Religious Experience

     Religious experience is a very broad topic, understood in different ways by different persons and faith traditions. Each academic field that bears on religion and spirituality approaches it with distinct methods. Recognition of the diversity in reported religious experiences, values, and beliefs also informs work on religious freedom, tolerance, and the public role of religion in a pluralistic society.  

     The broadly epistemic issues include: the need to interpret one’s religious experiences; the cognitive value of religious experience; the proper role of evidence in the formation of religious belief; the epistemology of miracle claims; differences between “experience” as personal and primary, and "testimonial" belief in faith traditions centered on a special revelation; the nature and limits of religious language; feminist critique of androcentric and anthropocentric conceptions of godhead; positive theology in contrast with apophatic or mystically-oriented faith traditions; and process verses substantive conceptions of ultimate reality.