Original scientific paper
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IN RELATION TO “LOCUS THEOLOGICUS”
Jakov Mamić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb
Abstract
To what extent does “experience” and “experiential insight,” as
well as insight by way of “mystical experience,” objectively relate to
theology as a scientific discipline which acquires and interprets its
insights by virtue of it “noetic,” that is, rational insight?
If theology truly has this objective relation to “experience,”
then one certainly needs to ask: to what extent can it rely on this
insight as its “locus theologicus?”
In our exploration of “mystical experience in relation to the
locus theologicus,” not only do we not bypass the objectivity of
theological rational insight and its legitimacy – though in our
exploration we indicate its deficiency – but at the same time we
try to asses how “experiential insight” stands the test of a strict
noetic-cognitive scientific process. By this road we reach an answer
as to the real nature of “experiential insight” and we place it in a
relationship with what is usually called “locus theologicus.”
Our analysis has its initial historical foundation in the event
of revelation which is of an essentially “experiential” nature.
We recognize “mystical experience” to have a special weight
as experiential insight in so far as it is at the same time a full
anthropological experience (with all the characteristics of a
psychological and Christian experience); it is, however, also a
reality which, like faith, does not belong to man as a property but
as a gift. By analogy we conclude: if faith, as a gift, is a source of
a vast number of insights of a profound theological nature, then
Christian experience, and especially mystical experience, has a
right to a far more prominent place in the structure of theological
references, not only with regard to theological indicators or basis
of reflection, but also as concerns “loci theologici” as obligatory
sources of scientific insight.
Keywords
experience; locus theologicus; mystical experience; revelation; scientific insight; noetic insight
Hrčak ID:
29611
URI
Publication date:
15.9.2008.
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