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RELIGIOUS (POST)EXPERIENCE IN THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION BY GUSTAV MENSHING

Abstract
The article examines the conception religious experience by the German thinker, representative of the phenomenology of religion Gustav Mensching (1901–1978). His approach is characterized by the search for the foundations of religious (post)experience. In contrast to the traditional perspective of the study of the subject’s comprehension of the divine within the framework of the relevant religious experience, Menshing suggests focusing on the phenomenon of (post)experience. In this phenomenon, the divine unfolds as meaning-in-itself, and religious experience becomes only a conditional point of experiencing being both as a self-sufficient phenomenon and as the subject’s “feeling” into the religious/divine. Menshing’s point of view is to justify religious (post)experience both from the perspective of transcending the world of things, and from the standpoint of symbolizing reality, and in reflecting being “after God.” The phenomenologist’s key works deal with finding the “after” experience as the non-occurrence of being and the unfolding of its primacy either in symbolization or in transcendence. As shown in the article, Menshing at the beginning of his creative career was in the field of sociology of religion, which gave him the opportunity to identify religious experience as a joint search for the divine by the subject and communities. Later, however, the thinker became an adherent of the phenomenological approach and presented a concept in which the following key positions can be identified. First, Menshing started from Hegel’s ideas about spiritual enlightenment, but applied this perspective not only in evaluating the actions of the subject on the way to God, but also in the reception of the divine as experienced. On the other hand, Menshing shows that the divine unfolds as a meaning-in-itself after the subjective religious experience has already developed and has become the basis for the experience of religious existence. In addition, in Menshing’s theory, religious (post)experience captures being in its essence of entities, which opens up the prospect of “after God.” It is concluded that the search for the foundations of the unfolding of the meanings of the divine for Menshing marked a new frontier in the phenomenology of religion — from an intentional perspective to a numinous one.

Keywords
Gustav Menshing, religious experience, religious (post)experience, after God, the divine as meaning-in-itself, numinosity.

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