Author: Matthew Sanderson
Category: Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology
Word Count: 1000
Religious experiences are alleged encounters with what some consider to be spiritual realities such as God or gods, angels, Nirvana, or other spiritual beings and forces. These experiences reportedly occur through ordinary physical sensations, non-physical sensations such as spiritual “visions,” or perceptions that involve no sensations of any kind.
Philosopher Richard Swinburne (b. 1934) attempts to categorize these different types of religious experience. He argues that such experiences are usually some evidence for the existence of whatever people believe they encounter.
This essay summarizes Swinburne’s philosophy of religious experience, which is important and influential in philosophy of religion.[1]
1. Types of Religious Experience
Swinburne defines religious experience as a conscious mental event that seems to the experiencer to be an encounter with a supernatural reality (e.g., God, etc.).[2] He argues there are exactly five totally distinct types of such experience.[3]
The first two kinds are of “public” objects, i.e., objects that any person with the right equipment (e.g., eyes, etc.) and abilities (e.g., sight, etc.), and who is properly positioned and attentive, can experience.[4]
One kind is seeming to perceive a supernatural reality through an ordinary sensory object, such as experiencing God through a sunset.[5] Here the alleged reality (e.g., God, etc.) is experienced only indirectly (i.e., via the sunset), like perceiving love solely through a smile.[6] The second type consists of purportedly experiencing something supernatural in a public sensory object that is extremely unusual, such as a bush that is burning but not being consumed by the fire.[7]
The remaining three kinds of religious experience are entirely “private” to the experiencer, i.e., something other people are unable to experience simultaneously.[8]
The third type is seeming to encounter a supernatural reality through private “spiritual” (i.e., non-physical) sensations which are nonetheless describable in normal sensory vocabulary.[9] An example is seeming to spiritually “see” and “hear”—i.e., not through the physical eyes and ears—an angel speaking to you.[10]
The fourth kind occurs through private “spiritual” sensations which cannot be described using typical sensory language.[11] This is because such sensations seem to be perceived through a spiritual “sixth” sense.[12]
The fifth and last type happens privately without any sensations, even of the non-describable variety.[13] It seems to the experiencer that she is aware of a supernatural reality, and yet not by having any sensations whatsoever.[14]
2. The Argument From Religious Experience
Imagine you have one of those types of religious experience in which you seem to encounter God. Is your experience some evidence that God exists?
Swinburne thinks it generally is. He thus gives an “argument from religious experience,” based on the premise that seeming to have a religious experience is good evidence for the existence of the supernatural reality supposedly encountered during the experience.[15]
3. The Principle of Credulity
Critics disagree. They require some further evidence (e.g., replicability, cross-checkability, etc.) beyond just seeming to experience a supernatural reality.[16]
Swinburne, however, thinks that requirement is too strict. He argues that we should evaluate religious experiences based on the same standard he claims we use to judge all human experiences, i.e., “the principle of credulity.” This principle says that if it seems to someone that something exists, then it probably exists: they should believe that unless there are strong reasons to doubt their experience.[17]
After all, Swinburne reasons, we give the same benefit of the doubt to all other experiences.[18] For instance, seeming to experience your keys is usually enough to believe you likely did. Thus, seeming to encounter a supernatural reality should also be sufficient for believing that you probably did, unless you know you were under the influence of drugs, etc.[19]
This means we should consider religious experiences “innocent until proven guilty,” i.e., likely real until shown to be very unlikely.[20] The burden of proof is thus on the critic to demonstrate that religious experiences are not genuine encounters with supernatural realities.[21]
4. The Principle of Testimony
But many people have never had religious experiences and instead rely on the testimonies of others who have.
