The Significance of Religious Experience
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2020-08-12
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en
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An important premise of John Dewey’s A Common Faith (1934) is that all prizeworthy aspects of traditional religion can be had equally well in the course of ordinary experience. From this premise, Dewey develops his own notion of religious faith, grounded not in supernaturalism but in our relations to the natural world and each other as human beings. Recently, however, a number of scholars have argued that Dewey’s religious faith cannot account for our most meaningful religious experiences, particularly in terms of their structure and intensity. In this paper, I consider this strand of criticism in light of Dewey’s two main works on experience: his 1925 Experience and Nature and his 1934 Art as Experience. I will argue that, if we are willing to substitute as a criterion of value the intensity of a religious experience for its significance in effecting a better adjustment in life, Dewey’s theory of religious faith provides a coherent and promising alternative to traditional theism.
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Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen