Kom: Časopis za Religijske Nauke (Jan 2015)

Divine revelation or religious experience: Analysis of different models of understanding of revelation

  • Halilović Muamer

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5937/kom1501079h
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
pp. 79 – 98

Abstract

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There are numerous models of understanding of what religious traditions refer to as divine revelation. In this paper, the author pays attention to the following four main models: the psychoanalytical model, sociological model, a model according to which revelation is considered a sophisticated form of religious experience and propositional model. Having explained the basic features of each model and indicating scientific and logical groundlessness of the first two models - i.e. psychoanalytical and sociological - the author extensively describes three types of incoherence (epistemological, ontological and social) created by the third model of understanding of revelation, that is, the belief that divine revelation is religious experience. In this way, this paper finally concludes that the only logically grounded and rationally accepted model of understanding the revelation is the propositional model according to which supra-material being is not only the subject of revelation, but also the source of revelation. In this model, the Prophet is not the creator of revelation. On the contrary, due to his spiritual preparedness he receives the message that comes from God.

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