Swinburne thinks such reports can usually be trusted, based on “the principle of testimony:” things probably are as others describe them, unless there are significant reasons for doubt.[22] Thus, if you tell me you experienced God, I should believe you probably did, unless you were having a manic episode, etc.[23]
5. Reasons for Doubt
In addition to mania, another reason for doubt is that different people report experiencing what seem like vastly different supernatural realities (e.g., God, Nirvana, etc.). It might seem then that it’s nearly impossible to ever figure out who (if anyone) is correct.[24]
Swinburne argues they are all essentially correct. Most descriptions of supernatural realities are similar enough to think that the overwhelming majority of people probably encounter the same reality. They just understand and name that reality differently based on their religious beliefs.[25]
But some claim religious experiences are all in a person’s head, i.e., literally nothing more than brain events.
Swinburne argues that if a supernatural reality exists, it is likely the cause of all natural processes, including brain events. Thus, a religious experience caused by a brain event would still be an authentic experience of the supernatural reality.[26]
6. Conclusion
Let’s say you’ve never had a religious experience before, i.e., you’ve seemed to experience only the absence of supernatural realities. Some might say your alleged experience of their absence, according to Swinburne’s principles, is just as probably real as purported experiences of their presence. In other words, if something seems absent (e.g., clothes on your body, etc.), then it probably is.[27]
Swinburne responds that experiences of presence are always more convincing than those of absence, because the latter can be due simply to not having “looked hard enough.”[28]
Certainly that can be true for your keys, but whether it’s also why many people haven’t seemed to experience supernatural realities is perhaps a matter for further debate.[29]
Notes
[1] This essay summarizes Swinburne’s essay entitled, “The Argument from Religious Experience,” in his book The Existence of God (2004). See Davis (1989), Peterson (2009), and Netland (2022) for other helpful summaries of Swinburne’s views in that essay. Swinburne’s essay is important and influential: most philosophers of religious experience find it necessary to explain in great detail how their theories compare and contrast with Swinburne’s. See, for example, Alston (1991), Gellman (1997), Netland (2022), among others.
[2] Swinburne (2004: p. 293) writes, “An experience is a conscious mental event.” Swinburne (2004: p. 295) defines a religious experience as “an experience that seems (epistemically) to the subject to be an experience of God (either of his just being there, or of his saying or bringing about something) or of some other supernatural thing. The thing may be a person, such as Mary or Poseidon; or Heaven, or a ‘timeless reality beyond oneself,’ or something equally mysterious and difficult to describe.” Swinburne’s discussion appeals to how things seem to a person or “seemings”: for a discussion of what this means, see Seemings: Justifying Beliefs Based on How Things Seem by Kaj Andre Zeller, discussed in note 17 below.
Note that Swinburne’s definition of religious experience might be overly narrow since it specifies that religious experience is always an experience of something supernatural. There may be some people, such as those who identify as religious naturalists, who regard experiences solely of the natural world as genuine religious experiences.
Note that defining religious experience as an event is typical of philosophers who almost universally view such experience as momentary or transient in nature, i.e., typically lasting only a few hours, minutes, or even seconds. However, one should not conclude from this that religious experience always feels dramatic or like it happens suddenly, or that there are always sharp boundaries separating it from ordinary, non-religious experience.
[3] See Swinburne (2004: pp. 298-303) for his discussion of the five kinds of religious experience.
[4] Swinburne (2004: p. 297) defines public perceptions or experiences as follows: “An object x may be such as to cause all persons rightly positioned with certain sense organs and certain concepts who pay a certain degree of attention to have the experience of it seeming to them that x is present. In that case we shall say that the perception of x is a public perception. Almost all our perceptions – for example, my seeing a material object such as a desk – are in this sense public perceptions. For a desk is such as to cause all persons close to it (without any material objects between it and them) whose eyes are pointing at it, who are attentive, and who have normal vision and the concept of a desk, to have the experience of its seeming to them that there is a desk there.”
[5] Swinburne (2004: pp. 298-299) writes, “First, we have experiences that seem (epistemically) to the subject to be experiences of God or something else supernatural, but where she seems to perceive the supernatural object in perceiving a perfectly ordinary non-religious object.” An interesting example of this type of religious experience might be the experience of the sublime where one seems to perceive the infinite (e.g., God, etc.) in and through incredibly large and powerful natural phenomena such as the night sky and erupting volcanoes. For an introduction to the sublime, see Immanuel Kant’s Theory of the Sublime by Matthew Sanderson.
