The structure of religious experience

The self and the other

All religious experience can be described in terms of three basic elements: first, the personal concerns, attitudes, feelings, and ideas of the individual who has the experience; second, the religious object disclosed in the experience or the reality to which it is said to refer; third, the social forms that arise from the fact that the experience in question can be shared. Although the first two elements can be distinguished for purposes of analysis, they are not separated within the integral experience itself. Religious experience is always found in connection with a personal concern and quest for the real self, oriented toward the power that makes life holy or a ground and a goal of all existence. A wide variety of individual experiences are thus involved, among which are attitudes of seriousness and solemnity in the face of the mystery of human destiny; feelings of awe and of being unclean evoked by the encounter with the holy; the sense of a power or a person who both loves and judges humanity; the experience of being converted or of having the course of life directed toward the divine; the feeling of relief stemming from the sense of divine forgiveness; the sense that there is an unseen order or power upon which the value of all life depends; the sense of being at one with the divine and of abandoning the egocentric self.

In all these situations, the experience is realized in the life of an individual who at the same time has his attention focused on an “other,” or divine reality, that is present or encountered. The determination of the nature of this other poses a problem of interpretation that requires the use of symbols, analogies, images, and concepts for expressing the reality that evokes religious experience in an understandable way. Four basic conceptions of the divine may be distinguished: the divine as an impersonal sacred order (logos, Dao, rita, Asha) governing the universe and human destiny; the divine as power that is holy and must be approached with awe, proper preparation, or ritual cleansing; the divine as all-embracing One, the ultimate Unity and harmony of all finite realities and the goal of the mystical quest; and the divine as an individual or self transcending the world and humanity and yet standing in relation to both at the same time.

The two most important concepts that have been developed by theologians and philosophers for the interpretation of the divine are transcendence and immanence; each is meant to express the relation between the divine and finite realities. Transcendence means going beyond a limit or surpassing a boundary; immanence means remaining within or existing within the confines of a limit. The divine is said to transcend humanity and the world when it is viewed as distinct from both and not wholly identical with either; the divine is said to be immanent when it is viewed as wholly or partially identical with some reality within the world, such as humanity or the cosmic order. The conception of the divine as an impersonal sacred order represents the extreme of immanence since that order is regarded as entirely within the world and not as imposing itself from without. The conception of the divine as an individual or self represents the extreme of transcendence, since God is taken as not wholly identical with either the world or any finite reality within it. Some thinkers have described the divine as wholly transcendent of or “wholly other” than finite reality, some have maintained the total immanence of the divine, and still others claim that both concepts can be applied and therefore that the two characteristics do not exclude each other.

Social forms or expressions

Most enduring, historical religious traditions find their roots in the religious experience and insight of charismatic individuals who have served as founders; the sharing of their experience among disciples and followers leads to the establishment of a religious community. Thus, the social dimension of religion is a primary fact, but it need not be seen as opposed to religious experience taken as a wholly individual affair. There has been some difference of opinion on the point; Whitehead, for example, put emphasis on the “solitariness” of religious experience precisely in order to deny the claim of those who, like Émile Durkheim, a French sociologist, characterized religion as essentially a social fact. The social expression of religious experience results in the formation of specifically religious groups distinct from such natural groups as the family, the local society, and the state. Religious communities, including brotherhoods, mystery cults, synagogues, churches, sects, and monastic and missionary orders, serve initially to preserve and interpret their traditions or the body of doctrine, practices, and liturgical forms through which religious experience comes to be expressed. Such communities play a significant role in the shaping of religious experience and in determining its meaning for the individual through the structure of worship and liturgy and the establishment of a sacred calendar. Communities differ in the extent to which they stress the importance of individual experience of the divine, as distinct from adherence to a creed expressing the basic beliefs of the community. The tension between social and individual factors becomes apparent at times when the individual experience of the prophet or reformer conflicts with the norm of experience and interpretation established by the community. Therefore, although the religious community aims at maintaining its historic faith as a framework within which to interpret experience of the divine, every such community must find ways of recognizing both novel experience and fresh insight resulting from individual reflection and contemplation.