|
 Introducing
the philosophy of religion
The
fourth in Roy Jackson's series looking at some of the classic problems
in the philosophy of religion.
No.
4 Sensing
the Divine
'She stood up, threw up her arms
to the wide sky, and called, "Praise to the saint, praise to
the saint,' so that in no time at all the whole assembly was hysterical
with exhilarated awe. Dr. Iannis pulled Pelagia away from the impending
crush, and wiped the sweat from his face and tears from his eyes.
He was trembling in every part of his body, and so, he saw, was
Pelagia. "A purely psychological phenomenon," he muttered
to himself, and was struck suddenly by the sensation of being an
ingrate.'
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
The
argument from religious experience has grown in popularity in recent
years, for there is, at least, no denying that many do have what
they call 'religious experiences'. By 'experience' we usually mean
an event or occurrence that a person lives through as an observer
or a participant. We can all talk of having 'experiences' all the
time; in fact, life itself is a series of experiences about which
we have our own feeling, opinions, memories and so on. But what
do we mean when we say something is a religious experience?
Types
of Religious Experience
Richard
Swinburne talks of there being five different types of religious
experience. The first two are within the 'public' realm, and the
next three within the 'private'.
1.
You see 'God's action' in a public object or scene. For example,
the sunset is really the 'hand of God', or the blooming of a flower
is a 'miracle of God'.
2.
A breach of natural law. Miracles often come under the category
of public religious experiences. For example, where water turns
into wine, or Jesus raises the dead.
3.
A personal experience that can mostly be described through normal
language. There are many other example of this form of experience:
Moses and the burning bush, Saul on the road to Damascus, visions
of the Virgin Mary, Mohammed's vision of the Angel Gabriel.
4.
A personal experience that cannot be described in normal language.
That is, it is ineffable. For example, such 'mystical experiences'
that can only be explained by using negatives (saying what it is
not) or metaphor. This is more common with the more mystical elements
within religious tradition.
5.
No specific experience, but more of a constant, or regular, feeling
that God is simply 'there'. His presence can be sensed. In all cases,
there is an experience of God, or some kind of Absolute force or
being (if we are looking for a theistic proof, then it would be
God as classically understood).
Why
Should We Believe?
Though
one may not doubt that people have claimed to have all of these
kinds of experiences, this still does not address the problem of
why we should trust these experiences.
Obviously,
much depends on the quality of the experience. For example, a public
experience would be more verifiable than a private one simply because
there are more people present. This is down to empirical evidence.
If thousands of people see a flying saucer land in Hyde Park and
TV cameras broadcast the event to billions of others, then we are
more inclined to believe it has occurred. Of course, it is quite
possible that we are all being deceived in some way, but if we are
to accept empiricism as a basis for what is, then we have little
else to go on. Also, this is what one may call a universal experience;
something that religious experience is not. A retort here, is that
there are also public occurrences of religious experience. In the
case of Jesus raising the dead, or his own resurrection, however,
we have only the Bible to rely upon. There are no living witnesses
to these events. Of course, there have been more recent incidences
of a number of people claiming religious experience at once, for
example, visions of the Virgin Mary.
What
is more difficult to prove one way or the other, are private experiences.
Many believers have faith in God's existence, and faith does not
require empirical proof. In this way, prayer - and prayers being
answered - can come under the category of religious experience:
in the sense of 'God's presence'. Mystical experience, too, claims
union with the divinity leading to a form of spiritual ecstasy.
This latter kind of experience requires training and self-discipline,
but there is no denying that many do experience this form of ecstasy.
However,
why should this be religious? In other words, though those who experience
mystical ecstasy claim their object to be divine, why should this
actually be the case? Mystical experience usually implies an altered
state of consciousness but, of course, so does the use of hallucinogenic
drugs such as LSD. Many drug users, in fact, talk of their 'trips'
as being 'mystical', though there is no divine object as such (unless
you argue that drugs open up the 'God doors' of perception and you
are, therefore, actually perceiving divinity). Also, of course,
this does not help in the sense of providing a theistic proof: how
does the feeling of mystical union with a divine force relate to
the God of Abraham? No ontological proposition follows deductively
from an experience: in other words, the belief that one experiences
an object does not mean that object actually exists.
A
further problem is how we can know it is the divine we are experiencing.
In the sense of normal, non-religious, experience we recognize an
object because we have either seen it before, have been told what
it is called, etc. But what about when you experience the divine
for the first time? If it is a private experience without any reference
to a material object, then it is possible we are being deceived
or mistaken. To simply say that you know it is God seems
somehow inadequate and unphilosophical.
However,
it may be said that mystical experience is much like normal experience
because in both cases there is a large degree of unanimity concerning
the nature of the experience and it is therefore true and real.
Also, William Alston in his book, Perceiving God, believes
that religious experience is as trustworthy as 'normal experience'.
