Religious experiences present a convincing argument for the existence of God. Analyse this claim? What are the criticisms?

Authors Avatar

Philosophy of Religion: Religious Experience

a) What we call religious experience can differ greatly.  Some reports exist of supernatural happenings that it would be difficult to explain from a rational, scientific point of view.  On the other hand, there also exist the sorts of testimonies that simply seem to convey a feeling or a peace of oneness- something which most of us, religious or not, may possibly relate to.  

Firstly, I will consider the nature of an experience.  Experience involves encounters which are empirical (testable via senses).  We draw non- empirical conclusions about many things and people- that they have orange hair and are 5 feet tall, that they are lonely and confused.  These conclusions are mainly although not entirely based on empirical evidence.  If most our encounters with other people and objects are empirical it is therefore reasonable to suggest that we can experience God and draw conclusions about there nature from this experience.  If we can find meaning in things that cannot be verified by empirical evidence then it may well be possible to experience God and use these experiences to prove gods nature and existence.

Experiences of god are not regular and universal like ordinary experiences.  Religious experiences often accompanies existing belief i.e. takes place with those who are already believers.  God is believed first via faith which means that by having a basic framework it’ll make you accept religious experiences.  It is possible to conclude that it is a learned belief.

Could one go as   to suggest that religious experiences are proof for the existence of God?  For a religious believer the involvement of God in human affairs is to be expected.  The argument for the existence of God based on religious experience is based upon the idea that God manifests Himself occasionally and privately in some people’s lives.  This is known through testimonies of the recipients of these experiences.  

In categorising religious experiences is helpful to look at them as explicable through one of two theories: the objectivist thesis or the subjectivist thesis.

The objectivist view supposes that there is some object or actual entity- such as god- which exists independently of the experience, interaction which causes the experience itself.  God is described as numinous.  This is a term often used to describe the experience in which God’s separateness is highlighted.  This was put forward by Rudolf Otto in his book The Idea of the Holy.  Otto religion sprang from experience of the holly.  Because the word numinous has many associations he used numen, something which is wholly other than the natural world

Join now!

An objectivist would argue that the religious experience is a proof of God’s existence.  However, others have criticised the reliability of religious experiences.  The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes asked how it was possible to tell the differences between talking to God in a dream, and dreaming about talking to God.  The objectivist thesis is ultimately the most traditional viewpoint since it views God as ‘object’- that is, something which exists independently of us (such as a table or another person).  However, there are a number of problems with this:

        

  1. How do we know that what we ...

This is a preview of the whole essay