Near-Death Experiences and Religious Experience: An Exploration of Spirituality in Medicine

Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been studied mainly from neurological and physiological perspectives, and sometimes presented as potential counterevidence to naturalism. However, they have rarely been examined as religious experiences. This paper aims to fill that gap by first describing NDEs and the medical scientific understanding of them, then outlining a general epistemology of religious experience, and finally applying that framework to NDEs to consider what epistemic lessons might be drawn.

Study at a glance

Abstract

There has been a continuous discussion of religious experience since William James, culminating in a rich and varied literature on the epistemology of religious experience in the late twentieth century. There has also been a burgeoning literature on near-death experiences (NDEs), largely on neurology and physiology and sometimes as possible counterevidence to naturalism. One important subject is largely missing, and that is a discussion of NDEs as religious experiences, and what light that might shed on their epistemic status. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. In part one, we will delineate the topic of NDEs and what medical science has to say about them. In part two, we will lay out a general view of the epistemology of religious experience. In part three, we will apply that understanding of religious experience to NDEs and draw what lessons we may.