![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ways-of-christ.net\/images\/ways-of-christ_pentecost.gif\")
This chapter is subtitled \u201cCan religious experience count as evidence?\u201d and provides an interesting intersection between Ward\u2019s book<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1599471353\")
and my own recent one, The Burial of Jesus<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1439210179\")
<\/i>. Ward begins his chapter by writing \u201cIn most religions, there is an important place for experience. In fact, if there were no distinctively religious experiences, it is doubtful if religions would exist\u201d (p.162).<\/p>\nMy own view about Easter (since there has been some confusion about it around the web) is as follows. First, it is fair to say that I am \u201cagnostic\u201d about what happened to Jesus\u2019 body, and that I don\u2019t think it matters, since I doubt most Christians, had Jesus been burned at the stake or had his remains thrown to dogs, would believe that such a death prevents resurrection. It is also my view that religious experiences were what persuaded the early Christians that God had vindicated Jesus beyond the grave, and I am unpersuaded that the earliest experiences contained the tangible element found in later stories (such as those in Luke and John).<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that there is strong evidence that the initial \u201cEaster experiences\u201d (whatever form they took) left the disciples with doubts (see Matthew\u2019s account, for instance) and still fearful. It was a powerful experience of the sort that Christians continue to have today, a \u201cborn again experience\u201d, such as Acts 2 describes, that led them to be emboldened and go forth to proclaim their message. There is no doubt that religions mediate transformative experiences. The question is what such experiences prove. In my own case, I\u2019ve felt compelled to acknowledge that my own religious experience cannot be used to prove that a body placed in a tomb almost 2,000 years ago had this or that happen to it.<\/p>\n
Science is beginning to examine the neuroscience of religious experience. At one time, I would have found such investigations threatening. But now I realize that, since religious experience is a type of experience, it would make no sense to claim that it has nothing to do with the brain. But the subjective aspect, the qualia of religious experience, is different from a neurological perspective.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/people.sinclair.edu\/ryanvanlenning\/pentecost.jpg\")
<\/a>Ward helpfully keeps a balance on the relationship between science and truth. He writes, \u201cscience is not the only path to truth, though it is a necessary path to one sort of truth, truth about publicly observable, mathematically measurable, law-like behavior of physical objects\u201d (p.167). If one does not allow for other sorts of \u201ctruth\u201d (or whatever one thinks they should be called), then there is a danger: \u201cIn its concern to render all respectable knowledge value-free, it removes virtually all historical, political, ethical, aesthetic, personal, legal, and philosophical topics from the area of knowledge and deposits them in the dustbin of personal opinion or even illusion\u201d (p.173).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-6997850935489779842?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"