What are numinous experiences?

Numinous. Experiences of awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God. It is an awareness of human nothingness when faced with a holy and powerful being. It comes from ‘numen’ = to bow the head. Such experiences are key to understanding the spirituality of many religions.

What is Otto’s theory of religion?

Otto argues that understanding the numinous in a satisfactory way requires a scholar to draw upon their own experience of religious sentiments, given its non-discursive and direct nature; this becomes a point of contention among later secular scholars of religion.

What does numinous mean in philosophy?

Numinous was derived in the 17th century from the Latin numen, meaning a “deity or spirit presiding over a thing or space.” It describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity. It is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, a Greek term referring to an unknowable reality underlying all things.

What are the characteristics of mystical experience?

According to James, mystical experiences have four defining qualities:

Ineffability. According to James the mystical experience “defies expression, that no adequate report of its content can be given in words”.
Noetic quality.
Transiency.
Passivity.

What is religious experience philosophy?

A religious experience is when someone feels they have had a direct or personal experience of God. It is argued that if someone feels they have experienced God, this will be the most convincing proof of God’s existence because they have personally experienced or felt God for themselves.

Can religious experience be verified?

In conclusion: religious experience are valuable and can be verified using several methods such as Swinburne’s Principles of Testimony and Credulity. Therefore, religious experience can be verified.

What are the five types of religious experience?

Keith Yandell (1993, 25–32) divided them into five categories, according to the content of the experiences: monotheistic, nirvanic (enlightenment experiences associated with Buddhism), kevalic (enlightenment experiences associated with Jainism), moksha (experiences of release from karma, associated with Hinduism), and …

Where does the numinous appear in the Old Testament?

The story in Exodus iv. 24, of how Yahweh in his opy-q met Moses by the way ‘and sought to kill him’, still bears this ‘ daemonic ‘ character strongly, and the tale leaves us almost with the suggestion of a ghostly apparition.

What was the lower stage of the numinous?

The lower stage of numinous conscious*«, viz. daemonic dread, has already been long superseded by the time we reach the Prophets and Psalmists. But there are not wanting occasional echoes of it, found especially in the earlier narrative literature.

How did God reveal himself to the world?

God has also revealed Himself to the world through the person of Jesus Christ. God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds ( Hebrews 1:1, 2 ).

What happens if God reveals himself more dramatically?

Even if God revealed Himself more dramatically, many or most would still refuse to believe. Some people seem to think that if God did a miracle, then they’d believe. Maybe they would. However, virtually no manner of miracle would convince those who refuse to believe and receive God’s love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCVWFmuSwBU