Religious experiences are by their very nature preternatural; experiences that are out of the ordinary, they are beyond the natural order of things. They include psychopathological states such as psychoses, forms of altered awareness and religious experience (Charlsworth: 1988).
Not all preternatural experiences are considered religious experiences. Following Habels definition, psychopathological or drug induced states of awareness are not considered to be religious experiences because they are mostly not performed within the context at a particular religious tradition.
This leads me on to talk about William James’s ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ (1902). James talks about five different types of religious experience. Ineffability; the experience is so unlike anything else that the person cannot describe it to anyone else, James uses the expressions ‘the dissolution of the personal ego’ and ‘a sense of peace and sacredness’ and says that these are meaningless to anyone who has not had such an experience. Noetic Quality; Despite their apparently inexpressible nature, such experiences produce a sense of insight into truths that are not attainable by the intellect alone. These truths are attained through instinct and perception rather then being understood through reason and intellectual discussion. They are eternal and universal, rather the trivial. Transiency; the experience lasts a short time. The memory of the experience dulls with time, though the experience is instantly recalled should it happen again. It is a part of a series of experiences that progress towards increased understanding of the truths being revealed. The experience leaves the person with a sense of the importance of the experience. Passivity; this is a sense of powerlessness in the face of the experience. People have spoken of a sense of being taken over by some ultimate divine. James goes on to say that often the person can appear completely out of control eg. Speaking in tongues or prophetic speech are associated with religious experience. The experience may not be particularly spectacular – simply a sense that the ‘penny has dropped’, a growing sense of awareness of a truth that has been unknown for some time. It could also be a completely life changing experience that cause the person to lose consciousness; James noted that most religious experiences occur when a person is conscious – the person is able to tell that they are not simply experiencing a dream. He also noted that it is possible that the experiences that he recorded could have been induced through the influence of drugs or alcohol. Referring back to the question, is religious experience all in the mind of the believer, William James argues that religious experiences cannot simply be discounted – no more then everyday ones can be. For instance, if we say that St.Paul was an epileptic, and try and account for his visions in that way, we also have to explain how certain acceptable everyday states of mind may also resemble types of mental illness – think of love.
One of the evidentialist’s arguments is that you should never believe anything on insufficient evidence. What I have to ask is what would be sufficient evidence? William James said ‘sometimes you should believe even when there is insufficient evidence. If Christianity is going to make a real difference to someone’s life then they cannot wait for the evidence.’ This leads me on to talk about doubting Thomas; Thomas doubts the of Jesus and demands to feel Jesus' wounds before being convinced - ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’(John 20.25) This reference shows that for Thomas belief was not enough, he had to see and touch it before he could believe; this is even after he had seen Jesus perform all his miracles and signs etc. Through Thomas’ refusal to believe that Jesus had risen, it proves this situation where believing seems to be unthinkable without seeing, without direct physical evidence and verification. For Thomas it was not sufficient evidence for belief by hearing that Jesus had risen from his fellow disciples and friends.
The Toronto blessing is a modern example of a corporate religious experience. Dave Roberts writes about the experience of the Elim Pentecostal Church in Loughborough: ‘He went to the normal 9:15am service… things suddenly became different… there was a tremendous awe, and the sense of the presence of God… people began to fall under the power of God… there was a lot of crying and a lot of heart-searching… God was obviously present.’ In a crowd of like minded individuals, it is arguably easy to be swept along the tide of emotion and to feel compelled to be sharing the same experience as fellow worshipers. I agree with this statement, I feel that this might have occurred during the Toronto blessing and that the people did not really have a religious experience but rather was swept up in the crowd. This could have happened by the techniques of lighting, music and repetition of words having a physical and psychological effect on the people, this is the sort of thing that can be misinterpreted as a religious experience of the divine.
The argument from religious experience is the argument from the experiences of God to the existence of God. In its strong form, this argument asserts that it is only possible to experience that which exists, and so that the phenomenon of religious experience demonstrates the existence of God, people experience God, therefore their must be a God; case closed. In its weaker form, the argument asserts only that a religious experience constitutes evidence for Gods existence. As I have articulated earlier this form of the argument has been defended by Richard Swinburne with an appeal to the principal of credulity.
As well as Richard Swinburne’s principal of credulity he also came up with his principal of testimony which claims that it is reasonable to accept that other people usually tell the truth. So, in the absence of special considerations, it is reasonable to believe the reports of those who claim to have religious experiences. To simplify we should believe a person unless we have good reason not to (i.e. innocent until proven guilty). An example of religious experience is Saul’s conversion from a fierce critic to a loyal supporter of the way (Christianity). Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians when Jesus appeared to him (Acts (9:1-11). On the basis of Swinburne’s principal of credulity we must accept that the experience of Saul’s conversion, as recorded in the bible, is something that has a historical basis. The implication here is that we also have to assume that the experience has been reliably recorded by the author of the acts and is faithful, in respects to the experience that Saul really has. In critically evaluating Saul’s experience you see that Saul is a highly intelligent man (‘… I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers’ Acts 22:3) motivated by strong Jewish convictions that all followers of the Christian faith were wrong. To me Saul seems to have had a definite hate for the Christians, so I do have to ask; why then convert? The only possible reason I can come up with is the experience he claimed to have had. But even though he claimed to have it, it does not answer the question is the religious experience all in the mind? It may be that Saul had an epileptic seizure or even a mental breakdown, however such hypothesis are just that – hypothesis. Just because one can conjure all manor of alternatives to the bare facts does not mean that these alternatives are any more or less nearer to the truth than the belief that this was a genuine experience.
