PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

42 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my

mouth, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips;

your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” And I

heard the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will

go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he

said, “Go.. .”

(Isaiah 6:1–9)

Experience 3*: I [John] was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I
heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying,
“Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven
churches... Then I turned to see the voice that was
speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden
lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a
son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden
girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white
as wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire,
his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a
furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters;
in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth
issued a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the
sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me,
saying “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the
living one; I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and
I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
(Revelation 1:10–18)

Experience 4*: Father of all, Master supreme, Power supreme in all
the worlds, Who is like thee? Who is beyond thee? I bow
before thee. I prostrate before thee, and I beg thy grace,
O glorious Lord. As a father to his son, as a friend to his
friend, as a lover to his lover, be gracious unto me, O
God. In a vision I have seen what no man has seen
before; I rejoice in exultation, and yet my heart trembles
with fear. Have mercy upon me, Lord of Gods, refuge of
the whole universe: show me again thine own human
form. I yearn to see thee again with thy crown and
scepter and circle. Show thyself to me in thine own four-
armed form, thou of arms infinite, Infinite Form.
(Bhagavagita [Song of the Blessed Lord] Chapter 11,
paragraphs 43–6)