Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

A Critical Review of the Book "Elements in the Philosophy of Religion: Religious Experience

Document Type : Research

Author

Alireza Kermani

Associate Professor of Mysticism, Faculty Member of Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, Qom, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/crtls.2025.49689.2857
Abstract
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.

Keywords

Religious Experience
Philosophy of Religion
Mystical Experience
Knowledge
Faith

Subjects

Stace, Walter T. (1379). Mysticism and Philosophy, Baha al-Din Khorramshahi, Trans., 5th ed., Tehran: Soroush. 
Esmaeili, Masoud. (1396). The Nature of Mystical Knowledge, 1st ed., Qom: Islamic Culture and Thought Research Institute. 
Javadi Amoli, Abdollah. (1389). The Status of Reason in the Geometry of Religious Knowledge. Qom: Isra. 
 Jones, Richard H. (1400). The Philosophy of Mysticism, Alireza Kermani, Trans., 1st ed., Qom: Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute.
 Sadr al-Muta'allihin, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim. (1366). Tafsir al-Quran al-Karim [Interpretation of the Noble Quran]. Qom: Bidar Publications.
Fayz Kashani, Mulla Muhsin, (1418), 'Ilm al-Yaqin fi Usul al-Din, Qom: Bidar Publications.
 Qunawi, Sadr al-Din, (1381), I'jaz al-Bayan fi Tafsir Umm al-Quranl, Seyyed Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani, Ed., Qom: Islamic Propagation Office. 
Alston, William P, (1991), Perceiving God: The Epistomology of Religious Experience. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornel University Press.
Griffioen, Amber L, (2121), Elements in the Philosophy of Religion: Religious Experience, London: Cambridge University Press.
 
 

  • Receive Date 11 December 2024
  • Revise Date 23 March 2025
  • Accept Date 26 April 2025

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