In the modern era, after the weakening of theoretical rationality, religious experience became the center of attention of many philosophers of religion. Among the topics that these philosophers showed great interest in is the nature of religious experience and its validity. For example, Schleiermacher and Otto considered religious experience to be a feeling associated with consciousness, and Alston and Swinburne tried to validate it by expressing its similarity with sensory experience. The book "Elements of the Philosophy of Religion: Religious Experience", after a brief overview of some views on the nature of religious experience and explaining the perceptual approach to prove the validity of religious experiences and the challenges facing them, is based on the fact that such discussions about religious experience are based on a knowledge-centered approach in the philosophy of religion; An approach that, by creating limitations in the definition of religious experience and its exclusivity in certain experiences, only seeks to discover the correspondence of these experiences with reality. But the author considers it necessary to complement this knowledge-centered approach with an understanding- centered approach. The understanding-centered approach considers the development of religious man's understanding to be much more important than the discovery of correspondence with reality, and it is based on the philosophy of religion that it is necessary to be oriented towards the development of the subject and the expansion of his understanding.
The discussion of the nature of religious faith and its relationship with components such as belief, practice, emotion, and experience are among the most central topics in the philosophy of religion. The primary question is: What roles do knowledge, belief, practice, and experience play in the realization of faith? In response, two major perspectives have emerged: 1. The Experiential-Emotional View: This approach places faith primarily within the realm of feeling and immediate experience. 2. The Propositional Rationalist View: This view emphasizes true beliefs corresponding to reality as the core of faith. Both perspectives place knowledge at the center of their analysis. This book, while reviewing these viewpoints, seeks to strengthen an understanding-centered approach in the philosophy of religion. In this approach, the focus shifts from merely verifying the correspondence of beliefs or experiences with reality (knowledge-centeredness) to the process of forming understanding within the knowing subject. Dr. Amber Griffioen’s book is significant precisely because it presents and develops this transition from knowledge-centeredness to understanding-centeredness. The author argues that modern philosophy of religion’s focus on examining the nature of religious experience and proving its objectivity to justify beliefs is a limited perspective. From Griffioen’s viewpoint, what is fundamentally important is the role of religious experiences—alongside beliefs, concepts, practices, moral dispositions, rituals, imaginations, and even illusions—in the process of forming a deeper understanding of religion. Consequently, the task of philosophy of religion is not merely to analyze how true beliefs or objective experiences are attained, but to explain how the knowing subject is influenced by a complex set of factors (sights, sounds, mental images, rational arguments, mystical experiences, spiritual practices, and the ethical, social, historical, and political dimensions of religion) to achieve a richer and transformative understanding. This approach positions the philosophy of religion at the intersection of epistemology, anthropology, and hermeneutics, while also significantly expanding the scope of valid religious experiences.
Griffioen examines religious experience and the evolution of approaches to it across five chapters: 1. History of Religious Experience: Identifies Schleiermacher, Rudolf Otto, and William James as key influencers. These thinkers aimed to counter extreme rationalism. 2. Perennialism vs. Constructivism: Analyzes the debate between proponents of "Perennial Philosophy" (represented by Otto, Eliade, Stace, Yandell, Forman—who posit a common, universal core in religious/mystical experiences) and "Constructivists" (who argue experiences are shaped by prior concepts and cultural-linguistic contexts). Reports mediating approaches like John Hick’s "Critical Realism". 3. Validity of Religious Experiences: Examines two main strategies for defending the objectivity and epistemic validity of religious experiences: William Alston: By analogizing the "doxastic practice" of religious experience to sense perception, using the "Partners in Guilt" strategy. Richard Swinburne: By relying on the "Principle of Credulity" and the "Principle of Testimony". 4. Challenges to Alston and Swinburne's Approaches: Enumerates key challenges against the analogy between religious experience and sense perception: the inapprehensibility of God vs. the apprehensibility of sensory objects; the untestability of religious experiences vs. the testability of sensory experiences; the existence of naturalistic (bio-psychological) explanations for religious experiences; and the diversity and conflict among reported religious experiences. 5. Expanding the Scope of Religious Experience and Understanding-Centeredness: The book's pivotal chapter. Griffioen argues that the importance of religious experiences lies not in their objective representation of reality, but in expanding the individual's understanding of religious truth. Therefore, the scope of religious experience must be expanded to include: Imaginative and non-reality-revealing experiences, Experiences arising from ritual practices (active experiences), Sensory and bodily experiences, Non-theistic or non-monotheistic religious experiences, Experiences with negative valence (e.g., fear of the sacred), Group and social experience. The benefits of this expansion include: amplifying minority voices, achieving a more global approach to meaning-making, bridging communication gaps, better understanding others' reasons, and reforming epistemic arrogance. Two major critiques of the book can be raised: 1. Ambiguity in Defining Religious Experience and its Relation to Mystical Experience: The book fails to provide a clear definition of "religious experience" or address its distinction from (or identity with) "mystical experience." This ambiguity is problematic throughout the book, especially in discussions on perennialism, constructivism, and the approaches of Alston and Swinburne. Different definitions of mystical experience and their varying implications necessitate a clearer subject definition. 2. Critiquing the Foundations of Understanding-Centeredness from an Islamic Perspective: Based on Islamic principles such as the gradational nature of religion, the comprehensive reality of the human being, and the nature of faith, understanding plays two essential roles in religious faith: as the necessary cognitive element for faith, and as a factor