[6] In this type of experience, the supernatural reality is not experienced directly, but rather only indirectly through the ordinary, public object (e.g., the sunset), just as one might experience a fox indirectly by only perceiving paw prints in the snow. Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes that “someone may look at the night sky, and suddenly ‘see it as’ God’s handiwork, something that God is bringing about (in the way in which someone may see a vapour trail in the sky as the trail of an aeroplane.)”
[7] Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes, “Secondly, there are experiences that people have in perceiving very unusual public objects…The experiences had by those who witnessed ‘the Resurrection appearances of Jesus,’ or ‘the appearance of Mary’ at Fatima, or…St. Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus are in this category, if the accounts of these events are in any minimal way reliable.”
Unlike the first kind, the second kind involves an extraordinary rather than ordinary object, but the object is still non-religious in the sense that skeptics or atheists would perceive the same sensation – i.e., the sight of a man, or the sight of a burning bush – and yet not consider it a religious experience. In this kind, then, the religious experiencer takes the extraordinary object to be religious in nature – i.e., interprets the sight of the man as the perception of Jesus, or interprets the burning but unconsumed bush as an act or appearance of God. As Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes, “A sceptic might have had the same visual sensations (described comparatively) and yet not had the religious experience.”
[8] Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes, “The other three classes of religious experiences are ones that do not involve taking public phenomena religiously. In them the divine is apprehended via something private to the subject.”
[9] Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes, “In the third place we have cases where the subject has a religious experience in having certain sensations private to himself, sensations of a kind describable by the normal vocabulary used for describing the sensations that result from the use of our five senses.”
[10] Swinburne (2004: p. 299) writes, “In his dream described in Matthew 1: 20-1. Joseph dreamed he saw an angel who said to him certain things. Here there were no public phenomena, but Joseph had certain private sensations that he might have been able to describe by means of normal sensory vocabulary – for example, he had the visual sensation like the sensation that he would have had if he had been looking at a man dressed in white, and the auditory sensations that he would have had if someone had been saying such-and-such to him.”
[11] Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “Fourthly, we have the case where the subject has a religious experience in having certain sensations private to himself, yet these are not of a kind describable by normal vocabulary.”
[12] Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “The subject has some sensation analogous to sensations of normal kinds – for example, visual or auditory sensations, but only analogous – such that, if his experience was of a public phenomenon, we might say that it was the experience of a sixth sense.”
[13] Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “Fifthly and finally we have religious experiences that the subject does not have by having sensations.”
Note that the first four types of religious experience are mediated in the sense that the supernatural reality is experienced by means of (i.e., through the mediation of) something else – either public objects, physical sensations, or private spiritual sensations. Only the fifth kind is immediate or unmediated, with nothing standing between the experiencer and the supernatural reality, unless we view the experiencer’s conscious awareness (i.e., consciousness) as a form of mediation, as Alston (1991) does.
[14] Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “It seems to the subject, perhaps very strongly, that he is aware of God or of a timeless reality or some such thing, and yet not because he is having certain sensations; it just so seems to him, but not through his having sensations – just as it may seem to me strongly that my hand behind my back is facing upward rather than downward, yet not because of any sensations.”
In Swinburne’s view, the fourth and fifth kinds of religious experiences are perhaps typical of mystics who claim their experiences are ineffable or indescribable in any language. Regarding the fourth kind, Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “Presumably mystics and others who find it difficult if not impossible to describe their religious experiences, and yet feel that there is something to be described if only they had the words to do the describing, are having experiences of this kind.”
On the fifth kind, Swinburne (2004: p. 300) writes, “Many mystics who claim to experience God via ‘nothingness’ or ‘darkness’ may be making the point that their experience of God is not mediated via any sensations.” For an introduction to mysticism, see Philosophy of Mysticism: Do Mystical Experiences Justify Religious Beliefs? and William James on Mystical Experience, both by Matthew Sanderson.
