The Experiential Dimension

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 meaning—to 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)

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

View #1: Numinous Experience Developed by Rudolf Otto ( ) 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

Chartres Cathedral, France

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

Zen Center of Denver

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

Value and Truth Freud Marx Smart  Use more recent, comprehensive data  Evaluate the assumptions of each person’s worldview