Edward Schleiermacher Religious Experience Analysis
Analyse the argument for the existence of God from religious experience
“A religious experience offers a sense of the ultimate and an awareness of wholeness, a consciousness of the infinite and an absolute dependence.” Edward Schleiermacher.
Religious experience has been a contentious subject for philosophers of religion in trying to actually define what a religious experience is, along with psychologists and religious believers. Otto, James, Hardy and Schleiermacher are among many people who have tried to define a religious experience and there basic understanding is it is an encounter with the divine. It is non-empirical, a personal occurrence that brings with it an awareness of something beyond ourselves. Those who have had such an …show more content…
Moreover some of the greatest events in history have resulted from people having religious experiences, such as Paul’s conversion after seeing a vision of Christ and was instrumented into spreading Christianity around the world. Nevertheless, the continued problem remains that the conclusion is only the best answer that appears probable on the basis of the evidence offered. The conclusion depends on an accurate interpretation of the evidence which may be influenced by the beliefs of the experient or the person interpreting the experience.
The cumulative argument for religious experience is based on the view that if you take all the arguments about religious experience together, then they are more convincing than one argument alone. If all the testimonies to religious experiences are taken into account, then this would certainly add weight to religious experience as proof of the existence of God.
Swinburne concludes his work with the cumulative argument and believes that when the arguments are considered in isolation of the others they don’t prove God, but put together, they make an overwhelming argument which cannot be denied in the grand scales of Atheism Vs Theism. But it has been argued the theory is logically and mathematically flawed as taking many low probabilities and adding does not make on more probable argument – in fact the opposite. …show more content…
Under his principle of testimony, he argues unless we have evidence to the contrary we should believe what people say when they claim to have had a religious experience: “In the absence of special considerations, the experiences of others are as they report.” Furthermore Swinburne created the principle of credulity that holds the belief that unless we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we should believe that things are as they seem to be. In ‘The Existence of God’ he wrote; “How things seem to be is a good guide to how things are..” Therefore in his view, religious experiences provide a convincing proof for the existence of
“A religious experience offers a sense of the ultimate and an awareness of wholeness, a consciousness of the infinite and an absolute dependence.” Edward Schleiermacher.
Religious experience has been a contentious subject for philosophers of religion in trying to actually define what a religious experience is, along with psychologists and religious believers. Otto, James, Hardy and Schleiermacher are among many people who have tried to define a religious experience and there basic understanding is it is an encounter with the divine. It is non-empirical, a personal occurrence that brings with it an awareness of something beyond ourselves. Those who have had such an …show more content…
Moreover some of the greatest events in history have resulted from people having religious experiences, such as Paul’s conversion after seeing a vision of Christ and was instrumented into spreading Christianity around the world. Nevertheless, the continued problem remains that the conclusion is only the best answer that appears probable on the basis of the evidence offered. The conclusion depends on an accurate interpretation of the evidence which may be influenced by the beliefs of the experient or the person interpreting the experience.
The cumulative argument for religious experience is based on the view that if you take all the arguments about religious experience together, then they are more convincing than one argument alone. If all the testimonies to religious experiences are taken into account, then this would certainly add weight to religious experience as proof of the existence of God.
Swinburne concludes his work with the cumulative argument and believes that when the arguments are considered in isolation of the others they don’t prove God, but put together, they make an overwhelming argument which cannot be denied in the grand scales of Atheism Vs Theism. But it has been argued the theory is logically and mathematically flawed as taking many low probabilities and adding does not make on more probable argument – in fact the opposite. …show more content…
Under his principle of testimony, he argues unless we have evidence to the contrary we should believe what people say when they claim to have had a religious experience: “In the absence of special considerations, the experiences of others are as they report.” Furthermore Swinburne created the principle of credulity that holds the belief that unless we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we should believe that things are as they seem to be. In ‘The Existence of God’ he wrote; “How things seem to be is a good guide to how things are..” Therefore in his view, religious experiences provide a convincing proof for the existence of