According to Swinburne (2004: p. 301), his five types of religious experience encompass every possible kind of religious experience (i.e., they are exhaustive), and they never coincide or overlap with one another (i.e., they are mutually exclusive). Swinburne (2004: p. 301) summarizes his classification as follows: “…clearly an experience that seems to be of God may or may not be mediated by something sensory…If it is mediated by something, the something may be public or private. If it is private, it may or may not be describable by normal sensory vocabulary. If it is public, it may be a common, well-known phenomenon; or something very odd, the occurrence of which may be disputed.”
Note that one can argue that all five of Swinburne’s types are “private” experiences. This is because the first and second types are only “public” in the sense that the sensory object (e.g., sunset, burning bush, etc.) involved in the experience is publicly available. However, in both types, the real “object” or focus of the experience is arguably the supernatural reality, and that is only privately experienced. Swinburne (2004: p. 299) himself perhaps admits this in explaining that, in the first and second types, atheists would experience the exact same sensory objects (because those are “public” objects), but wouldn’t regard the experiences as religious in nature, precisely because they wouldn’t perceive a supernatural reality in either experience, which arguably indicates that both types are ultimately “private” experiences.
[15] After having presented his classification of religious experiences, Swinburne (2004: pp. 302-303) writes, “The question must now be faced as to the evidential value of all this. Is the fact that all these religious experiences have occurred evidence for the existence of God (or some other supernatural reality)?”
For Swinburne, religious experience plays an important role in a broader “cumulative case” argument for God’s existence, that is, an argument which says that, taken together or cumulatively, various forms of evidence collectively add up to provide persuasive rational support overall for the existence of God. Swinburne thinks that, combined with other forms of evidence (such as the cosmological argument, and so forth), religious experiences can help “tip the scales” in support of the conclusion that it is more likely than not that God exists. Franks Davis (1989) puts forth a similar argument.
For more on the argument from religious experience, see Griffioen (2021) and Peterson (2009). For examples of arguments closely related to the argument from religious experience – such as the argument that religious experiences can justify religious beliefs, or the argument that it’s rational to form and hold religious beliefs based on religious experiences: see “Properly Basic” Belief in God: Believing in God without an Argument by Jamie Turner; Philosophy of Mysticism: Do Mystical Experiences Justify Religious Beliefs? and William James on Mystical Experience both by Matthew Sanderson.
As the argument from religious experience is an argument for God’s existence, it belongs in the same general category as other such arguments, including cosmological, ontological, teleological, and fine-tuning arguments for God’s existence. It is also perhaps closely related to pragmatic arguments for believing in God. For more on these types of arguments, see the following essays: Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf; Design Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf; The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf; The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God by Andrew Chapman; Modal Ontological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf; and Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God by Liz Jackson.
[16] Critics here can be understood as viewing religious experiences with skepticism. For an introduction to skepticism, see Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Suspending Judgment by Lewis Ross and External World Skepticism by Andrew Chapman.
Note that it’s arguably inappropriate to demand physical evidence to “prove” that a supernatural reality was genuinely experienced because such a reality is precisely non-physical. Also, lack of physical evidence isn’t usually considered a reason for doubting many other types of human experiences, such as the experience of love, morality, rational intuition, creativity, etc.
Also note that it is arguably possible to cross-check religious experiences, albeit in a different manner than is possible with sense experiences. Religious experiences can be cross-checked by religious guides and authorities who can check an experience for conformity with religious texts, the past religious experiences of others, etc. It is true that religious experiences can’t be cross-checked in the exact same manner as sense perceptions—for instance, someone can’t just “take a look” to see if what you allegedly experienced in a religious experience is really there—but that is also arguably true of many other human experiences (e.g., beauty, love, morality, etc.) that we nonetheless typically accept as authentic.
Religious experiences can be replicated in the sense that certain spiritual preparations—e.g., meditation, prayer, letting go of one’s ego, etc.—can sometimes enable people to undergo the same religious experiences as those who undertook the same preparations in the past. It is true that such preparations never guarantee a religious experience will happen or serve as the sole cause of religious experiences. However, once again, this is also arguably true of many other human experiences (e.g., falling in love, having an aesthetic experience, etc.) that we nonetheless accept as genuine.
