed them to speak in tongues. In the book of Exodus it says “the Lord use to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend”. According to the traditional theistic concepts of God, He is personal and immanent, He can relate to people personally depending on their needs and is omniscient. He knows when someone’s faith is low in them so He provides them with a religious experience so they can see hope. He conferred with the Abraham, according to the bible with regards to destroying Sodom and Gomorra because of the sinful people it contained. Abraham inquired that he would try finding 50 righteous people from it, but he couldn’t find any so he negotiated lower numbers
The flaw of the research is that it was anonymous so no further questioning can be carried out to the individual who claimed to have a religious experience. This would be important to confirm that the experience really was a religious experience. Hume’s principle of testimony would be applicable here regarding the witnesses of the testimony and if the people were being honest. “A religionist may be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no reality.” (Hume). If what a person experienced wasn’t a religious experience, and was only lying, then it would eradicate the claim of some traditional theistic characteristics.
Nicholas Lash outlines how religious experiences are “patterned by the frame of reference provided by the creed...”. He outlines how the people who have a religious experience are only a series of ‘pattern setters’; they copy other people who had the religious experience. For example Bernadette had an apparition of Mary, a few years later, the people at Knock also happened to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist. After that, during the World War I, three children at Fatema, saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Since all three incidents were from catholic communities it is likely they heard of the apparitions of the religious experiences before them and therefore were copying their claims. The Virgin Mary was seen as a figure of stability amongst the Catholics. The three children of Fatema who lived during the war were from less fortunate backgrounds and death was constantly present, when they saw the apparition they possibly took it as a sign of God’s benevolence and omniscience; however there could be other reasons for them having the apparition. The apparition did not specifically tell them that. Similarly, Bernadette came from an extremely poor background and her family all relied on each others love to keep them happy so to give them more hope, they possibly interpreted the apparition to be God’s benevolence. “An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering”(Rowe and Wainwright).
Traditional theistic concepts of God imply that God is eternal. “His love endures forever” (Psalm 136:26).Throughout history people have claimed to have had religious experiences, if all the claims of religious experiences were only a copy of something that had happed previous to it, then there must have been a starting point. There have been consistent religious experiences such as the apparitions at Knock, Lourdes and Fatema with little differences, but this would be further proof the traditional theistic concepts of God that His nature was personal and omnipotence. He knew the situation of each individual so therefore allowed them to have a religious experience relative to their situation. Bernadette and her family needed to be shown some form of God’s benevolence since they were going through poverty.
When something is beyond our experience we immediately think that it is from a higher power. If someone has never encountered God before, how would they know it is Him communicating when they have an unusual experience? Davies gives an example: someone may have heard of spiders but have never seen them before; so when they do come across a spider one day on the wall, how would they know it is a spider (under the condition where no one tells them)? The person would need to be able to “distinguish it from other things” (Davies), such as a spider from a cat. The author of the Gospel of John roundly declares “No one has ever seen God”. According to Jewish beliefs, the Shekinah was a pillar of cloud which hid God and guided the children of Israel out of Egypt. The cloud was a symbol of his presence. God also talks to Moses through a shekinah which was a burning bush.
The traditional theistic concepts of God are described in the traditional theistic books. God’s transcendence, omnipotence, omniscience, immanence etc, is mentioned there. “People sometimes do perceive God and thereby acquire justified beliefs about God.” (Alstone). If someone like St Teresa of Avila felt and saw the angel piercing an arrow through her, it is quite rational of her to relate it to God since she may have read of several religious experiences in the bible and was aware of God’s transcendence and other qualities. She related herself to be feeling God’s transcendent nature because she felt something she never had experienced before, and the pain she felt was wonderful. Bernadette and the three children from Fatema were all from a religious background and from poor families. They all claimed to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary; they could have claimed this since Mary was seen a s figure of stability so therefore seeing her gave them hope. They could have been “influenced by psychological and social pressures” (Davies)
In conclusion, religious experiences do not really portray the nature of God fully; religious experiences open doors for many other possible conclusions. “The claim to experience God is problematic”(Davies). The problem of evil and suffering pose a problem in some traditional theistic beliefs of God’s nature. Bernadette having her apparition would be a sign of God’s benevolence to her and her family, but many people are in worse conditions but yet they did not get an apparition so it contradicts the reality of His benevolence. It can be argued however that if God allowed everyone to have a religious experience then there would be no reason for Him to be testing humans. It would be more of a test at a macrocosmic level where someone uses their freewill to believe in His signs and as a proof of His nature. The flaw for this is that many people are experiencing poverty and are suffering but they do not receive nor hear of religious experiences, this makes God’s omniscience, for some debatable. Davies says that some people report of the absence of God rather than His presence which contradicts the claim that God is omniscient and immanent. The respondents of Sir Alistair’s research did not specify whether their religious experience was positive or negative in relation to God’s nature, their interpretations of a religious experience is also unknown.
by
ssunshinee (student)