Atheist Michael Martin has criticised Swinburne’s principal of credulity. If, as Swinburne suggests, experiences are generally to be treated as veridical, i.e. as accurately representing the world, then this allows an argument from the absence of religious experience to be constructed. An atheist who experiences the absence of God can argue, using the principal of credulity, that the world is probably as this experience represents it as being i.e. Godless. Arguments from religious experiences to the existence of God can thus be met with arguments from atheist experiences to the non-existence of God; which will result in, presumably, a tie, other things being equal. Swinburne responds to this objection by arguing that this negative principal of credulity is false. Swinburne carefully states his positive principal of credulity – if it seems to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present – so that it does not apply to experiences of absences. The negative principal – if it seems to a subject that x is not present then x is probably not present – he rejects. This negative principal, he suggests, would only be a good one in cases where it is reasonable to believe that if x were present then the subject would experience x. there is no reason, however, to suppose that if God existed then the atheist would experience him, and so the negative principal of credulity does not apply to atheists’ experiences of the absence of God.
Peter Vardy in ‘The Puzzle of God’ also criticises Swinburne’s principal of credulity. He talks about sighting a UFO, ‘great number of people have claimed to have seen a UFO, however, most of us are rightly sceptical abut such claims’ I agree with Peter Vardy here because if I thought I had seen a UFO I would immediately try and think of other explanations. Vardy goes on to talk about this in more detail saying that if he were to think he saw a UFO he would seek confirmation from radar stations and from other people who might have seen it before admitting that what he saw was, indeed, a UFO. What he is saying here is that he would have to be very sure about the experience before accepting that it was indeed what it appeared to be. He felt that it does not make him unduly sceptical – just cautious about such an odd experience. Overall Peter Vardy says that the principal of credulity is attractive but its position is a good deal less straightforward then it is made to appear.
The problem of verifying religious experience is an old one. St. Teresa of Avila was accused of being in league with evil spirits, but argued that her vision was of divine origin. St. Teresa was known as a passionate mystic and claimed to have visions, she had no doubt that she had experienced Jesus. ‘Although this vision is imaginary I never saw it with the eyes of the body; only with the eyes of the soul.’ I feel I have to consider St. Teresa’s background before I can determine whether or not I believe her, I believe because she was such a ‘passionate mystic’ the so called experiences may have been self induced because of lack of food etc. Similar to St. Teresa is of that of Jesus because he also was accused of being in league with evil spirits because he was able to cast out spirits. It seems that the notion of origin, where these experiences come from, is all important when we consider whether such an experience is proof or not of Gods existence. Descartes highlighted many of the problems when he showed just how uncertain most of our everyday perceptions were, let alone those of supposed divine origin. Thomas Hobbs (1588-1679) similarly asked how it was possible to know whether God spoke to you in a dream or you dreamt that God spoke to you. A further issue is raised by A.R.Ayer (1910-89) when he pointed out that mystical experiences are usually only descriptive of the inner experience of the person who has them, not of the objective existence of the being who is said to produce them i.e. God.
In the book ‘Philosophy of Religion’ by Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer & Edwin Tate it says religious experience is where you ‘conjure up a wide and diverse series of images, from things like prayer to attending a service and hearing the word of God.’ This is a non empirical occurrence and may even be perceived as supernatural. It also can be described as a mental event which is undergone by an individual, and of which that person is aware. Such an experience can be spontaneous or it may be brought about as a result of intensive training and self discipline. An example of this is the practises of the Sufi orders of Islam, or Buddhist mystical experience that has been explained earlier.
To conclude I think that religious experience is all in the mind. This is because if I look back at Swinburne’s principal of credulity it seems to me that he only takes a belief of God point of view into consideration and he rejects that some sort of atheist experience is evidence of no God i.e. it is very one sided. I think in some cases the person thinks that the experience is God when really it isn’t; they only want it to be God because God is made out to be all powerful and all loving, and the person feels that their life would become better if they were a part of that. An example of this could be the conversion of Nicky Cruz (1938), a gangster turned Christian He said he had some sort of religious experience and because of it turned to God. Now this could be that he did actually have an experience of God, but what I believe is that he obviously had psychological problems from his childhood because he wasn’t in a stable relationship with his parents and therefore when this priest went out of his way to help him without wanting anything in return, Nicky saw him as a father figure and realized he wanted to belong somewhere, this place being with God. Sigmund Freud (1858-1939) believed that religion is ‘a universal obsessional neurosis’ which is demonstrating on what I think on Nicky Cruz. Freud thought that religious experiences are the manifestation of psychological needs. And that religion is nothing more then an illusion created by people to enable them to cope with the haunting fear of death and alienation. From examining this question I have come to the conclusion that yes, religious experience is all in the mind.
