God beyond words : towards a new perspective on the spiritual experience of people with profound and complex intellectual disabilities

• Main Author: Harshaw, Jill Ruth
• Published: Queen's University Belfast 2015
• Subjects: 362.3
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.680088

The thesis explores the spiritual experience of people with profound and complex intellectual disabilities with a Christian theological framework. It critiques recent intellectual disability theology and, in particular, the use of qualitative research methods in the context of this discrete group of people, arguing that these empirical approaches are neither viable nor necessary in an exploration of the experience of people who cannot access the linguistic or cognitive process inherently required to participate in such research projects It presents the case that a richer and more fruitful source of information about the spiritual experience of people with profound and complex intellectual disabilities can be found in the broader Christian faith tradition of systematic, biblical, philosophical and mystical theology.