Furthermore, it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect religious experiences to be replicable in the same manner as sense perceptions given that what is allegedly experienced in a religious experience—especially in the case of a personal God who supposedly possesses agency and free will—is thought to have some say in whether or not he is experienced, unlike the inert objects often encountered in sense perceptions. For further discussion of this topic, see Alston (1991), Gellman (1997), and Netland (2002).
[17] Swinburne (2004: pp. 303-304) summarizes the principle of credulity as follows: “Quite obviously having the experience of it seeming (epistemically) to you that there is a table there (that is, your seeming to see a table) is good evidence for supposing that there is a table there…So generally…I suggest it is a principle of rationality that (in the absence of special considerations), if it seems (epistemically) to a subject that x is present (and has some characteristic), then probably x is present (and has that characteristic); what one seems to perceive is probably so…This principle, which I shall call the Principle of Credulity, and the conclusion drawn from it seem to me correct…From this it would follow that, in the absence of special considerations, all religious experiences ought to be taken by their subjects as genuine, and hence as substantial grounds for belief in the existence of their apparent object—God, or Mary, or Ultimate Reality, or Poseidon.”
Swinburne argues that one of the major reasons we should accept the principle of credulity is because failure to do so—for instance, insisting that experiences can serve as a reliable basis for forming beliefs only if they can be “proven” with indubitable certainty—would result in the loss of almost everything we think we know about the world.
Swinburne’s view here can be understood as a form of the epistemological position called “phenomenal conservatism” which, in general, is the view that how things seem (i.e., the presence of “seemings”) is typically sufficient to justify believing that’s how things really are. For more on this position, see Seemings: Justifying Beliefs Based on How Things Seem by Kaj Andre Zeller.
Swinburne argues that, in general, there are four types of what he calls “special considerations” that count as strong reasons to doubt the authenticity of any given religious experience. First, if the purported religious experience occurred under conditions that we have good reason to believe are unreliable, such as the experiencer under the influence of alcohol or LSD. Secondly, if one can show that the experiencer is claiming to have perceived an object of a particular kind in circumstances in which similar claims have proven false. A third consideration is if it can be shown that it is highly unlikely that a religious reality was present during the subject’s experience based on other things we know or have good reason to believe. The fourth consideration involves showing that, even if the religious reality were present, the reality was probably not the cause of the purported experience of that reality. Swinburne believes that these special considerations do not apply to all, or perhaps even most, religious experiences.
[18] This is clear in the claim by Swinburne (2004: p. 303) that the principle of credulity is a basic principle of rationality for all human experiences.
[19] The idea that religious experiences can justify believing in supernatural realities raises the question of “epistemic justification:” what rationally justifies holding certain beliefs? For more about this topic, see Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long.
[20] Other philosophers who, influenced by Swinburne’s principle of credulity, have proposed different versions of this “innocent until proven guilty” approach to religious experience include Franks Davis (1989), Alston (1991), Yandell (1993), Gellman (1997), and Netland (2002).
[21] Swinburne (2004: p. 315) writes that “the onus of proof is on the atheist [i.e., the critic]; if he cannot make his case, the claim of religious experience stands.”
[22] See Swinburne (2004: pp. 322-324) for his discussion of the principle of testimony. (For introductions to testimony, see Take My Word for It: On Testimony by Spencer Case and Moral Testimony by Annaleigh Curtis). The principle of credulity applies to people who have religious experiences, whereas the principle of testimony applies to people who learn about religious experiences from the testimony of those who’ve had them. Note that one major reason to accept this principle is, just like with the principle of credulity, failure to accept it would result in the loss of much of what we think we know. After all, just think about all the things you’ve learned solely through the testimony of others!
[23] Note that the principle of testimony is, at least in part, based on the principle of credulity: just as my seeming to experience something should be granted an initial presumption of accuracy, so should the experiences of others, and thus their testimonies about those experiences should be presumed accurate as well. The major difference, of course, is that I learn about my experiences first hand, whereas I learn about others’ experiences only second hand. Thus, I am one step further removed from others’ experiences than from my own experiences.
