Phenomenological reflections on Religion

the relational aspect of religious experience

Abstract

The phenomenology of religion, as a methodological approach in religious studies, plays a crucial role in understanding religious experience. Different authors who worked on the subject, such as Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye (1848-1920) or Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950), related phenomenology as something that shows itself (was sich zeigt). In this sense, the religious experience that is manifested and/or allowed to shine makes its approach possible, whether descriptive, systematic, comparative or speculative. Likewise, religious experience is positioned as a Power that manifests itself in its own exceptionality, not dispensing with the relational aspect, often identified as the connection between the human being and the divine/sacred or transcendent. This experience of spiritual plenitude and unfolding of meanings is the core of the religious experience in which the phenomenological method aims to shed light.