The Argument from Religious Experience

Winnie the Pooh relied on experience – he was only satisfied that there was honey all the way to the bottom of the pot when he had tested this for himself by eating all the honey. Sometimes experience can be mistaken – as when Pooh and Piglet went round and round the tree in the snow following footprints and they were mistakenly convinced on this evidence that they were following a dangerous animal. Similarly the religious experience arguments are based on claimed experiences of God – but one problem is whether these experiences are good evidence for the existence of God. Is it a Woozle?

WHICH REPORTS OF EXPERIENCE SHOULD BE ACCEPTED ? Reports of experiences of seeing the Loch Ness Monster? Reports of experiences of UFOs and Aliens? Reports of experiences of God?

The argument If someone experiences an entity, then the entity exists Some people have experienced God Therefore God exists

Brian Davies Quote (1982)… “The claim is that without appealing to anything other than a direct contact with God, one can have reasonable grounds for asserting that there is a God. Just as I can reasonably say that there is a bed in my room because I have encountered it, so I can say that there is a God because I have directly encountered him.”

Examples… Doubting Thomas ‘Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger in those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe’ (John 20: 19-24)

Examples… The Loch Ness Monster

Non-belivers think Religious Experiences are far-fetched Believers would go so far as to stake their lives on them Can we really argue the existence of God from experience? Can we trust our senses?

Old or young?

What do you see?

SO WHAT IS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE? An experience with religious significance e.g. the act of worship in a religious setting A person’s experience of something or a presence beyond themselves

Brief summary of thinkers… Schleiermacher (early 19th century) in On Religion: Discourses to its Cultural Despisers said religious experience yields a sense of the ultimate, an awareness of wholeness, a consciousness of infiniteness and finiteness, an absolute dependence, and a sharp sense of contingency. Rudolf Otto (1917) coined the term ‘numinous’ – the Awe and Wonder Aspect!

Brief summary of thinkers cont… William James – (early 20th century) he categorised religious experience and noted that the experience draws on the common store of emotions but is directed at something divine. * the experience is short but intense * you have no control over it * it helps you see things in a different way * it is very difficult to describe – James said the result would be reverence, a joyful desire to belong to God, a renewed approach to life. These fruits are the only reliable basis for judging whether it is a genuine experience of the divine.

Someone having a religious experience is more common than you probably think, and the experiences are similar enough to make us wonder if they are pointing to a God who chooses to reveal himself to us in this way. The fact that such experiences almost always change people’s lives for the better – and really quite drastically – perhaps suggests that they could only come from God. Q. Why do some people seem to have religious experiences and others do not? 1 min discuss

Testimony isn’t enough. We need to be convinced! RICHARD SWINBURNE (1996) – argues for the case that ‘An omnipotent and perfectly good creator will seek to interact with his creatures and, in particular, with human persons capable of knowing him.’ How does Swinburne classify Religious Experiences?

Swinburne classified five types of religious experience: PUBLIC An individual sees God or God’s action in a public object or scene e.g. seeing the face of the Virgin Mary on the moon Very unusual public event occur involving a breach of natural law e.g. the resurrection of Jesus PRIVATE A private experience that an individual may describe using normal language e.g. the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary Experiences which cannot be described in normal language but which are nevertheless very real to those experiencing them e.g. mysticism An ongoing impression of a presence based upon no specific experience – just a sense that God is guiding one’s life

The Principle of Testimony … Relies of the inherent trustworthiness of other people Grounds for not believing:  Unreliable  On drugs  Suffers from delusions  Previous History Grounds for believing:  Sound Mind  Reasonable Intelligence  Generally Reliable

So who experiences the experiences? According to the Oxford Religious Experience research unit 25-45% of the population of Britain! This was even irrespective of age, location or belief. What kind of experience? An awareness of a presence or power beyond themselves.

CHALLENGES AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (1): The Vicious Circle Challenge –This holds that religious experience depends on the prior assumptions of those involved. Thus Catholics will experience Mary and Hindus are likely to experience Kali. –This implies that instead of religious experience being a BASIS for faith, they are more likely to be generated by existing faith commitments. They therefore have ’no epistemological role’- they do not underwrite faith. –HOWEVER some great mystics have experiences which challenge their existing frameworks…

CHALLENGES AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (2) The Conflicting Claims challenge This argues that if Christian religious experiences underwrite Christianity, then Islamic experiences should equally be held to underwrite Islam and so on. In other words, if one religion relies on their religious experiences to prove the truth of their religion then, philosophically, each religion can claim the same and this provides, as David Hume put it, ‘a complete triumph for the sceptic’ as it implies each religion is equally true.

The Conflicting Claims challenge Contd. If it is held that there is a single transcendent reality but each religion experiences this differently, then the GROUNDS for this claim need to be established. If a Catholic experiences the Virgin Mary and a Hindu experiences the goddess Kali and then someone claims ‘these are the same thing really’, then what is the philosophic basis for this claim? Kali has more arms than Mary and unless there are CRITERIA to say that the Hindu and the Catholic are both experiencing the same reality, then the claim may appear suspect.

CHALLENGES AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (3) The Psychological Challenge Some psychologists hold that religious experiences can be explained by psychological factors. For instance, (a) St. Paul’s experience on the Damascus road could have been due to an epileptic fit or (b) experiences claimed by teenage girls during the hormonal changes at puberty. HOWEVER it is one thing to say ‘Some religious experiences can be explained psychologically’ and another to say that ALL religious experiences can be explained like this. Also, a religious believer can claim that if there is a God, God could work through one’s psyche.

1.If a religious experience happens to individuals – why is this difficult to prove? 2.Give one example of a religious experience other than in Christianity. 3.Why might someone find it hard to believe that you had seen God? 4.What problems could there be if you just accepted religious experiences as true without questioning it? 5.Do you think there might be a way to test religious experiences? Explain STARTER QUESTIONS

Practice exam question 1.What is revelation? 2KU 2. According to Christians, how might God reveal himself? 8KU 3. “Religious Experience cannot be verified. Therefore its not proof that there’s a God.” To what extent do you agree? 5AE