Swinburne seems to think that the same “special considerations” that can call into question your religious experience are also good reasons for doubting someone’s testimony. In other words, he doesn’t suggest a unique set of “special considerations” or reasons for doubt that are specific only to testimonies.
Netland (2022: 89) argues that there are unique questions we must ask about testimonies that do not apply to one’s own first-hand experience: “Is the report from the person who had the experience or has it been handed down from an oral tradition? How many persons are involved as links in the chain of transmission? What is known about the trustworthiness of each person transmitting the report? How much time has elapsed between the initial experience and the subsequent description of the event? Are there reasons to believe that either the person who had the experience or those reporting it might be motivated to embellish the report in significant ways?”
[24] This is commonly called in philosophy “the problem of religious diversity,” applied here specifically to religious experience, which is a common objection to the argument from religious experience. For discussion on how to respond to diversity and disagreement, see The Epistemology of Disagreement by Jonathan Matheson.
[25] Swinburne (2004: p. 316) notes that “of course, devotees of different religions describe their religious experiences in the religious vocabulary with which they are familiar. But in itself this does not mean that their different descriptions are in conflict – God may be known under different names to different cultures.” Furthermore (2004: p. 318), “Religious experiences in non-Christian traditions are experiences apparently of beings who are supposed to have similar properties to those of God, or experiences apparently of lesser beings, or experiences apparently of states of affairs, but hardly experiences apparently of any person or state whose existence is incompatible with that of God. If there were vastly many experiences apparently of an omnipotent Devil, then that sort of evidence would exist; but there are not such experiences.”
Note that Swinburne is arguing that all concepts of supernatural reality can be understood as really just different conceptions of the same one Christian God. Members of other religions could probably argue equally well that the Christian God is just a different conception of their ideas of supernatural reality. For instance, a Buddhist might argue that the Christian God, Brahman, and the Dao are just different names for Nirvana, the one true supernatural reality.
[26] Swinburne (2004) writes, “My religious experience may or may not be caused immediately by some brain event…But, if there is a God, he is omnipresent and all causal processes at all that bring about my experience will have God among their causes; and any experience of him will be of him as present at a place where he is. And so, if there is a God, any experience that seems to be of God, will be genuine – will be of God…The mere fact that a religious experience apparently of God was brought about by natural processes has no tendency to show that it was not veridical. To show this, you need to show that God did not cause these processes. That can be attained only by showing that there is no God – for, if he exists as defined, clearly he is responsible both for the normal operation of natural laws and for any occasional violation.”
There are other possible responses to this brain event challenge. For instance, one can point out that all human experiences are based in brain events, and yet that does not lead us to doubt sense perception, for instance. Another response is that it’s always possible that God or some other supernatural reality uses the brains of people to produce religious experiences.
It’s also possible that supernatural realities such as God simply don’t exist. However, Swinburne (2004: p. 315) argues that there are persuasive arguments for God’s existence, and he claims there is not a universally compelling argument for God’s non-existence. Additionally, it’s possible that a given religious experiencer is known to be an unreliable reporter of experiences in the past or in general. Swinburne responds that most religious experiencers are likely not unreliable reporters. Religious experiencers could be high on drugs, but it’s unlikely that most people have their experiences as the result of ingesting LSD, for instance. Swinburne (2004: p. 315) writes, “Most religious experiences are had by people who normally make reliable perceptual claims, and have not recently taken drugs.” In response to the challenge that there might be good reasons to think God was not present to be perceived during a particular religious experience, Swinburne (2004: p. 319) argues that God is omnipresent, or present everywhere, and so if God exists, God is always present to be perceived.
[27] See Martin (1990: p. 166) for discussion of this objection. He proposes a “negative” principle of credulity which says that if something (e.g., God, etc.) seems absent, then it probably is absent.
