Logos 2015
Religious Experience
May 7-9, 2015 at the University of Notre Dame
Religious experience is central to religious faith and practice. It often serves as evidence of belief; it contributes to the development of doctrine; and it, or the desire for it, is often a major motivator for church attendance, mediation, commitment to spiritual disciplines, and other religious practices. Religious experience has received a great deal of attention within both philosophy and theology; but important questions remain unanswered. What is the nature of religious experience? What, exactly is (or should be) its relationship to religious belief and religious practice? If God exists and loves human beings, why aren't vivid unambiguous religious experiences more widely available? What can religious experiences tell us about the nature of God? Might religious experiences be the result, in part, or particular skills or virtues of the people who have them? The Logos 2015 Workshop will be devoted to addressing these and other philosophical and theological aspects of religious experience.
Thursday, May 7
11:10am - 12:30pm Amber Griffioen – University of Konstanz
“Religious Experience Without Belief? Faith, Imagination, and Emotion”
- Commentator: Laura Ekstrom – The College of William & Mary
- Chair: Alicia Finch – Northern Illinois University
2:30pm - 3:50pm Paul Gavrilyuk – University of St. Thomas
“Understandings of Spiritual Perception”
- Commentator: Allison Thornton – Baylor University
- Chair: Andrea C. White – Emory University, Candler School of Theology
4:00pm - 5:20pm Rebecca Chan – University of Notre Dame
“Religious Experience and Voluntarist Reasons: Shedding Light on the Transformative Experience Puzzle”
- Commentator: Meg Schmitt – University of Notre Dame
- Chair: Oliver Crisp – Fuller Theological Seminary
Friday, May 8
11:10am - 12:30pm Mark Wynn – University of Leeds
“Locating Religious Experience in the Context of Religious Life”
- Commentator: Evan Fales – The University of Iowa
- Chair: Jerome Gellman – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and honorary affiliate, Australian Catholic University
2:30pm - 3:50pm Ann Taves – University of California, Santa Barbara
“Experience as Event: Event Cognition and the Study of (Religious) Experience”
- Commentator: Helen De Cruz – Somerville College, University of Oxford
- Chair: Timothy Pawl – University of St. Thomas
4:00pm - 5:20pm Sameer Yadav – Indiana Wesleyan University
“Mystical Experience and the Apophatic Attitude”
- Commentator: Kevin Hector - The University of Chicago Divinity School
- Chair: Alan Torrance – University of St Andrews
7:15pm L.A. Paul – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Transformative Preference Capture"
- Chair: Hud Hudson – Western Washington University
Saturday, May 9
10:40am - 12:00pm Hugh Burling – University of Cambridge
“Divine Immutability and 'Mystical Perception'”
- Commentator: Kathyrn Pogin – Northwestern University
- Chair: Brian Leftow – Oriel College, University of Oxford
2:00pm - 3:20pm Andrew Dole – Amherst College
“What is ‘Religious Experience’ in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics, and Why Does it Matter?”
- Commentator: Ian McFarland – Emory University, Candler School of Theology
- Chair: Jill Graper Hernandez – The University of Texas at San Antonio
3:30pm - 4:50pm Shannon Craigo-Snell – Louisville Seminary
“Training for Ecstasy”
- Commentator: Terence Cuneo – The University of Vermont
- Chair: Lacey Hudspeth - Harvard Divinity School