Chapter  3: Philosophy of Religion

Proofs for the Existence of God

Arguments based upon Human Experience

Here is an overview of this section of the chapter :

I. Introduction

II. The Questions

III. The Mystical Experience

IV. Problems with Religious Experiences

V. FINAL QUESTIONS:

I. Introduction

Arguments or proofs based upon experience come in two basic forms

A. Direct Experience

i.       Encounter with the supernatural

ii.     Mystical experience- union with the deity/ supernatural

B. Indirect Experience

Miracles

The heart of religion is in the religious experience. Just what is it and what can be deduced from it?

For many religious people there is in the center of their religious nature the feeling that there is something more than their individual consciousness could contact. There is a sense of something "more" or bigger than anything in the known universe. This issues into a hypothesis or idea of a supernatural reality or dimension of reality beyond that which normal sensation can encounter.

 A Religious experience is an encounter of a human being with a supernatural being, be it a deity or an emissary or intermediary for the deity, nevertheless a spiritual entity.

It is a numinal experience. Religious experiences are for the most part, individual and esoteric.

 The MYSTICAL experience is a particular variety of religious experience in which the subject is transformed and reports the loss of individuality, the oneness of all reality, union with the deity, the unity of the subject of the experience with the object of the experience.

The commonalities in such experience around the world is termed the consensus mysticum.

It has been described by Rudolph Otto as involving an experience characterized as being tremendum et fascinans

II. The Questions

The questions are:

Is the subject of a religious experience justified inferring from the psychological experience to the existential or the ontological reality of the object of that experience: the supernatural being?

Is anyone else justified in reaching the conclusion that a supernatural being exists based upon the report of the individual who has made the claim to have had the religious experience?

Does the accumulation of reports from such witnesses to religious experiences justify the claim that a supernatural or spiritual being, a deity, a transcendent reality , exists?

III. The Mystical Experience

The MYSTICAL experience is a particular variety of religious experience in which the subject is transformed and reports the loss of individuality, the oneness of all reality, union with the deity, the unity of the subject of the experience with the object of the experience. It is an experience which posits the oneness of all reality and the unity of all. In particular, the Mystical Experience involves the unity of the subject with its object(the deity, the totality).

 The commonalities in such experience around the world is termed the consensus mysticum.

It has been described by Rudolph Otto as involving an experience characterized as being tremendum et fascinans

William James has described such experiences as having the following characteristics:

·       Ineffable noetic

·       Antinaturalistic transient

·       Passive pantheistic

·       optimistic

James held that such experiences are powerful and lead the subject of such an experience to a belief in a supernatural entity.

James held:

1. Mystical states are authoritative over the individual who has the experience

2. Mystical states have NO authority over individuals who have not had such an experience

3. Mystical states break down the authority of ordinary consciousness and sense knowledge. Such states offer hypotheses which others may ignore

Such religious experiences have consequences for those who encounter them. They issue into feelings and actions.

Notes on William James, Varieties of Religious Experience

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/socsci/philosophy/religion/james.htm

The text of Varieties of Religious Experience

http://www.psychwww.com/psyrelig/james/toc.htm

Notes on Rudolph Otto’s Experience of the Holy

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/socsci/philosophy/religion/otto.htm

Notes on Martin Buber’s I and Thou

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/socsci/philosophy/religion/buber.htm

IV. Problems with Religious Experiences

Not all who learn of the reports of such religious experiences accept them as conclusive evidence for the existence of a supernatural reality or spiritual beings. Many have attempted to give alternative accounts of such experiences that do not involve acceptance of the existence of any supernatural entities or reality.

Naturalism is an approach to religious experiences which explains them as being the result of natural forces. It accounts for such phenomena in natural terms without recourse to anything that is beyond the physical realm. In general, all reality and all experiences can be accounted for (fully explained) in terms of physical processes.

There are different explanations for the origin and nature of religious experiences. What they have in common is the rejection of a supernatural source or object and the attempt to offer a full explanation in empirically verifiable terms.

 Psychological explanations have been offered by several theoreticians, including Sigmund Freud. Sociological explanations have also been developed by several other scientists, such as Emil Durkheim. What they have in common is the refusal to accept religious experiences as being truthful, accurate, or believable in so far as the existence of any supernatural reality. One of the principle reasons for withholding acceptance of the reports is that the experiences can not be verified and what they report encountering can not be verified empirically.

 ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS  

When people hear of those who claim to have seen god or an angel or have heard a voice or were instructed by god to kill their child, most people are inclined to think that the claim is not an accurate and truthful report.  Most tend not to believe the person making the claim.  Most people would be inclined to suspect one or more of the following factors are the more likely explanation of the claim other than that the claim is accurate and true.

1. Persons think that they are telling the truth but they are mistaken, e.g., optical illusion, misinterpretation..

2. Persons think that they are telling the truth but they are under the influence of mind altering substances

3. Persons think that they are telling the truth but they are suffering from brain malfunctioning, e.g., chemical imbalance

4. Persons think that they are telling the truth but they are under the influence of group influence-social psychology

5. Persons are making a false report to get attention from believers

6.Persons are making a false report to raise money from donations to their cause or movement.

7.Persons are making a false report to please others and gain acceptance from believers.

8.Persons are making a false report to get power, perhaps as a leader of a religious cult or sect.  

Question: 

Are the reports concerning these religious experiences veridical (truthful and accurate)?

1.What is the scientific analysis of the religious experiences ?

2.What are the genetic and causal conditions of religious experiences ?

-in the human race ?

-in the individual?

3.Is the religious experience veridical? Is it truthful? Is it a report which others can accept as being Correct? Truthful? Accurate?

Humans should accept religious experiences as being veridical UNLESS there exists positive grounds for thinking otherwise, for thinking that the reports are not truthful, accurate or correct.

Some claim that there are positive grounds for rejecting the reports of such experiences, i.e., against their being veridical experiences

1.     mystics are abnormal: they tend to be sexually repressed

2.     mystical experience is always mixed with other elements such as sexual emotion or imagery

In response to these observations some offer that perhaps the human being must be in an altered state of consciousness in order to have the experience of the greater (supernatural) reality which the ordinary consciousness can not contain or reach. Sexual abstinence may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for having such an encounter.

C.D. Broad

C.D. Broad notes that reports or descriptions of these religious experiences involve concepts and beliefs that are:

1.     inadequate to the facts

2.     highly confused

3.     mixed with error and nonsense

4.     subject to change in time

Broad notes that these features are also true of scientific concepts and beliefs and that they have and do change in time.

Here is a skeptical view of the mystical experiences that offers a series of explanations of what may induce such experiences and presents then as hallucinations of a particular nature.

Perhaps religious experiences are not pure delusions or illusions. Perhaps religious experiences are only encountered by those who have an ability to experience them. Perhaps there are people, even many people, who are "deaf" to such experiences.  

Wallace Matson:

If the subject of a religious experience is to be believed there are certain requirements to be met. Any perception of an individual should be publicly confirmed. No private experience can establish the existence of God. You would first need to establish the existence of God by other means on order to confirm that what was experienced was both God and True.

 No indescribable experience can be publicly confirmed

No mystical experience can be publicly confirmed.

Mystics appear similar to people who are deluded, or mentally ill, not adjusted to reality. Their claims can not be accepted without evidence. But you can not have evidence without a prior belief in God.

To confirm what any subject is experiencing there must be "checkable" statements.

Similar to a blind person confirming what a sighted person sees.

With the religious experiences there are no such "checkable" statements, so there can be no confirmation. Hence, they can not serve as a proof of the existence of supernatural entities because they are not veridical.

Gary Gutting

The claim is made that in order to establish the veridical nature of religious claims there are three criteria to be met:

1.     many should have the experience

2.     it should exist in different cultures

3.     the experience should produce a major transformation involving ,in part, the moral life of the individual

Gary Gutting claims that the three conditions are met by reports of religious experiences and so they do provide a justification for belief in a supernatural being, a deity, God.

 Louis P. Pojman:

There is both a strong justification and a weak justification to be offered that Religious experiences do provide evidence of the existence of a supernatural entity, a deity.

Strong: this argument would be so strong as to oblige all people to believe in God.

Weak: this justification provides rational support only for those who have had such an experience (or already accepted the world view that holds such experiences are possible)

 Pojman argues against such a strong argument

1.     the reports are too amorphous

2.     they reports are circular- acceptance of them depends on background belief in God

3.     reports are not capable of being confirmed as with perceptual experiences

thus, they are not checkable, not predictable  

V. FINAL QUESTIONS:

Are there reasons to think that the reports of religious experiences are not reliable?

Can the reports be accepted as being true?

Can they be verified?

Do they need to be?

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© Copyright Philip A. Pecorino 2000. All Rights reserved.