[28] Swinburne (2004: p. 304) writes that, according to the principle of credulity, “how things seem positively to be is evidence of how they are, but how things seem not to be is not such evidence. If it seems to me that there is present a table in the room, or statue in the garden, then probably there is. But if it seems to me that there is no table in the room, then that is only reason for supposing that there is not, if there are good grounds for supposing that I have looked everywhere in the room and (having eyes in working order, being able to recognize a table when I see one, etc.) would have seen one if there was one. An atheist’s claim to have had an experience of its seeming to him that there is no God could be evidence that there was no God only if similar restrictions were satisfied.” Swinburne (2004: p. 326) writes, “One who has not himself had an experience apparently of God is not in as strong a position as those who have. He will have less evidence for the existence of God; but not very much less, for he will have testimony of many who have had such experiences.”
Note that, in the case of religious experiences, “not looking hard enough” arguably takes a different form than in cases of sense perception, for instance. In the latter case, not looking hard enough might mean that you’ve not looked with your physical eyes in a sufficient amount of relevant locations. However, with regard to religious experiences, not having looked widely enough with one’s physical eyes might be irrelevant, especially if the supernatural reality one is seeking to encounter is not perceivable in that manner. Instead, it might take the form of not sufficiently letting go of one’s ego, or failing to open one’s heart to the divine, and so on.
[29] For instance, one reason to think that “not looking hard enough” doesn’t explain every purported experience of the absence of supernatural realities is that there are deeply pious religious people (e.g., monks, mystics, etc.) who devote their entire lives to undertaking the preparations believed to be necessary for undergoing religious experiences and yet still never have one. If such a person can’t be said to have “looked hard enough” for supernatural realities, then arguably no one is capable of looking hard enough. Exerting a sufficient amount of effort in looking for supernatural realities also does not seem to be a necessary condition for seeming to experience them as there are many atheists and non-religious folks who have undertaken no spiritual preparations whatsoever and yet still have religious experiences.
Swinburne’s response to this objection is to argue that some people might not have religious experiences – no matter how hard they have looked – because God, if he exists, may not choose to appear to everyone (assuming that all concepts of supernatural realities can, as Swinburne believes, be understood as different versions of the theistic God who possesses the free will and agency necessary for choosing to appear or not appear). Swinburne (2004: p. 319) writes, “As we have seen, it will not do to show that some people with similar equipment and concepts to those who do have experiences of God do not have such experiences. For we do not know that all persons with similar equipment and concepts could be expected to have experiences of God, if he was there. Clearly, if he so chose, an omnipotent God could cause a private experience, in the way a table could not.”
References
Griffioen, Amber. (2021). Religious Experience. Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Michael. (1990). Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Temple University Press.
Swinburne, Richard. (2004). The Existence of God. Oxford University Press.
Yandell, Keith E. (1993). The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cambridge University Press.
Related Essays
Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf
Design Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf
Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long
External World Skepticism by Andrew Chapman
Take My Word for It: On Testimony by Spencer Case
Moral Testimony by Annaleigh Curtis
The Epistemology of Disagreement by Jonathan Matheson
The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf
Immanuel Kant’s Theory of the Sublime by Matthew Sanderson
Modal Ontological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf
The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God by Andrew Chapman
Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God by Liz Jackson
Philosophy of Mysticism: Do Mystical Experiences Justify Religious Beliefs? by Matthew Sanderson
“Properly Basic” Belief in God: Believing in God without an Argument by Jamie B. Turner
Rudolf Otto on “Numinous” Religious Experience by Matthew Sanderson
William James on Mystical Experience by Matthew Sanderson
Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Suspending Judgment by Lewis Ross
Seemings: Justifying Beliefs Based on How Things Seem by Kaj Andre Zeller
PDF Download
Download this essay in PDF.
About the Author
Matthew Sanderson is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at West Shore Community College in Scottville, Michigan. He specializes in philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and 19th and 20th-century continental philosophy. philpeople.org/profiles/matthew-sanderson
Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter / X, and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com.
Discover more from 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
7 thoughts on “Arguments from Religious Experience: Richard Swinburne’s ‘Principle of Credulity’”
Comments are closed.