“Synthetic symbolic religious language has creative potential only to the degree that it is recognized to be symbolic, not literal, language. If it is treated as literal, then the symbols themselves become the focus of attention, and the reality-transforming experience that they were originally coined to express tends to be ignored. Instead of facilitating a process of descent into self-examination and surrender followed by an ascent into a transformed reality, the symbols become logical answers to questions of existence. When this happens, the questions are trivialized. Treated as logical answers to life’s questions, religious symbols do not stimulate the process of religious reality transformation; they stifle it by rendering it unnecessary.”
— C. Daniel Batson and W. Larry Ventis, The Religious Experience: A Social-Psychological Perspective
(Oxford University Press, 1982) pp. 131-132.
(Oxford University Press, 1982) pp. 131-132.
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