Religious Experience, Justification, and History

Religious Experience, Justification, and History PDF Author: Matthew C. Bagger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139425668
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Many philosophers of religion have sought to defend the rationality of religious belief by shifting the burden of proof onto the critic of religious belief. Some have appealed to extraordinary religious experience in making their case. Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate. Through a study of William James, it contests the accounts of religious experience offered in recent works. Through reflection on the history of philosophy, it also unravels the philosophical use of the term 'justification'. Matthew Bagger argues that the commitment to supernatural explanations implicit in the religious experiences employed to justify religious belief contradicts the modern ideal of human flourishing. For contrast, and to demonstrated the indispensability of history, he includes a study of Teresa of Avila's mystical theology. The controversial supernatural explanations implicit in extraordinary religious experience places the burden of proof on the believer.

Religious Experience, Justification, and History

Religious Experience, Justification, and History PDF Author: Matthew C. Bagger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139425668
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
Many philosophers of religion have sought to defend the rationality of religious belief by shifting the burden of proof onto the critic of religious belief. Some have appealed to extraordinary religious experience in making their case. Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate. Through a study of William James, it contests the accounts of religious experience offered in recent works. Through reflection on the history of philosophy, it also unravels the philosophical use of the term 'justification'. Matthew Bagger argues that the commitment to supernatural explanations implicit in the religious experiences employed to justify religious belief contradicts the modern ideal of human flourishing. For contrast, and to demonstrated the indispensability of history, he includes a study of Teresa of Avila's mystical theology. The controversial supernatural explanations implicit in extraordinary religious experience places the burden of proof on the believer.

Religious Experience

Religious Experience PDF Author: Amber L. Griffioen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110862233X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
This Element looks at religious experience and the role it has played in philosophy of religion. It critically explores the history of the intertwined discourses on mysticism and religious experience, before turning to a few specific discussions within contemporary philosophy of religion. One debate concerns the question of perennialism vs. constructivism and whether there is a 'common core' to all religious or mystical experience independent of interpretation or socio-historical background. Another central discussion concerns the epistemology of purportedly theophanic experience and whether a perceptual model of religious experience can provide evidence or justification for theistic belief. The Element concludes with a discussion of how philosophy of religion can productively widen its treatment of religious experience in the service of creating a more inclusive and welcoming discipline.

The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Varieties of Religious Experience PDF Author: William James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conversion
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description


The American Religious Experience

The American Religious Experience PDF Author: Lynn Bridgers
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742550599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The American Religious Experience offers a short, accessible introduction to American religious history by an award-winning writer. Recognizing the inter-denominational, inter-religious and multi-cultural perspectives that all contribute to the American religious landscape, this book explores the tension between the central, dominant streams of American Christianity and those groups relegated to the periphery. On the edges of the American mainstream we find the histories of groups rooted in visionary traditions, emotionalized forms of religious practice, and ever-expanding ethnic and racial perspectives. The complexity of the religious scene in the United States now, ongoing tensions between identity and diversity, and the many voices that inform American religious practice today grow directly out of the dynamic history that unfolds in these pages.

The Wisdom to Doubt

The Wisdom to Doubt PDF Author: J. L. Schellenberg
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465133
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The Wisdom to Doubt is a major contribution to the contemporary literature on the epistemology of religious belief. Continuing the inquiry begun in his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, J. L. Schellenberg here argues that given our limitations and especially our immaturity as a species, there is no reasonable choice but to withhold judgment about the existence of an ultimate salvific reality. Schellenberg defends this conclusion against arguments from religious experience and naturalistic arguments that might seem to make either religious belief or religious disbelief preferable to his skeptical stance. In so doing, he canvasses virtually all of the important recent work on the epistemology of religion. Of particular interest is his call for at least skepticism about theism, the most common religious claim among philosophers. The Wisdom to Doubt expands the author's well-known hiddenness argument against theism and situates it within a larger atheistic argument, itself made to serve the purposes of his broader skeptical case. That case need not, on Schellenberg's view, lead to a dead end but rather functions as a gateway to important new insights about intellectual tasks and religious possibilities.

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God PDF Author: Harold A. Netland
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493434896
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
For many Christians, personal experiences of God provide an important ground or justification for accepting the truth of the gospel. But we are sometimes mistaken about our experiences, and followers of other religions also provide impressive testimonies to support their religious beliefs. This book explores from a philosophical and theological perspective the viability of divine encounters as support for belief in God, arguing that some religious experiences can be accepted as genuine experiences of God and can provide evidence for Christian beliefs.

Perceiving God

Perceiving God PDF Author: William P. Alston
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the "perception of God"—his term for direct experiential awareness of God—makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience. Through the perception that God is sustaining one in being, for example, one can justifiably believe that God is indeed sustaining one in being. Alston offers a detailed discussion of our grounds for taking sense perception and other sources of belief—including introspection, memory, and mystical experience—to be reliable and to confer justification. He then uses this epistemic framework to explain how our perceptual beliefs about God can be justified. Alston carefully addresses objections to his chief claims, including problems posed by non-Christian religious traditions. He also examines the way in which mystical perception fits into the larger picture of grounds for religious belief. Suggesting that religious experience, rather than being a purely subjective phenomenon, has real cognitive value, Perceiving God will spark intense debate and will be indispensable reading for those interested in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, as well as for theologians.

A Sense of the Heart

A Sense of the Heart PDF Author: Bill J. Leonard
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 1426756755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
For many people, knowing about God is not enough; they also want to feel God’s presence. Whether like St. Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus or like Wesley’s “strangely warmed heart,” people believe that nothing can substitute for religious experience. Even today, people go to church in order to encounter the Divine, by which they mean experience God in their midst. This desire to meet or be met by God is as old as humanity, but America especially has been the seed bed for what William James famously called “varieties of religious experience.” These experiences cover a wide spectrum from classic mysticism to revivalist conversion to a contemporary pursuit of spirituality. A Sense of the Heart traces the nature of religious experience from the colonial era to the present, attempting to define and describe the nature of religious experience and noting common and distinct approaches in the work of various scholars and practitioners. Following that, A Sense of the Heart offers a historical review of representative types of religious experience, the nature of such experiences and their impact on the American religious and cultural context as evident in awakenings, controversies, denominations, and new religious communities.

Types of Religious Experience, Christian and Non-Christian

Types of Religious Experience, Christian and Non-Christian PDF Author: Joachim Wach
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258803124
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description


SCM Studyguide to Religious and Spiritual Experience

SCM Studyguide to Religious and Spiritual Experience PDF Author: Jeff Astley
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334057981
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This Studyguide provides a succinct and lucid introduction to the subject for those studying and teaching religion at both undergraduate and GCE AS/A level. By exploring the key areas of both the empirical and theoretical study of religious and spiritual experience, the Studyguide will serve as an accessible and nonpartisan guide to enable its readers to explore the range of challenging data, debates, approaches, and issues that relate to the study of this widespread and significant phenomenon.