Park, Jinsun. “Language vs Perception: Explaining Religious Experience from a Whiteheadian Perspective.” The Journal of Whitehead Studies 2 (1999): 139-165.

Abstract

It is widely held in intellectual circles today that genuine religious experience in the sense of being in direct contact with a holy reality does not occur. One of the main reasons for rejecting the possibility of genuine access to a holy reality is the acceptance of the truth of constructivism. From a constructivist view, religious experience is a purely subjective phenomenon that is wholly shaped by background language and concepts. However, the constructivist rejection of genuine religious experience, as I argue, is undermined by its own logical circularity, systematic incompleteness, and empirical inadequacy. In addition, one of the main sources of constructivism is its sensationalist epistemology, which is not able to adequately account for the beliefs we all necessarily presuppose in practice.

Whitehead's epistemology, by contrast, helps us avoid the problems in the constructivist position by replacing sensationalism with nonsensationalism. Whitehead's understanding of perception, which provides an adequate account for experience in general, allows for the possibility of genuine religious experience in two ways. First, Whitehead's idea of the primacy of nonsensory perception allows for a holy reality as a possible object of our experience in a naturalistic way. Second, Whitehead's doctrine of perception has us go beyond the impasse of the extremes, extremes in which religious concepts wholly cause religious experience and in which religious experience wholly cause religious doctrines.  [Abstract from The Journal of Whitehead Studies]