![[Under Construction]](../images/undercon.gif){kind=small}
Film for tonight: Religions of Small Societies, V90746 at the media library on campus.
RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
Reason, Faith, Authority,
& Tradition
Chapter 6, Exploring Religious Meaning
The Goal of Religious Experience
In Western society
God
In religions without a personal deity
The Divine. Ultimate Reality.
Source of Religious Concepts
Experience of God, the Divine …
Mediated by nature
Mediated by other human beings
Mediated through dreams, visions, and altered states of consciousness
Religious persons are convinced they encounter a transhuman reality.
In Tribal Societies
Mircea Eliade, Historian of Religion
The Sacred and the Profane, the nature of religion
Every sacred space implies a "hierophany."
Hierophany—an irruption of the sacred that results in detaching a territory from the surrounding cosmic milieu and making it qualitatively different.
Theophany—irruption of the sacred
Examples: Appearance of God to Moses on Mt. Horeb; 10 commandments
Knowing a Place is Sacred
Tribal Peoples
Not free to choose the sacred site
Only free to seek for it and find it by the help of mysterious means
Dream of Shaman (medicine man or woman)
Vision of Chief
Setting a bull loose for three days and finding it
The Cosmos as Symbol of the Divine
Tribal Peoples—ideas of the Divine
The Yokuts, North American Indians
The cosmos is perceived as a living unity.
This living unity is born, develops, and dies on the last day of the year.
The cosmos is reborn on New Year’s Day, and recovers its original sacredness.
The Cosmos as Symbol of the Divine
Tribal Peoples (cont’d)
The heights of the sky—the immensity of the Divine; the sense of eternity
Earth—the Mother as divinity; fertility, life
The Tree—Symbol of the cosmos; seen as a capacity for endless regeneration
The Mountain near Water—Symbol of the cosmos; completeness
How Do We Know What We Know?
Internet
Sciences
Work associates
The Bible
Buddhist Scriptures
Astrology
An Expert
The Religious Institution
TV
College Texts
The Tension Between Ways of Knowing
Logical Positivism
Only knowledge established by sciences or ordinary sense perception is knowledge.
Definitions
Sense experience
Knowledge About All of Reality
Medicine, behavioral sciences, history, the arts, and religion.
How do you know a piece of music is "good"?
Ways of Verifying Truth
Religious Truth
Wisdom or revelation handed down orally
Written documents affirmed by religious experts
Holy persons (those with whom the Divine seems to reside in a striking way)
Well-educated persons in their religion
Challenge to Religious Thinking
The scientific account of the world
Industrialized Western civilization
Seems self evident that science gives us the full story of the cosmos
Transcendent realities are doubtful at best.
This view is "spiritually corrosive" because it separates our values from our knowledge of the world.
Houston SmithScience and Religion
Science
Tries to document the factual character of the natural world and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts.
Religion
Operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings and values.
General and Special Revelation
General Revelation
The awareness that everyone has of God; universal religious consciousness of humankind—non-Abrahamic religions
Special Revelation
The unique knowledge of God that comes from a particular historical experience—Jewish, Christian & Muslim religions
General Revelation
Different ways of knowing God
Reason, our capacity to think about God
Artistic experience, the "felt sense" related to art, music, drama, dance, literature, etc.
Sense of morality; recognition of ethical and just outcomes; a sense of right and wrong
Can General Revelation be Redeeming
Alan Richardson, author Christian Apologetics, 1947
Yes. For those who experience God through philosophy, art forms, nature, fellow human beings.
Karl Barth, Christian theologian, 1886-1968
No. Only special revelation serves as the vehicle for saving grace.
Authority in Religion
What are the most significant sources of authority in the religious groups and traditions with which you are familiar?
Søren Kierkegaard and the Quakers
God, through revelation
The light of Christ in each person
Tradition in Religion
Definition of Tradition
The content of the religion and the process
Content
Information
Teachings
Doctrine
Behavior patterns
Practices
Process
Action
Essential Aspect of Tradition
Provides stability in unstable times
Faith in Religion
Faith is not belief
Belief—something exists
An assent to truth
Refers to propositions
Faith is
Belief plus trust
A committing of self to something
Directed toward something that has power or is power
Faith and Reason
Four primary positions
Reason only; facts must be grounded in verifiable sense experience.
Reason embracing Faith; a common denominator of Divine Truth in both philosophy and the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Faith only; facts must be grounded in a right relationship with God through faith alone.
Faith embracing Reason; "Understanding is the reward of faith."
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, AfricaReinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
Faith seeking understanding
Love as the standard for authentic justice