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Religious Experience and the existence of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Selwyn Gross OP
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Philosphers of religion sometimes appeal to religious experiences as evidence for the existence of God. To take one notable and philosophically sophisticated example, Professor Swinburne argues that religious experience constitutes good C-inductive ground for belief in the existence of God; and that the contribution of the argument from religious experience to the ensemble of arguments for the existence of God as a whole makes the ensemble a good P-inductive rather than just a C-inductive argument. This is a substantial claim: a C-inductive argument merely adds to the probability of some claim, without making it more probable than not. A P-inductive argument, by contrast, establishes that the probability of the claim it defends is greater than fifty percent.

Not all religious experience is covered by Swinburne’s claim. Non-theistic experiences and theistic experiences not claiming to be of God are excluded from this discussion. This article will deal with unequivocal claims to have had experience of God, not with weaker claims (to have had an experience as of God touching one, for example). Weaker claims might be indefeasible, but offer little joy for the theist. Univocal claims, by contrast, are non-trivially true if true at all.

What marks an experience as an experience of God? H.P. Owen’s definition of God as ‘the Creator, who is infinite, self-existent, incorporeal, eternal, immutable, impassible, simple, perfect, omniscient and omnipotent’ is useful in answering this question. A claim to have had an experience of an infinite, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent being, say, is a claim to have had an experience of God: here, a sufficient number of attributes secures the identification.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 69 , Issue 815 , April 1988 , pp. 168 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 The terms ‘C‐inductive’ and ‘P‐inductive’ (‘conclusion‐inductive’ and ‘premise‐inductive’), formulated by Richard Swinburne, sound more formidable than the distinction between the forces of inductive arguments to which they refer. In contrast to deductive arguments, which, given the truth of their premises and the validity of their logical form, establish with certainty the truth of the conclusion they present, inductive arguments establish degrees of probability that something or other is the case. As such, they proffer empirical evidence of some sort or other for the conclusion which they seek to defend, and can differ in the degree of credibility which they inspire. A report by someone prone to paralytic bouts of drunkenness claiming to have seen the Loch Ness monster in the course of a party at the Loch would not inspire credence: it would not count as an inductive argument of any kind. A new photograph of some distant monster‐like object in Loch Ness taken by a tourist of sober character would inspire greater credibility. It is unlikely that it would warrant the judgment that it is more likely than not that Nessie exists. It would nevertheless constitute an addition to the body of evidence for the existence of Nessie, perhaps raising the liklihood that the monster exists from 3% to 5%. As such, it is C‐inductive proof, part of the C‐inductive argument for the existence of Nessie. C‐inductive proof increases the likelihood that some state‐of‐affairs obtains without making it more likely than not. It leaves the likelihood of a claim less slender than it was before, but still slender for all that. P‐inductive proofs, by contrast, establish that it is more likely than not that the state‐of‐affairs they present does obtain. Were a scrupulously scientific expedition to produce subterranean photographs of a monster‐like creature lurking at the bottom of Loch Ness, or sonar‐echo material usually associated with sea monsters, this would constitute a P‐inductive argument for the existence of Nessie if a more plausible explanation was not available. For a discussion of C‐inductive and P‐inductive arguments, see Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford, 1979), chapter 1. For an analysis of the distinction in terms of Bayes’ Theorem, see Swinburne, pp. 15–19. For Swinburne's assessment of the inductive force of the ensemble of arguments for the existence of God, see ibid., p. 290f.

2 Owen, H.P., Concepts of Deity (London, 1971), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Swinburne, pp. 254–276.

4 Swinburne, p. 290 f.

5 On the development of jh āna and the nimitta in Theravada Buddhist meditation, see Vajirånāna, , Buddhist Meditation (Kuala Lumpur: Buddhist Missionary Society, 1975), p. 32ffGoogle Scholar. and p. 248ff. A less technical discussion can be found in Saddhatissa, , The Buddha's Way (London, 1971)pp. 76–79Google Scholar. For the appearance of the nimitta to someone unversed in the theory of meditation, see Hamilton‐Marritt, J., A Meditator's Diary, (Harmondsworth 1979), pp. 40–49Google Scholar.