RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
A2 Presentation
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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.
RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE
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Religious Experience has been
argued to be ground for belief in
God.
Kant rejected the possibility of
such experiences as he argued
that we do not have the senses to
experience God.
The blind woman in Millet’s
painting can experience her
daughter’s hair and the sound of
music as she has the sense
organs to do so but she cannot
experience the rainbow which she
cannot see.
Similarly, for Kant, humans do not
have the senses to experience
God since God belongs in the
noumenal realm – God is not an
object in space and time.
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?
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-To be effective, an argument must show
why some of the above should be seen as
good evidence when other types of
claimed experiences are rejected.
THE INTERNAL/
EXTERNAL SPLIT
St. Teresa was sure she had
experienced God and had been
pierced by His dart. But how
does one separate:
- INTERNAL: ‘I had an
experience of it seeming to me
that God pierced my heart with
his dart.’
- EXTERNAL - e.g. ‘God pierced
my heart with his dart'
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There is a gap between
appearance and reality – e.g.:
- The sun going round the earth
- A stick appearing bent in water
- An oasis in the desert.
Even in the Acts of The Apostles,
the reports of Paul’s conversion
experience differ…
Paul’s Conversion experience (1)
Acts 9:4 – 8 “He fell to the ground and heard a
voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me?’
 He said, ‘Who are you, sir?’ The reply came, ‘I am
Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
 Now get up and go into the city and you will be
told what you must do.’
 The men who were travelling with him stood
speechless, for they heard the voice but could see
no one.
 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened
his eyes he could see nothing; so they led him by
the hand and brought him to Damascus.”
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Paul’s conversion experience (2)
Acts 22.6 – 10 “’On that journey as I drew near to
Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky
suddenly shone around me.
I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me,
'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'
I replied, 'Who are you, sir?' And he said to me, 'I am
Jesus the Nazarean whom you are persecuting.'
My companions saw the light but did not hear the
voice of the one who spoke to me.
I asked, 'What shall I do, sir?' The Lord answered me,
'Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will
be told about everything appointed for you to do.’”
Paul’s Conversion experience (3)
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Acts 26:13 “At midday, along the way, O king, I saw a
light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining
around me and my travelling companions. We all fell
to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in
Hebrew, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It
is hard for you to kick against the goad.' And I said,
'Who are you, sir?' And the Lord replied, 'I am Jesus
whom you are persecuting. Get up now, and stand
on your feet. I have appeared to you for this purpose,
to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you
have seen (of me) and what you will be shown. I shall
deliver you from this people and from the Gentiles to
whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may
turn from darkness to light and from the power of
Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of
sins and an inheritance among those who have been
consecrated by faith in me.”
TYPES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
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There are various ways of categorising religious
experience. Richard Swinburne provides one way he lists five types:
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PUBLIC EXPERIENCES:
– 1) Ordinary, interpreted experience – e.g. night
sky (Wisdom’s Gardener)
– 2) Extraordinary experience – Jesus walking on
water
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PRIVATE EXPERIENCE
– 3) Describable in normal language (Jacob’s
ladder)
– 4) Not describable in normal language (mystical
– cf The Wind in the Willows – next slide)
– 5) No specific experience (for instance when the
whole of a believer’s life is seen in a certain way)
EXTRACT FROM ‘THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS’
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'Breathless and transfixed, the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid
run of that glad piping broke in on him like a wave, caught him up,
and possessed him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade's
cheeks, and bowed his head and understood... "This is the place of
my song-dream, the place the music played to me," whispered the
Rat, as if in a trance. "Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere,
surely we shall find Him!" Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe
fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his
head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic
terror - indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy - but it was
an awe that smote and held him and, without seeking, he knew it
could only mean that some August Presence was very, very near.
With difficulty he turned to look at his friend, and saw him at his
side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was
utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them;
and still the light grew and grew....
"Rat!" he found breath to whisper, shaking. "Are you afraid?“
"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
"Afraid of HIM? O, never, never! And yet - and yet - O, Mole, I
am afraid!“
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads
and did worship.
Bridging the External/ Internal gap
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Richard Swinburne puts forward two principles:
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1) THE PRINCIPLE OF CREDULITY
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maintains that it is a principle of rationality that
(in the absence of special considerations) if it
seems to a person that X is present, then
probably X is present. What one seems to
perceive is probably so.
2) THE PRINCIPLE OF TESTIMONY
maintains that, in the absence of special
considerations, it is reasonable to believe that
the experiences of others are probably as they
report them.
