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‘Mediated Immediacy’ in the Thought of John E. Smith: A Critique1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

James J. Londis
Affiliation:
Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Atlantic Union College

Extract

When trying to understand the nature of religious experience as ‘mediated immediacy’ I am reminded of Professor J. N. Findlay's description of Hegel's thought as a kind of ‘philosophical Buchenwald’ specialising in intellectual tortures. Nevertheless, recent literature on the subject of religious experience reveals an increasing number of thinkers expressing confidence in the viability of this notion, John E. Smith of Yale being the most outstanding. This is not to say that all the thinkers categorised by ‘mediated immediacy’ have no important differences. They do. Infact, Smith might not even accept the phrase as accurately describing his position, despite the fact that J.B. Stearns applied it to his thought in a recent article.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 473 note 2 Stearns, J.B., ‘Mediated Immediacy: A Search for Some Models’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, III (Winter, 1972), pp. 195211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 473 note 3 Smith, John E., Experience and God(New York: Oxford University Press), p. 24.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as EG.

page 473 note 4 EG, p. 24.

page 473 note 5 EG, p. 24.

page 473 note 6 EG, p. 24.

page 474 note 1 EG, p. 25.

page 474 note 2 EG, p. 25.

page 474 note 3 EG, p. 25.

page 474 note 4 EG, p. 32.

page 474 note 5 EG, pp. 33 ff.

page 474 note 6 Personal Letter, July 29, 1972.

page 474 note 7 Smith, John E., ‘Religious Insight and the Cognitive Problem’, Religious Studies, 7 (June 1971), p. 103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 475 note 1 Religious Experience’, Encyclopedia Brittanica Macropaedia, XV, p. 764.Google Scholar

page 475 note 2 Ibid.

page 476 note 1 EG, pp. 51–2.

page 476 note 2 EG, p. 52.

page 476 note 3 EG, p. 52.

page 476 note 4 EG, p. 52.

page 476 note 5 EG, p. 52.

page 476 note 6 Smith, John E., Reason and God (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 179.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as RG.

page 476 note 7 RG, p. 182.

page 476 note 8 EG, pp. 85–6.

page 477 note 1 Smith, John E., ‘In What Sense Can We Speak of Experiencing God?Journal of Religion, L (July 1970), p. 232.Google Scholar

page 477 note 2 EG, p. 34.

page 478 note 1 EG, p. 36.

page 478 note 2 Personal Letter, 29 July 1972.