Review of Book: Monastic Studies—Number Nine (Autumn 1972). On the Experience of God.

1973 ◽  
Vol 91 (304) ◽  
pp. 237-240
Author(s):  
Illtyd Trethowan
Keyword(s):  
Experience Of God

The Logic of Mysticism

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Stephen Grimm
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Direct Encounter

I argue that mystical experience essentially involves two aspects: (a) an element of direct encounter with God, and (b) an element of union with God. The framework I use to make sense of (a) is taken largely from William Alston’s magisterial book Perceiving God. While I believe Alston’s view is correct in many essentials, the main problem with the account is that it divorces the idea of encountering or perceiving God from the idea of being united with God. What I argue, on the contrary, is that because our experience of God is an experience of a relationship-seeking, personal being, it brings with it an important element of union that Alston overlooks.

scholarly journals Psychological Analysis of Religiosity and Spirituality: Construction of the Scale of Abandonment by God (SAG)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanisław Głaz
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
Positive Statements ◽  
Religiosity And Spirituality ◽  
Stage 1

AbstractThe issue of religiosity and spirituality and their measurement are quite well developed fields in the psychology of religion. However, the literature shows a lack of research tools to measure the religious experience of the feeling of abandonment by God among followers of the Catholic religion. The purpose of this article is to fulfill this gap through the presentation of the notion of ‘God abandonment’, and its operationalization, by constructing the Scale of Abandonment by God: SAG (Skala Opuszczenia Przez Boga—SOPB). The psychometric value of the tool was evaluated, that is the reliability and validity. In order to achieve this goal, three stages of instrument development (item generation, scale development, and instrument testing) were undertaken in three studies. Stage 1: The pilot study concerned the development of positive statements about the concept of the Catholic experience of God (i.e., the subjective feeling of the experience of God's abandonment in the life of a contemporary person, as well as showing to what extent this belief can affect some aspects of his/her life). Stage 2: Was designed to perform exploratory factor analysis and test–retest reliability to assess stability of the SAG in a three-week time range. Stage 3: Validation of the SAG by Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed. Result: The SAG can be recognized as a one-factor measure of the feeling of abandonment by God. Because the content of the SAG items indicate the positive aspects of the abandonment of God, this can assist people living in Catholic societies.

Book Review: The Experience of God in Modern Life

1918 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-348
Author(s):  
W. O. Carver
Keyword(s):  
Modern Life ◽  
Experience Of God

At the limit of meaning

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahdi Esfahani
Keyword(s):  
Experience Of God ◽  
The Given

This article concentrates on an entity that for many is the highest form of sense, namely God. Assuming that God is endless, the author asks what can be known about such an eternity and which epistemological consequences go along with such an experience of God. By taking up the verse in the Koran (57:4): “He is with you, wherever you are”, the author shows that the infinity of God is nothing far away or abstract. It is rather the penetration of everything. A flower, for example, not only shows itself in its finitude but also testifies with its existence to the infinity of God and thus points a way to God. The more one tries to fathom the given signs, the more the divine infinity manifests itself. Therefore, if sense is equated with finitude, the alleged nonsensicality of the infinite in fact has its own sense in the finite creature.

scholarly journals Institutional Religion and Religious Experience

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 791
Author(s):  
Lidia Rodríguez ◽  
Juan Luis de León ◽  
Luzio Uriarte ◽  
Iziar Basterretxea
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
God Image ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

A number of empirical studies have shown the continuous lack of adherence and the growing autonomy of the population regarding religious institutions. This article reflects on the kind of relationship between deinstitutionalisation and religious experience based on the following hypothesis: the evident decline in religious institutions does not necessarily lead to the disappearance or the weakening of religious experience; rather, it runs simultaneously with a process of individualisation. Our aim is to provide empirical evidence of such transformations; therefore, we do not get involved in speculations, but take into account the contributions of scholars concerning three key terms integrated in the conceptual framework of “religious experience’’: “experience of God”, “God image”, and “institutional belonging”. We analysed 39 in-depth interviews with a qualitative approach; interviews were conducted during the years 2016–2018 amongst Evangelical and Catholic populations in three Latin American cities (Córdoba, Montevideo, and Lima) and in the city of Bilbao (Spain). These interviews clearly indicate a growing autonomy from the religious institution, while evidencing a rich range of experiences of God and a great diversity of God representations. In both cases, they point to processes of individualisation of believers who elaborate their own religious experience in a personal and complex way.

Actualism and Beauty: Karl Barth's Insistence on the Auch in his Account of Divine Beauty

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Free Action ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Theological Aesthetics ◽  
Free Love ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Hans Urs Von Balthasar ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Free Dynamic ◽  
Divine Beauty

AbstractHans Urs von Balthasar claimed that Barth's Church Dogmatics demonstrates a weakening of his distinctive actualism in order to make space for ‘the concept of authentic objective form’, a point illustrated by the discourse on divine beauty in CD II/1. There Barth treats the divine being as an objective form to be contemplated, a seeming departure from Barth's privileged conceptualisation of God as personal subject whose free action humbles our theoretical gaze and graciously provides the material content for proper speech about God. Bruce McCormack has challenged von Balthasar's general thesis, arguing that no weakening has in fact taken place in the Church Dogmatics. If this is the case, what then of Barth's discourse on divine beauty? Is it consistent with his actualistic doctrine of God? Is it possible to speak of God both as a free, dynamic event and an object of beauty? Can theological aesthetics find a home within Barth's actualism? This article answers in the affirmative by demonstrating the systematic integrity between Barth's claims about divine beauty and the actualism permeating CD II/1. First, the article examines the ambiguity of Barth's specific claims about divine beauty. Barth is both enthusiastic and hesitant in speaking about divine beauty, affirming the concept yet placing careful qualifications on its use. Next, the article illustrates how the nature of these claims is anticipated by the actualism of CD II/1, specifically by (1) Barth's clear rejection of divine formlessness, (2) his argument that God's act of self-revelation in Jesus Christ implies an objective triune form for God's being and, lastly, (3) how he grounds discourse on divine beauty in the event of God's dynamic, free love. The article finally contends that the key to Barth's puzzling position on divine beauty is in understanding the precise reason why he registers beauty as a necessary but insufficient theological concept. This qualification is rooted in an important content–form, spirit–nature distinction which frames all discussion about God's being-in-act. Throughout CD II/1, objective form is a necessary condition for divine self-expression, but objectivity is always grounded in the freedom of the Spirit. Thus, the freedom-to-love at the heart of God's triune existence is the ground of our experience of God as beautiful, not any continuity with our contemplation of created forms. As such, the creative freedom animating God's triune life provides the space for, but also the limit to, theological aesthetics by imbuing divine beauty in mystery.

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