Essays in Philosophy of Religion (Jostarhaye Falsafeh Din)

Genealogy of the Concept of Religious Experience and Approaches to Its Nature

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

ghasem mohseni mari 1
jabbar Amini 2
behzad moridi 3

1 . Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Islamshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Fiqh and Fundamentals of Islamic Law, Islamshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, Payam Noor University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract
The expression 'religious experience' as inner reflections of the human being in relation to the realm of meaning or in connection with the sacred Commander is one of the fundamental concepts in the philosophy of religion and religious studies. It emerged alongside the precedence of the West in a context shaped by anthropocentrism, rationalism, and empiricism. The discursive genealogy of this notion is grounded in revelatory theology, which arose from the Western tradition in contrast to natural theology or theology based on reason. In this view, revelation is regarded as a manifestation of God’s mighty acts upon Jesus Christ and a mode of divine disclosure, which differs from the understanding of revelation as propositional truths. Accordingly, the authenticity and source of authority of revelation are not found in the written text or spoken word, but are manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. Such an interpretation was reported in the works of Schleiermacher and William James. The formulation of this idea by Schleiermacher and other theologians in the 18th and 19th centuries was shaped by the prevailing discursive context of the time, the hostile attitude of critics toward Christian faith, idealistic and Romantic approaches with Protestant roots, and the theologians’ strategic efforts to escape the pressure of Enlightenment critiques. Thinkers such as Kant and Hume had seriously undermined rational or natural theology through their philosophical arguments. In this context, Schleiermacher and his contemporaries, by shifting the Christian’s focus from the Holy Scripture to the inner life of the believer and to the person of Christ, introduced the notion of religious experience as a discursive phenomenon. They sought to justify the truth claims of the sacred text- particularly concerning Christ’s miracles- not through scientific reasoning, but by portraying Christ as being filled with the presence of God, an experience which, they claimed, could also be communicated to others. Emphasizing the linguistic autonomy of religion and adopting a psychological approach, Schleiermacher defined religion as a matter of inner reflection, asserting that the existence of God must be sought within. The growing attention to this concept by religious thinkers, mystics, philosophers of religion, as well as psychologists and sociologists of religion, paved the way for intellectual transformations in the diverse interpretations concerning the object and aim of religious experience. This allowed for various theories to justify the nature of the connection with the sacred. They made extensive efforts to approach the concept of faith from a new perspective, focusing on its manifestation in specific emotional states in human beings - such as love, trust, reliance, and contentment - which emerge within the affective and experiential dimensions. They approached faith through an emotional lens, considering the essence of religion to lie in religious experience, while viewing other dimensions -doctrinal, ethical, legal, and jurisprudential - as merely the shell or outer layers of religion. Accordingly, the nature of faith was interpreted as religious experience, characterized by seeing, perceiving, and undergoing, while the epistemic function of affirming religious propositions and teachings was largely abandoned. In this framework, faith does not possess a cognitive nature but is rather understood as a psychological state manifested in feelings of trust, assurance, surrender, and devotion to God. Thus, the appeal to religious experience represents the modern human’s effort to describe, justify, and interpret the relationship with the transcendent in the form of an individual experience of divine presence.
This study, drawing on library sources and employing a descriptive-analytical method, seeks to explain the genealogy of the concept of religious experience and to examine the diverse reasons behind its interpretations and functions. In this regard, the initial response to the ambiguous notion of religious experience within Christianity is rooted in the socio-political and cultural conditions of the modern era. These historical contexts necessitated the formulation of this theory by Christian thinkers as a strategic response to the critical state of Christianity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their efforts, grounded in Romantic insight, aimed to justify the propositions of the sacred text in a way that could transcend the prevailing intellectual challenges.
Furthermore, the discursive genealogy of the concept of religious experience emerges from the intellectual tradition of the West and reflects the efforts of modern man - shaped by anthropocentrism, individualism, secularization, and Romanticism - to justify the nature and modality of the relationship with the object of experience. This justification is grounded in the emphasis on the autonomous subject and inner feelings, manifesting as a personal, immediate experience that is projected through emotional states, actions, and insights. The religious character of such experience stems from its occurrence within a religious context and the believer’s use of religious concepts and language in narrating their visions, states, and experiences. Accordingly, the sacred is no longer imposed from without but is interpreted from within the experiencing subject. This model is rooted in modern mysticism, spiritual movements, and the reconstructed discursive space of modernity, and it informs a specific mode of engagement with the sacred text. Based on this perspective, the transformation in the understanding of the sacred text - as the object of experience - its acquisition process, the manner of approaching the transcendent, and the interpretation of the text itself all become subjects of rethinking within a new theoretical framework. Theorists of this perspective have emphasized individualism, historicity, and cultural context as influential elements in the process of experience and understanding. Within this dynamic, the author is continuously engaged in interaction with the surrounding environment and historical context, such that their understanding and intentionality are shaped through ongoing interplay with these contextual factors. The outcome of this approach is a form of relativism that extends across various domains of knowledge.

Keywords

religion
religiosity
religious experience
cognitive existence
epistemology
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