Religious Experience; The Argument

Religious Experience; The Argument

1. 'If there is a God there are likely to be experiences of him. There are religious experiences, therefore there is a God'

   • These two sentences are not logically linked

2. William James

   • Took a pyschological approach; religious experiences indicated the probability of God
   • Interested in the effects of religious experience on people's lives
     • The validity of a religious experience rests upon the effects it produces
       • Are lives changed?
       • Does it work opposed to is it true?
   • The phenomena of religious experiences point to a higher order of reality

3. Richard SWINBURNE

   • Defence for Religious Experience
     • Principle of Credulity
       • We must accept what appears to be the case unless we have clear evidence to the contrary
       • Might mean that you have good reason to doubt the person, you prove that God does not exist
         • Or you show that the experience was not caused by God
     • Principle of Testimony
       • Unless we have positive evidence that they are misremembering or are untrustworthy, we should believe the testimony of the experience
         • 'Other things being equal, we usually think that what others tell us that they perceived probably happened'