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Numinous Experience

Numinous Experience. Learn about the different understandings of religious experience, particularly numinous types of experience. Active reading – pg 36-37. Give a definition of the Numinous experience What does it give us an awareness of? Where does the name come from and what does it mean?

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Numinous Experience

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  1. Numinous Experience Learn about the different understandings of religious experience, particularly numinous types of experience.

  2. Active reading – pg 36-37 Give a definition of the Numinous experience What does it give us an awareness of? Where does the name come from and what does it mean? Can we reflect on these experiences? What does ‘mysterum; tremendum’ mean? What is fascinans? Why is the Numinous experience so important for Otto? In what way did Kant influence Otto? How does Scheiermacher agree with Otto? Schleiermacher parts with Otto in saying that Religious Experiences are not numinous. What is his understanding? How do we get Theology?

  3. Numinous Experience • Numinous religious experiences are experiences of awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God. • It is an awareness of human nothingness when faced with a holy and powerful being. • The name comes from the Latin ‘numen’ which means to bow the head. • These experiences provide a reference point for believers to interpret the world through experience and the beliefs attached to it. • Though reflections are attempted ultimately the encounter with God is inexpressible.

  4. Task 1 • Using the worksheet with quotes from Isaiah, Pascal and Otto and your own opinion debate the following: • ‘The unsettling nature of numinous experiences means that they are less likely to be something that our minds have made up.’ • …Now write down a brief response.

  5. Rudolf Otto • Otto describes numinous experiences as being ‘mysterum; tremendum’. E.g. Mystery and awe-inspiring terror in the presence of an overwhelming being. • Despite this we are drawn to the experience because of fascinans, a strange fascination. • The numinous experience is key to understanding the spirituality of many religions. Otto claimed that ‘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.’ • Otto was influenced by Kant and recognised that God could not be known via sensory experience or logical argument. For Otto God is ‘wholly Other’. We can’t know God unless he reveals himself to us. This numinous experience is felt on an emotional level.

  6. Task 2 • ‘It is the emotion of a creature submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures’. Rudolf Otto. • Having discussed it as a group explain in one or two sentences what Otto means by this quote.

  7. Is all religious experience numinous? • Otto seems to imply that the numinous experience is a ‘once and for all’ experience, which implies there can be further religious experience. • To suggest that all religious experience is numinous is too simplistic. Other types of experience are well documented too…

  8. Other understandings of religious experience • Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) agreed with Otto that religious experiences are primarily emotional. These emotions are deeper than reason. • For Schleiermacher, the experiences are not numinous but are at their core a feeling of absolute dependence upon the divine. It is this awareness of absolute dependence upon ‘a source of power that is distinct from the world’ that is at the heart of religion. • Theology arises afterwards as people reflect on their experiences.

  9. Homework • Read ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and answer questions at the end. • Extension reading – read about the ideas of religious experience of Schleiermacher, Buber or Stace. To what extent are their views compatible with those of Otto? (See pages 244-245 in Understanding Philosophy of Religion, Libby Ahluwalia.

  10. Other understandings of religious experience • Martin Buber (1878-1965) viewed religious experiences as being analogous to intimate personal relationships that he called I-thou relationships. • This differs from the I-it relationship that we have with objects or when we treat people as objects. • The I-thou relationship is a mutual interaction. We may experience such I-thou relationships when we encounter nature, in deep friendships and most importantly, by experiencing God.

  11. Martin Buber • ‘Buber makes the Other co-constitutive with the I in the structure of being, and regards the two as of equal primordiality: “The I exists only through the relationship with the Thou.”’ Buber as cited by Zizioulas

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