The argument from religious experience is an argument for the

existence of God The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the exis ...

. It holds that the best explanation for

religious experiences A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense ag ...

is that they constitute genuine experience or perception of a divine reality. Various reasons have been offered for and against accepting this contention. Contemporary defenders of the argument are

Richard Swinburne Richard Granville Swinburne (; born 26 December 1934) is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years, Swinburne has been a proponent of philosophical arguments for the e ...

, William Alston,

Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving theory of justification, epistemic ...

, and

Alister Hardy Sir Alister Clavering Hardy (10 February 1896 – 22 May 1985) was a British Marine biology, marine biologist, an expert on marine ecosystems spanning organisms from zooplankton to whales. He had the artistic skill to illustrate his books with h ...

Outline

In essence, the argument's structure is as follows: # There are compelling reasons for believing that claims of

religious experience A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjectivity, subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, a ...

point to and validate spiritual realities that exist in a way that transcends material manifestation; # According to

materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...

, nothing exists in a way that transcends material manifestation; # According to

classical theism Classical theism is a theological and philosophical form of theism that conceives of God as the ultimate reality, ultimate reality, characterized by attributes such as omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience. Rooted in the ancient Greek p ...

, God endows human beings with the ability to perceive – although imperfectly – religious, spiritual and/or transcendent realities through religious, spiritual and/or transcendent experience. # To the extent that premise 1 is accepted, therefore,

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

is more plausible than materialism. As statements 2 to 4 are generally treated as uncontroversial, discussion has tended to focus on the status of the first.

Suggested reasons for accepting the premise

Some principal arguments that have been made in favor of the premise include: *Very substantial numbers of ordinary people report having had such experiences, though this isn't to say that religious believers aren't ordinary. Such experiences are reported in almost all known cultures. *These experiences often have very significant effects on people's lives, frequently inducing in them acts of extreme self-sacrifice well beyond what could be expected from evolutionary arguments. *These experiences often seem very real to the people involved, and are quite often reported as being shared by a number of people. Although mass delusions are not inconceivable, one needs compelling reasons for invoking this as an explanation. *

Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...

suggests that, as two basic principles of rationality, we ought to believe that things are as they seem unless and until we have evidence that they are mistaken (principle of credulity), and that those who do not have an experience of a certain type ought to believe others who say that they do in the absence of evidence of deceit or delusion (principle of testimony) and thus, although if you have a ''strong'' reason to disbelieve in the existence of God you will discount these experiences, in other cases such evidence should count towards the existence of God.

Suggested reasons for disputing the premise

On the other hand, the following reasons have been offered for rejecting the premise: * Religious experiences might be mis-firings of evolved mechanisms selected for very different reasons. * Some religious experiences are believed to have occurred only on the basis of

religious texts Religious texts, including scripture, are Text (literary theory), texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, ...

such as the Bible, but these texts are of disputable historical accuracy. * It is conceivable that some claimed religious experiences are lies, possibly done for attention or acceptance. *

Argument from inconsistent revelations Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society. It can indicate one or more of the following: * Recognizing and tolerating the religious diversity of a society or c ...

: Different people have had, or believed to have had, religious experiences pointing to the truth of different religions. Not all of these can be correct. Kraemer highlighted a link between arguments of religious experience and self-righteousness (perception of superiority over those who do not receive providence). In '' Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion'', New Atheist author

Sam Harris Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation ...

assigns great value to religious experiences, but denies that facts about the cosmos can rationally be inferred from them, highlighting how different religions would give incompatible interpretations of the experiences. * It has been argued that religious experiences are hallucinations aimed at fulfilling basic psychological desires of immortality, purpose, etc.

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

, for example, considered God to be simply a psychological "illusion"Freud, Sigmund, ''The Future of an Illusion'', W. W. Norton & Company, created by the mind, instead of an actual existing entity. This argument can be based upon the fact that since we know about some believers for whom this argument is correct (their reports for religious experiences are nothing more than illusions), we assume that perhaps all such reports may be illusions.

Alternate formulations

American analytic philosophers

and William Alston developed arguments for accepting knowledge gained from religious experience based on drawing analogies with knowledge gained from sense experience. In both cases they apply their arguments to Christian religious experiences, but accept that they may equally apply to other religious experiences. Plantinga argues that just as the knowledge gained from sense experience is regarded as properly basic despite being unsupported based on

foundationalism Foundationalism concerns philosophical theories of knowledge resting upon non-inferential justified belief, or some secure foundation of certainty such as a conclusion inferred from a basis of sound premises.Simon Blackburn, ''The Oxford Dict ...

in the mould of Descartes, religious experiences should be accepted as providing properly basic knowledge of God. Alston argues that if sets of practices used to form beliefs produce conclusions that are coherent over time both internally and with other belief-forming practices, they should be accepted. He argues this is the only way our ordinary beliefs are justified, and that by the same criteria belief based on Christian religious experience is justified, even though by this logic the belief in any religion or deity is justified, for example the flying spaghetti monster.

Outline

Suggested reasons for accepting the premise

Suggested reasons for disputing the premise

Alternate formulations

See also

References

Further reading