theme 3C challenges to religious experience

Question 1

intro - challenges to religious experience

Answer 1

• there are a number of challenges to religious experience
• the nature of these experiences are subjective and ineffable so are difficult to verify
• we cannot know for sure whether they are an authentic experience of God or whether there is another explanation (eg natural rather than supernatural)
• there are also psychological challenges

Question 2

P1 Caroline Frank Davis challenge 1

Answer 2

• description: states that any event which describes God has no proof that it was actually God, so therefore the description becomes invalid
• the same event is also not consistent with everyday experiences because the person has no proof, and it is inconsistent to everyday experience that cannot be understood by other people

Question 3

P2 Caroline Frank Davis challenge 2

Answer 3

• subject related: the recipient who’s claimed to have a religious experience is an unreliable source because they may be suffering from a mental illness or be having delusions due to substance misuse
• this means their claims should be dismissed because they aren’t a reliable source of information

Question 4

P3 Caroline Frank Davis challenge 3

Answer 4

• object related: God is so unlikely to be real that we should reject the claims altogether
• she suggests it is as likely as 8ft green aliens or an antelope flying

Question 5

P4 authenticity

Answer 5

• many mystical experience experiences happened a very long time ago
• we now live in an age where empiricism, science and rationality is valued
• this questions the authenticity of religious experience, is it actually an experience of God or something else?

Question 6

P5 objectivity

Answer 6

• the nature of religious experiences are subjective, they are not external facts that can be agreed upon by a number of people who can come to the same conclusion
• religious experiences are based upon opinion, personal judgement, belief and assumption
• it can be interpreted in different ways by different people
• this is a serious challenge to the truth of religious experience

Question 7

P6 verification

Answer 7

• the vienna circle were pioneers of logical positivism which is empiricism based on sense experience
• their principal would argue that there is no empirical evidence to support the claims of religious experience, therefore the accounts become meaningless
• eg we cannot verify Terisa of Avila’s claim ‘complete unity with the divine is felt’

Question 8

P7 falsification

Answer 8

• Anthony Flew responded to the verification principle with the falsification principle which argues that a statement would become meaningful if there was evidence that could count against it
• he suggested that because religious believers will allow nothing to stand against their beliefs, then all religious statements are meaningless

Question 9

P8 psychological explanations

Answer 9

• Freud argues that these experiences could be hallucinations, like dreams, caused by a deep unconscious state
• in the face of nature, we tend to feel vulnerable and afraid, and has children we feel helpless independent with the need for protection
• due to this, people turn to God because as a religious figure he is seen as a protector that helps us feel safe
• this means that a persons unconscious wish is for them to have an experience with God, making the experience due to their own wish

Question 10

the challenges of religious experience are valid

Answer 10

• religious experiences are different to ordinary experiences, there is a lack of empirical evidence of the thing which is being experienced
• the nature of religious experiences make them ineffable and so they are described using language that is not possible to verify
• Hume argues that a direct experience of God is impossible if God is ‘wholly other’, these experiences can’t be verified
• logical positivists argued that statements are meaningless if they can’t be verified, these experiences like empirical evidence and therefore cannot be verified or falsified
• science presents a challenge, different fields of science have presented explanations for these experiences (eg Freud and psychology)
• if religious experiences are real, why does God only allow certain people to experience them? this questions his divine attributes, it is unfair

Question 11

the challenges of religious experience are invalid

Answer 11

• many religious believers argue that if God exists, it makes sense that he would want to interact with creation
• Swinburne: ‘if God exists then one might well expect him to make his presence known to man by dealing personally with him’
• in response to logical positivists, religious experience is shared by many people which adds weight to the claims
• some argue that the experience changes a person positively and that this counts as evidence
• neurological changes in the brain during a religious experience may be a result of a spiritual reality
• Swinburne’s principal of credulity, if it seems to a person that X is present, then X is probably present
• Swunburne’s principal of testimony, in the absence of evidence to the contrary we should rely on reports of the experiences that we hear

Question 12

CFD’s criticisms are persuasive

Answer 12

• the description related challenge argues that any experience which describes God should be rejected as invalid because there is not proof of God and it contradicts every day normal experiences, this is a reasonable argument as these claims cannot be verified
• the subject related challenge argues that the recipient of the experience is unreliable and maybe suffering from a mental illness or diluted due to substance misuse, this is a logical argument, their claims must be dismissed
• the object related to challenge argues that the likelihood of experiencing God is unlikely to be true, many people are naturally sceptical so it is a reasonable argument
• there are other explanations which may be more reasonable (neurology)
• Hume argues we should not accept anything is true unless there is empirical evidence to support it

Question 13

CFD’s criticisms are not persuasive

Answer 13

• the description related challenge is flawed because the nature of these experiences is that they are very different from normal every day experiences, you would expect an experience of God to be extraordinary
• the subject related challenge is not persuasive, many intelligent unreasonable people claims to have had religious experiences, many scientists believing in God, Swinburne’s two principles also undermine this challenge
• the object related to challenge is not persuasive, it could be argued that there are very few reports of green aliens are flying antelopes, these are hypothetical suggestions, there are many reports of religious experience experiences, the possibility of a spiritual reality seems more likely than flying antelopes