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:
- How do we know that what we are experiencing is actually God (and not our imagination, or even some other being)?
- If there is no objective means of testing for God’s existence, how can we be sure that He is the object causing the experience? Anthony Flew makes this point when he asks what sort of experience might act as objective proof of God’s existence. The same as we would use for another person or a table?
- If God is an object or person in the world, doesn’t this make God finite, subject to limitation?
Richard Swimburne maintains that we should rely on reports of religious experience because of two central principles which, he claims, are fundamental aspects of rationality. The first is the principle of credulity (innocent until proven guilty). How things seem are guides to how things are. In the absence of special circumstances all religious experiences are to be taken by their subject to the substantial grounds for belief in the apparent object. If it seems to subject that Y is present then probably Y is present, what one seems to perceive is probably so. The implications of this principle for religious experience are clear. Unless there are sufficient grounds for asserting that the experiences are not genuine, we should take them as they are described- encounter with the Divine.
Secondly, Swimburne put forward the principle of testimony which is in the absence to evidence to the contrary we should rely on reports of experiences we hear. So in the absence of special circumstance the experience of others are as they report them. In general there are no special circumstances for doubting what subject’s reports about their religious experience. Swimburne states that it is reasonable to accept that other people normally tell the truth. His argument was further built on by Caroline Davis ‘The Evidence at Force of Religious Experience 1989’. Davis’s arguments (supporting religious experiences) seem reasonably convincing if the probability of God’s existence is reasonably strong. Swimburne and Davis claim that religious experience succeeds only as a part of an overall probability type approach.
The subjectivist view argues that it is not necessary to think of religious experiences as evidence for the existence of an actual being that we call God. From this point of view, the important thing is the experience itself and the effect that it has on the individual (private experiences). The advantage of this view is that it avoids all the trick questions such as ‘why doesn’t God answer my prayers?’ This is because prayer is not seen as an appeal to an external being, but rather a process whereby the person praying may change his or her self. The obvious problem with this is that it almost does away with the idea of God. If all Gods proofs and arguments for existence can be ignored, is this any different to saying that God is only a metaphor for a certain attitude to life? If God just like Father Christmas?
In conclusion, the argument from experience to prove the existence of god rests on the view that belief in god is reasonable not because its truth is entailed by a series of premises, but because god can be some how directly encountered or immediately perceived. It is further argued that experience of god is your reason for believing in Him even for those people who lack belief.
b) So what of those sober minded people who claim to have an experience of God so does it point conclusively to the existence of god? Certainly one must allow for the possibility that it does. But on the other hand there are a number of difficulties associated with believing this to be the case. For example what is the nature of religious experiences? Most importantly we are not discussing something that can be verified by simple observation. Someone who claims to see god in the world cannot answer the question ‘where do you see god’? by pointing their finger and saying ‘over there’. Rather we are talking about an inner perception, a feeling, a sense of something behind the world (like sensing someone behind you before you have turned around). This takes the religious experience argument for the existence of God out of the realm of rational enquiry and into the realm of subjective experience.
We live in a religiously ambiguous world. The world is capable of being understood in a religious or naturalistic way. We can either see something as being divinely influenced (in a direct or indirect way) or in a natural working way which has nothing to do with god whatsoever. It could be argued that some people are justified in interpreting their experiences religiously whilst others justified in presenting alternative explanations for the same experience. It all depends on ones point of view. If we want to view an experience as religious then we will argue the case but if we want to believe an experience has other ways of being understood then we will adopt a sceptical position. In the end it seems that both views are valid, or are they?
Religious experiences are greatly influenced by culture. For example it is very improbable that a Christian will have a religious experience involving Brahman (Hinduism). Christians are likely to claim that they have had an experience or are aware of God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit rather than anything else. Likewise Muslims are unlikely to have a religious experience that involve god in a Christian sense, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. This leads to the suspicion that those having religious experiences are not really having an experience of the divine but are merely experiencing the world religiously. Thus it can be said that religious experience comes suspiciously close to the realm of psychological experience.
Religious experiences primarily lack verification as there is no empirical evidence to prove the claim of such experiences. Individuals rather than groups have these experiences. As a result we only have one person’s testimony as to what happened. For example, St Bernadette testified that the Virgin Mary had spoken to her; others who witnessed the experience only saw her talking to an unseen someone. If more people had seen what she had actually seen then the claim would be more likely to be believed as more people with similar views are likely to be believed compared to just the one. Furthermore, how can we believe that her testimony is true, surely there is a possibility that she could be making it up. This takes us to the criticisms raised against miracles which were put forward by the infamous David Hume.
Lastly, when people have religious experiences why do they presume their experience is good e.g. I felt something guiding me, or someone must be watching me. Thus presuming the encounter to be from a good source. We are using human centred ethical criteria of good in order to interpret the religious experience positively. But it could be the case that people are actually being deceived by an evil spirit and being led astray. Why is it that people presume that good things come from good sources? Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus may contend that their experience of the goodness of god concurs with the testimony of their scripture, but then we are faced with the issue of which god is being experienced by the different believers. They all cannot be having a religious experience of their god. This then takes us back to the notion that religious experiences are shadowed by ones culture/ tradition and therefore human rather than divinely centred.
To conclude, I believe claiming a religious experience as a proof for the existence of god creates more questions and problems than it seeks to answer. Furthermore, sceptics may state that the fact one claims to have had a religious experience does not mean that god exists. Just because a person believes god is there (epistemology) does not mean that God is actually there (ontology). You need something more than the ‘feeling’ of religious experience for the verification of this. The argument may form a part of a proof but it often combines with other proofs, the argument is not sufficient alone.
The Puzzle of God page 101