Religious Experience, Justification, and History

Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate.

Matthew C. Bagger (Author)

9780521622554, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 1999

250 pages
22.4 x 14.6 x 2 cm, 0.47 kg

"Matthew Bagger's Religious Experience, Justification, and History is an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on "mysticism" and religious experience...there is much to recommend about this book - to begin with, it is a treasure of philosophical review on these issues..." The Journal of Religion

Many philosophers of religion have sought to defend the rationality of religious belief by shifting the burden of proof onto the critic of religious belief. Some have appealed to extraordinary religious experience in making their case. Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate. Through a study of William James, it contests the accounts of religious experience offered in recent works. Through reflection on the history of philosophy, it also unravels the philosophical use of the term 'justification'. Matthew Bagger argues that the commitment to supernatural explanations implicit in the religious experiences employed to justify religious belief contradicts the modern ideal of human flourishing. For contrast, and to demonstrated the indispensability of history, he includes a study of Teresa of Avila's mystical theology. The controversial supernatural explanations implicit in extraordinary religious experience places the burden of proof on the believer.

1. Introduction: spectral evidences
2. The explanation in experience and the explanation of experience
3. Justification by reasons alone
4. Perennialism revisited
5. The miracle of minimal foundationalism
6. Loves noble Historie: Teresa of Avila's mystical theology
7. Modernity and its discontents
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of religion [HRAB]