The Experiential Dimension

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The Experiential Dimension
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Focus of this course Phenomenological method

• It is important for us to look first not to
  questions of value but to questions of power and
  meaningto see how worldviews actually operate
  and what their significance is for human beings.
  (68)
• Understand religions as practitioners experience
  and understand it
• Cultivate empathy, seeing from different
  perspectives
• Evaluate our own perspectives in a new light
  (Thich Nhat Hanh Essential Writings, 117)

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Argument (N. Smart)

• We can compare and contrast religions according
  to two basic types of religious experience
• Both types can show up in most religions
• Types can vary (see mystical types)
• Experience is at the core of religion
• Distinguishes it from non-religious philosophies
  like Confucianism or Marxism

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View 1 Numinous Experience

• Developed by Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)
• Focus mysterium tremendens et fascinans
• Feelings Awe, being drawn toward something, fear
• Focus on something Other (dual), Holy
• Transcendence what is sacred is great,
  mysterious, in some sense beyond yourself
• Love
• Salvation/liberation is from the Other, by grace

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Chartres Cathedral, France
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View 2 Mystical Experience

• Focus transform ordinary perception and
  consciousness
• Non-dual
• Practice of contemplation
• Immanence What is sacred is within yourself
• Salvation/liberation is by individual effort

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Zen Center of Denver
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Negative (apophatic) theology

• Focus It is more true to say what God is not
  than to say what God is
• Limits of language
• Limits of thought
• Critiques and balances positive (kataphatic)
  theology

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Value and Truth

• Freud
• Marx
• Smart
• Use more recent, comprehensive data
• Evaluate the assumptions of each persons
  worldview