PRIOR PROBABILITY
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Assessment of PRIOR PROBABILITY is
vital to the argument. If the existence of the
Loch Ness monster or UFO’s is highly
improbable, then one will be highly
sceptical of reports to have seen them.
 Swinburne claims that there is a
reasonable probability of God’s existence
if all the other arguments are taken into
account. None of these other arguments
prove God’s existence but, he claims, they
make God’s existence more probable than
not.
DIFFERENT ARGUMENTS building a cumulative case?
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The idea of the Universe having a cause is
more probable than it being uncaused
(Cosmological Argument)
 The sheer improbability of the earth ‘just
happening’ is so low that there must have
been a designer (the Design Argument)
 Human sense of moral order requires a
source of this morality (Moral Argument)
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HOWEVER each of these conclusions
can be challenged….
ANTONY FLEW
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Flew rejects the accumulation of arguments
by his ‘ten leaky buckets’ analogy. He
claimed (30 years before Swinburne) that
ten deeply flawed arguments do not make
one good one.
 The issue is whether the various arguments
are deeply flawed or whether, taken
together, they do serve to make what Basil
Mitchell called a ‘CUMULATIVE CASE’.
 It is important to recognise that the
Religious experience argument does not
stand on his own – it depends on the prior
probability of God’s existence being
established.
THE OXFORD RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE RESEARCH UNIT
This unit found that between about 30
and 45% of the population of Britain,
irrespective of age, geographical position
or even of belief say that they have been
aware of a presence or power beyond
themselves.
 David Hay’s book ‘Inner Space’ records
that many of the people interviewed had
never previously spoken about their
experiences because they thought that
others would make fun of them or would
not understand.
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CHALLENGES AGAINST RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE (1):
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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.
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The Conflicting Claims challenge Contd.
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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)
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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.
CHALLENGES AGAINST RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE (4)
The anti-realist challenge
 This claims that there are no direct
experiences of God – instead religious
experiences are the way the world is
seen by a religious believer. One ’learns
to find God in all things’ and this learning
process depends on your framework.
 However this is to reject the individual
experiences of the divine set out, for
instance, by William James.
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WILLIAM JAMES
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William James’ book ‘Varieties of
Religious Experience’ is possibly the most
influential book on such experiences this
century (incidentally it had a very
considerable influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein).
James gives a classic definition of religious
experience as:
’the feelings, acts and experiences of
individual men in their solitude, so far as
they apprehend themselves to stand in
relation to whatever they may consider the
divine.’ (Varieties of Religious Experience. P. 34)
James maintains that underneath all religious
creeds and dogmas lies the primary experience of
the Divine. The creeds and dogmas are then
overlaid on the primary experience.
William James gives four Marks of
Religious Experience
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1) Ineffability (mysticism like love needs to be
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2) Noetic quality (mystics speak of revelations
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3) Transiency (mystical experiences last for a
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4) Passivity (where the experience is beyond the
directly experienced in order to be understood);
and illuminations which are held to provide
knowledge and transcend rational categories);
short time but '.....modify the inner life of the
subject between the times of their occurrence') and
individual's control and cannot be obtained by
effort; it is a gift.)
PROFESSOR NICHOLAS LASH
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Nicholas Lash, of Cambridge University,
has been one of the foremost Catholic
theologians in Britain.
 In his book ‘Easter in Ordinary’, he fiercely
attacks William James’ whole conception
of Religious Experience.
 Lash rejects the whole idea that God can
be experienced directly in the way that
James claims. To hold this, he says, is to
make religion depend on a few privileged
‘pattern setters’.
 Instead Lash puts forward a different view
– that God is experienced in the everyday
events of life.
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NICHOLAS LASH
Lash rejects the ‘dualistic cartesianism still lurking
at the back of the Christian mind’
God, he says, is ONLY experienced in the everyday
(hence the title of his book ‘Easter in Ordinary’)
He says………
‘... in action and discourse patterned by the frame of
reference provided by the creed, we learn to find God
in all life, all freedom, all creativity and vitality, and in
each particular beauty, each unexpected attainment
of relationship and community... To speak of “spirit”
as “God” is to ascribe all creativity and conversion,
all fresh life and freedom, to divinity.’ (Nicholas Lash. Easter in
Ordinary P. 267)
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Peter Vardy holds that this view could be consistent
with an anti-realist understanding of religious
experience whereby one learns to see the world in a
religious way as a result of schooling and ‘formation’
into a religious tradition.