Both experiences are similar in that they are considered reliable
only if certain conditions are satisfied. For example, my belief
that a rose in front of me is red on condition that I am not colour-blind,
it isn't dark, etc. Also, the belief that Saul saw God is on condition
that we know Saul to be a reliable witness and not prone to too
much wine, etc. In the same way, we must ask ourselves why we should
have reason to doubt those who have religious experience; many -
if not most - would be categorized as 'normal' in every respect
and are often intelligent and rational people.
Swinburne's
Principles
Richard
Swinburne, in The Existence of God, presents two principles:
The Principle of Credulity and the Principle of Testimony. In the
former, he says: "I suggest that it is a principle of rationality
that (in the absence of special considerations) if it seems (epistemically)
to a subject that x is present, then probably x is
present; what one seems to perceive is probably so. How things seem
to be is good grounds to how things are." According to the
second principle, "In the absence of special considerations
the experiences of others are (probably) as they report them ...
In general there are no special considerations for doubting what
subjects report about their religious experiences." Now this
assumes a lot, and the sceptics amongst us may be red in the face
with frustration with these remarks.
In
the first instance, do we really have any reason to believe that
"what one seems to perceive is probably so"? Note that
Swinburne is covering himself by also stating that the experience
must be "in the absence of special consideration" (as
well as making frequent use of that elusive word 'probably'), but
what are these considerations? Again, we may believe that Saul -
perhaps the most famous religious experience - saw Jesus provided
he hadn't had too much to drink, that he wasn't deliberately
lying for some unknown motive, that he hadn't claimed on that same
day to have been abducted by aliens and saved a maiden from a dragon's
lair, etc. Is it, therefore, the case that there are no special
considerations and not only did Saul see Jesus but that others -
who did not see Jesus and are not even believers - must also believe
his testimony?
Perhaps
if, indeed, there are no 'special considerations', then we may be
inclined to believe the testimony; but surely we can broaden what
we mean by 'special considerations'. For example, we must take account
of physiological considerations: could Saul have had temporal lobe
epilepsy, or tuberculosis? Both of these can trigger hallucination.
After all, in his letters he speaks of being weakened by a "thorn
in the flesh". A particularly bad fit of epilepsy could cause
one to fall to the ground and being blinded by a bright light and,
as there would be no medical explanation for this condition, it
would fit within the mindset of the time to attribute this to the
divine. Also, the voices and conversion may have a psychological
explanation: Saul was delirious and hallucinating and the content
of his hallucination vented his subconscious guilt about his persecution
of Christians. Inner disturbances are sometime projected onto the
external, objective world so that a mental event is perceived as
an external object. Sigmund Freud said that religious experience
is the result of psychological need, for example, the desire to
project a father image on to the universe having recognized their
own fathers as fallible, human and finite.
David
Hume
We
can usually rely upon David Hume (1711-1776) to present some arguments
against. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding he
wrote:
'The
passion of surprise and wonder…being an agreeable
emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events,
from which it is derived…the gazing populace, receives greedily,
without examination, whatever soothes superstition, and promotes
wonder.'
We
all want to believe. It is a pleasant emotion and we much
prefer the feelings of surprise and wonder to those of harsh, dull
reality. Also, according to Hume, other people will take advantage
of our desire to believe by producing false testimony: "What
greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an ambassador
from heaven?" Further, says Hume, religious experiences are
really not that similar at all: some speak of God, others of Allah,
of Brahman, of Nirvana, and so on. Some perceive God's transcendence,
others his immanence. Some are monotheistic, other monistic. How,
therefore, can such testimony be reliable? If a group of people
claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster but all differ in their
descriptions then you would hardly be likely to believe them.
Of
course, these arguments ignore the fact that most claims to religious
experience are not consciously deceptive and are often experienced
by people who are not seeking any kind of publicity. Also, he ignores
the similarities that are associated with religious experiences
and therefore defines them as such. Where they differ is in how
they conceive of the divine within the own linguistic context of
their faith community.
Although
we may present naturalistic explanations for religious experience
these do not in themselves prove that God does not exist and are
not always applicable to all those who claim religious experience.
We have no way of knowing if Saul was psychologically or physiologically
troubled and there are many cases of people who do seem 'normal'
in every sense. To say that a large group of people who experience
the Virgin Mary are merely experiencing some form of mass hysteria
seems an inadequate explanation.
Conclusion
The
argument for religious experience does not, perhaps, go very far
in proving the existence of the classical, Thomistic conception
of God. As stated above, one faith community differs from another
in how they perceive the 'divine'. And so we must say that it is
not a strong argument for the existence of the Biblical God. However,
it may still be the case that one of these experiences is the correct
one, in the same way that one person's testimony and description
of the Loch Ness monster is true. In which case, this would prove
that at least some non-material reality does exist after all!
Suggested
Reading
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume (Section
X)
The Existence of God, Richard Swinburne (Oxford University
Press)
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Part
5 of Introducing the Philosophy of Religion will appear on April
1st 2001
Previous
articles in the series
1.
2.
3.
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