Religious Experience

Implications for What Is Real
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-108-43829-2
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society

In this book, Phillip Wiebe examines religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences, assessing how these experiences appear to implicate a spiritual order. Despite the current prevalence of naturalism and atheism, he argues that experiences purporting to have a religious or spiritual significance deserve close empirical investigation. Wiebe surveys the broad scope of religious experience and considers different types of evidence that might give rise to a belief in phenomena such as spirits, paranormal events, God, and an afterlife. He demonstrates that there are different explanations and interpretations of religious experiences, both because they are typically personal accounts, and they suggest a reality that is often unobservable. Wiebe also addresses how to evaluate evidence for theories that postulate unobservables in general, and a Theory of Spirits in particular. Calling for more rigorous investigation of these phenomena, Wiebe frames the study of religious experience among other accepted social sciences that seek to understand religion.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wiebe, Phillip H.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsethik, Weltethos
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Theologie, Doktrine
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The scope of 'religious experience'; 2. The general theory of spirits; 3. Testability and evidence; 4. Phenomenological evidence; 5. Evidence for the world of spirits.

Über Autor(innen)

Wiebe, Phillip H.
Phillip H. Wiebe (1945-2018) was Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of Arts and Religious Studies at Trinity Western University, Canada. He was the author of Visions and Appearances of Jesus (2014), God and Other Spirits (2004), and Intuitive Knowing as Spiritual Experience (2015).