Religious experience as a learned
interpretation of the world
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If it is held that God cannot be experienced
directly and, instead, that an individual
learns to see the world in a religious way –
then religious experience can no longer be
held to underpin faith.
 Rather, religious experience then becomes
a product of faith.
 A religious believer is educated or trained
to see the world in terms of the religious
form of life he or she occupies and in the
categories endorsed by this form of life.
WILLIAM ALSTON
Concentrates on direct experiences of God
which exclude, for instance, being aware
of God ‘through the beauties of nature,
the words of the Bible or a sermon’.
 These experiences are most likely to be
plausibly regarded as presentations of God
to the individual (St. Teresa says that
God ‘presents Himself to the soul by a
knowledge brighter than the sun’).
 Alston
concentrates
on
non-sensory
experiences as, since God is held to be
purely spiritual, a non-sensory experience
has a greater chance of presenting God as
God is than a sensory experience.
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Alston - 2
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Alston rejects the limitation of the five senses
suggested by Kant:
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‘Why should we suppose that the possibilities of
experiential givenness, for human beings or
otherwise, are exhausted by the powers of our five
senses?’
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Animals, he claims, have senses wider than ours so
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Alston advocates a ‘perceptual model’ of mystical
experience - something presents itself to us. We
may ‘see’ it differently depending on our
perceptual schemes and prior assumptions, but he
claims there is something that presents itself to us.
‘…why can’t we envisage presentations that do not
stem from the activity of any physical sense
organs, as is apparently the case with mystical
perception?’
Alston’s Perceptual model
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The ‘perceptual model’ relies on a ‘theory of
appearing’ in which:
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‘... perceiving X simply consists in X’s appearing to
one, or being presented to one, as so-and-so.
That’s all there is to it.....’
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To perceive X is simply for X to appear to one in a
certain way. Alston says there are three
conditions that must be met if X is to appear:
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1. X must exist
2. X must make an important causal contribution
to the experience of X, and
3. That perceiving X must give rise to beliefs
about X.
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Results of the perceptual model
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Alston recognizes that to show perceptual
experiences are genuine would first mean
showing that God exists [see (1)].
What he aims to show is the following:
– 1) Mystical experience is the right sort of
perception to provide a genuine perception of
God if the other requirements are met, and
– 2) There is no bar in principle to these other
requirements being satisfied if God does exist.
Crucially he says: ‘This adds up to a defense of
the thesis that it is quite possible that humans do
sometimes perceive God if God is ‘there’ to be
perceived. In other words, the thesis defended is
that IF God exists, then mystical experience is
quite properly thought of as mystical perception.’
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Alston’s House
God is experienced as speaking, comforting,
forgiving and also as good, powerful, loving,
compassionate, etc… How can these attributes be
known? Alston’s claim is that when we see a more
ordinary object like a person we may say ‘she looks
like Susie’ or ‘the music sounds like Bach’ - we
proceed by making comparisons. Similarly in the
case of experiences of God we make comparisons
of how things seem to us.
Alston accepts that believers make use of their
prior frameworks but claims we do this with normal
experience. If he sees his house from 50000 ft, he
sees his house and he may learn something new but
it would basically be as he expected his house to
look. Similarly God is experienced as believers
expect God to be experienced - there is no
difference between ordinary experiences and
religious ones.
What does Alston achieve?
Alston’s argument does not seek to
prove God exists, but rather to show
that if one believes in God, then it is
reasonable to accept that religious
experiences are from God.
 However the key problem is the word
‘if’ – in other words, the conclusion
that God is experienced depends on
one’s prior beliefs.
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SO MUCH DEPENDS ON ONE’S
PRE-SUPPOSITIONS……..
If one believes in God, if God is real
within the ‘form of life’ of the believing
community’, then the whole world may
be seen as being imbued with God’s
presence.
 St. Francis saw the whole world as
reflecting the presence of God.
 However this is NOT the same as
saying that religious experiences
establish the claims that God exists
independently of the created
universe…..
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Having said all this….
Many throughout the world are convinced
that they have been in the presence of God.
Many have staked their lives on such belief.
 Such individuals are often intelligent,
thoughtful, compassionate and deep – not
the sort of people who would lie or be readily
dismissed. Their testimony may not
constitute proof but, at the least, it deserves
to be taken very seriously and not discarded.
 Hamlet said ‘There are more things in heaven
and earth Horatio, than are dreamt at in your
philosophy’.
 Religious experience may well point to a
divine ‘other’ the possibility of which, in a
materialistic age, is too often ignored.