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The Devotional Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Caroline Franks Davis
Caroline Franks Davis
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford
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Extract

The notions of a ‘devotional experiment’ and an ‘experimental faith’ have been unduly neglected in the philosophy of religion. There seems to be a widespread assumption that experiments in spiritual matters are impossible in principle; the hypotheses in question simply do not lend themselves to empirical testing. This is unfortunate, since any discussion of these notions inevitably sheds light on such central issues as the nature of faith and belief, the rational evaluation of belief systems, and the evidential force of religious experiences.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 15 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 15 note 1 Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 204–10.Google Scholar Other relevant sections are pp. 200–3 on Pascal's Wager and chapter to, ‘Religious experience and natural histories of religion’.

page 15 note 2 James, William, ‘The will to believe’, in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New Vork, Longmans Green, 1902), pp. 1–31.Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 James, , pp. I–2.Google Scholar

page 16 note 2 Ibid. pp. 27–8.

page 18 note 1 Hardy, Sir Alister, The Spiritual Nature of Man (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 139–41.Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 James, , p. 6.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 Ibid. p. 2.

page 19 note 3 On the need for a ‘principle of tenacity’ see Mitchell, Basil, The Justification of Religious Belief (New York, OUP, 1981), pp. 122–6.Google Scholar

page 19 note 4 James, , p. 21.Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 Mackie, , p. 210.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 Mitchell, Basil, ‘Faith and reason: a false antithesis?’, Religious Studies, XVI (1980), 131–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 20 note 3 Quoted by James, , p. 8Google Scholar; Clifford's arguments can be found in ‘The ethics of belief’ in his Lectures and Essays (London, Macmillan, 1879).Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 Mackie, , p. 208.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 James, , p. 25.Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Ibid. p. 28.

page 22 note 3 Ibid.

page 23 note 1 Mackie, , p. 209.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 Ibid.

page 24 note 2 Festinger, L. and Carlsmith, J. M., ‘Cognitive consequences of forced compliance’, journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, LVIII (1959), 203–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 25 note 1 See the discussion in Harré, R. and Secord, P. F., The Explanation of Social Behaviour (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1972), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar