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Concepts, anti-concepts and religious experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Sallie B. King
Sallie B. King
Affiliation:
Department of Religion, Temple University, Pennsylvania
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Extract

The linguistic expression of religious experience is problematic for both the experiencer and the philospher. For instance: is the religious experience nonverbal, i.e. does it utterly transcend all words, concepts, and thought? Or is it ineffable – not amenable to verbal expression? In either case, what can one make of all the talk and writings of those who do report religious experiences? The frequent references to ineffability, transcendence of thought and the like, lead one to wonder if the experiencers themselves are not dis-satisfied with these expressions. If this is indeed the case, what is it about these expressions that produces this dissatisfaction? Are some expressions better suited to the experience than others?

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 445 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 446 note 1 Merton, Thomas, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Doubleday, 1971), p. 27.Google Scholar

page 447 note 1 Buren, Paul van, The Edges of Language (New York: Macmillan, 1972), p. 63.Google Scholar

page 449 note 1 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 1950), P. 7Google Scholar

page 449 note 2 Streng, Frederick, ‘Mystical awareness, or how to be in the world but not of it’, Philosophy of Religion and Theology, 1976 Proceedings of the American Academy of Religion, section paper 19, compiled by Peter Slater.Google Scholar

page 453 note 1 Hartshorne, Charles, The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p. 20.Google Scholar

page 458 note 1 Cf. Dewart, Leslie, The Future of Belief: Theism in a World Come of Age (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966).Google Scholar

page 458 note 2 If a confessional note be allowed by way of illustration, I have somehow arrived at the point where I think ‘God’ in association with the grounding mystery, but when I hear or read the word ‘God’, I immediately associate the word with a being, our Father in Heaven.