Appearance and Progress of "the Theory of Religious Experience"
Document Type : Research Paper
Author
استادیار دانشگاه شهید رجایی
Abstract
This paper has dealt with the theory of religious experience in an analytico-historical approach. Schleier Macher, the main theorist of this theory, presented and developed it to keep Christianity against fundamental demurs of experimental sciences and epistemology. Upon the theory, religion has an independent identity and its essence consists of an inner sensation toward and a direct dependence upon the Absolute. Soren Kierkegaard, an existentialist philosopher, has denied every intellectual treatment on the problem of faith and we are necessitated to accept it unquestionably. In his view, the only way for supporting Christianity is a leap of faith, that is, believing in it without any reasonable proof. Rudolf Otto has also brought into consideration the intuitional, mental and spiritual aspect of religion. Then William James, a pragmatist philosopher, argued that one should defend religion relying on experience and actual effects. And finally Walter Terence Stace, an analytic philosopher, has emphasized on intuitively perceiving of the Absolute and Max Weber has dealt with the theory in a sociological approach.
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