Assess whether religious experience demonstrates the existence of God?
Assess Whether Religious Experience Demonstrates the Existence of God
Assess Whether Religious Experience Demonstrates the Existence of God
Religious experience can be dissected into different varieties. Alvin Plantinga argued that everyday experiences such as the sun rising should constitute as a religious experience as the sun rising is so inspirational and conjures up religious belief out of awe. Some would argue that miracles or extraordinary occurrences are proof of God’s existence. If one was to view a man turning water into wine one would see it as spectacular and possible cause religious belief. Both miracles and everyday occurrences are public experiences as they can be witnessed by anyone; however there are more private/personal religious experiences. Dreams and visions, such as St. Paul on the road to Damascus (where he heard the voice of Jesus), only apply to the person visualising them. These are also used as religious experiences if you heard the voice of Jesus it would obviously be considered a religious event. There is also the ongoing feeling that God is around you, he is guiding you through life, and this again is indescribable but rational justification for the theist as it connects to the idea of God’s omnipresence. Finally there are also mystical experience as William James explained them these are ineffable (cannot be put into words) transient (very intense experience but not necessarily a long experience, the effects however can last a lifetime) passive (cannot be controlled by the recipient) experiences that are simply indescribable. Rudolf Otto described mystical experiences as “numinous” this is the feeling of awe and wonder when confronted with the divinity that is God numinous experiences are one of terrifying and compelling mystery. Should religious experiences be the basis of God’s existence or are they simply anomalous events that are meaningless.
David Hume and A.J. Ayer are well known empiricists. They would argue that unless something empirically verified it should not be deemed meaningful so if I was to see God that should be seen as meaningful as it is empirically verified. If I were to see a cat walking across a street I would think to myself that is a cat, no doubt would enter my mind I would simply establish that a cat was walking across a street. When one see’s/experiences God why the same sort of logic should not be applied is ridiculous. If I were to see God I would think that is God no questions asked. Visions of God and miracles are empirically verifiable religious experiences, Hume and Ayer cannot dismiss these as that would be contradictory to their well established beliefs, thus empirically verified religious experiences can be used a sufficient justification for God’s existence. The sceptics retort to this argument is how can we trust our empirical methods of justification. One could be hallucinating, the only reason St. Paul saw God was because he was deprived of water and had social pressures from the rising Christian religion. A.J. Ayer noted that a straight stick appears bent in water, if our senses can deceive us once they will deceive us again, we cannot trust empirical evidence therefore it cannot be used as justification for a religious experience and definitely cannot be used to justify God’s existence. Also what if the subject of supposed religious experience has taken some sort of mind altering drug surely then empirical evidence cannot be used to justify any sort of vision. Finally the sceptic would note that a religious experience is not an ordinary experience, one see’s trees everyday but experiencing God is quite different. As philosophers we must view these extraordinary experiences differently and be more analytical into the causes (such as looking at the recipient of the experience). In Brian Davies book “An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion” he highlights that to reject empirical evidence without any major reason to doubt is simply absurd. He says that if one is of sound mind, has good eyesight and is of reasonable intelligence unless then there isn’t really any reason to doubt yourself, we use empirical evidence to make everyday assertions therefore it should be no different when seeing “God”, He also highlights that if it is possible to hallucinate it is also possible to see correctly, although this sounds very basic it does reject the argument from illusion (used by most sceptics to doubt sense data). Sure we can see things that aren’t really there but most of the time we are not hallucinating. Brian Davies also uses the example of a man called Fred. He states that Fred is “as mad as a hatter and as drunk as a Lord” Fred also regularly hallucinates and because of this not many people listen to what he has to say. Despite Fred perpetual hallucinations it is not right to say that everything he says is wrong, sometimes he could be telling the truth. Davies concludes that “the fact that some people are prone to get things wrong is not a sufficient reason for others to suppose that they always get things wrong”
