Numinous Experience
- Created by: Psycheart
- Created on: 29-11-16 12:45
View mindmap
- Numinous Experience
- What is numinous experience?
- Isaiah's biblical experience: 'Woe to me, I cried. 'I am ruined' For I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes haves seen the King, the Lord Almighty'.
- Awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God.
- Awareness of human nothingness when faced with a holy and powerful being.
- Name comes from the Latin 'numen' 'to bow head'.
- Awareness of human nothingness when faced with a holy and powerful being.
- Otto and the Numinous Experience
- Ideas about God developed when believers reflect on experiences but ultimately the encounter is inexpressible.
- Experiences provide a reference point- believers experience the world through the experience and beliefs attached to it.
- 'There is no religion in which it does not live as the innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name'.
- 'The idea Of The Holy' Rudolf Otto (1869-1937-)
- Argued that all religious experience is numinous.
- It is an experience of being acted upon by something outside of ourselves, 'A Wholly other'.
- It makes us aware that we are creatures of an almighty God.This contrasts with a 'mystical experience' which tends to seek the unity of all things.
- It is an experience of being acted upon by something outside of ourselves, 'A Wholly other'.
- Argued that all religious experience is numinous.
- Described by Otto as being 'mysterium;tremendum' .
- Mysterium because of the mystery of the experience- felt but can't be described.
- Tremendum: because of the awe-inspiring terror, in the rpeseence of an overwhelming being.
- Fascinans: drawn to the experience with fascination.
- Influenced by Kant: God couldn't be known via sensory experiences or logical argument.
- God is 'WHOLLY OTHER' can't know God without Divine Revelation.
- Is all religious experience numinous?
- Otto might be seen as confusing- as he says that experiences come from the' deepest cognitive apprehension'--> but he also says theological ideas come after the experience.
- Otto seems to imply numinous experience is a'once and for all' experience.- there can be no further religious experience.
- Too simplistic to suggest all religious experience is numinous- other types have been well documented.
- Other understandings of religious experiences?
- Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)-
- Agreed .with Otto that religious experinces are primarily emotional.
- Emotions are deeper than reason- experiences aren't numinous, but at their core a feeling of absolute dependance upon the divine.
- An awareness of absolute dependence upon a 'source of power that is distinct from the world' that's at the heart of religion.
- Theology arrives after as people reflect on their experiences--> knowledge and acceptance of what's 'wholly other.'
- An awareness of absolute dependence upon a 'source of power that is distinct from the world' that's at the heart of religion.
- Emotions are deeper than reason- experiences aren't numinous, but at their core a feeling of absolute dependance upon the divine.
- Agreed .with Otto that religious experinces are primarily emotional.
- Martin Buber (1878-1965)-
- Religious experience is analogous to intimate personal relationships called I-THOU relationships.
- Differs from I-IT relationships we have with objects or when we treat others as objects.
- I-THOU relationship is a mutual interaction: emotional and personal - the knowledge that God is you Confidant.
- Religious experience is analogous to intimate personal relationships called I-THOU relationships.
- Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)-
- What is numinous experience?
Comments
No comments have yet been made