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Religious Experience

  • 5 subtopics
  • 16 things to know
  • Component 1

What Religious Experience covers

Visions, mystical experience and conversion, the principles of credulity and testimony, and the scientific challenges to taking such experiences at face value.

Where it is assessed

Component 1

Philosophy of religion and ethics, sat by everyone.

Check the AQA specification ↗

The 5 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What distinguishes an intellectual vision from other types of religious vision?

Key term

What phrase did Otto use to characterise the numinous, and what does it mean?

Key term

What characterises the 'fascinans' aspect of numinous experience?

Key term

Define 'noetic quality' as a characteristic of mystical experience.

Key term

If mystical experiences are transient, how might they still have lasting impact?

Key term

What does Stace mean by describing mystical experience as 'non-sensuous and non-intellectual'?

Key term

According to the principle of testimony, how should we treat reports of others' experiences?

Key term

How does Swinburne argue religious experiences should be treated compared to ordinary perceptual experiences?

Key term

How does known dishonesty defeat the principle of testimony?

Key term

What scientific challenge does neuroscience pose to the validity of religious experiences?

Key term

Why do some scientists argue that religious experiences fall outside scientific verification?

Key term

How do religious believers respond to the cultural conditioning objection?

Key term

Why is the evidential value of religious experiences questioned as public or objective evidence?

Key term

Why might the same religious experience be valued differently by a realist and a non-realist?

Process

Rank the three kinds of vision, and explain Otto's account of the numinous.

Process

Explain transiency, and distinguish extrovertive from introvertive mysticism.

Take Religious Experience further

The same content, four other ways.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is a corporeal vision?

    Model answer

    A religious experience in which the recipient perceives an external figure or object with their ordinary senses, as if it were physically present in the world.

  2. 2

    How does an imaginative vision differ from a corporeal vision in terms of how images are perceived?

    Model answer

    In an imaginative vision, images or scenes are perceived within the mind (often during dreams or trance states) rather than through external sensory perception of something physically present.

  3. 3

    What distinguishes an intellectual vision from other types of religious vision?

    Model answer

    An intellectual vision involves no sensory imagery at all; it is a direct, intuitive awareness or understanding of a divine truth or presence communicated directly to the intellect.

  4. 4

    Arrange corporeal, imaginative, and intellectual visions in order from lowest to highest spiritual significance.

    Model answer

    Corporeal (lowest), imaginative (intermediate), intellectual (highest and most certain).

  5. 5

    Why is the intellectual vision considered the highest form in the hierarchy of visions?

    Model answer

    Because it is the most certain and spiritually significant, involving direct intuitive awareness without reliance on sensory imagery.

  6. 6

    How did Rudolf Otto describe the nature of numinous experience?

    Model answer

    As an encounter with the 'wholly other', a reality entirely distinct from ordinary experience that cannot be fully expressed in rational terms.

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Religious Experience revision questions

What does Religious Experience cover in AQA A-Level Religious Studies?
5 subtopics: visions and otto's numinous experience, the marks of mystical experience, credulity, testimony and swinburne, scientific challenges to religious experience and the value of religious experience for faith. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is Religious Experience organised?
By the AQA 7062 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

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