Religious Experience

God’s “Purposively Available Evidence”

If God exists, then what kind of evidence should we expect about his existence? How exactly would God operate in allowing for evidence or inquiries into his existence? These are some questions I have been pondering a great deal recently.

Paul K. Moser places questions like this in his book The Elusive God which I recently reviewed. Moser argues therein that questions like “Do we humans know God exists?” must be rephrased because if that (perfectly loving, etc.) God exists, then we should consider how God would interact with humans (4). Thus, argues Moser, such questions should be rephrased as “Are we humans known by God in virtue of (among other things) our freely and agreeably being willing (i) to be known by God and thereby (ii) to be transformed toward God’s moral character of perfect love as we are willingly lead by God in volitional fellowship with God, thereby obediently yielding our wills to God’s authoritative will?” (4, Moser’s emphasis). But even this question must be seen in light of a third rendering of the question “Do we humans know God Exists?” which is “Are we humans known by God in virtue of… our freely being willing to receive an authoritative call to… fellowship with God…?” (4).

I think that Moser raises some very valid points here. If God does in fact exist, then the question “Does God exist?” takes, of necessity, a different tone. Rather than expecting some kind of sterile evidence that makes no demands of us, this evidence may indeed be seen as some kind of authoritative call. Moser’s argument, I believe, is unfortunately not well developed, despite the 280 pages he dedicates to this very issue. My purpose here is not to try to expand on his argument, but to bring it into a context that reflects more what I believe and would therefore use instead.

I believe Moser is on the right track when he argues that God’s purposes in revealing Himself are very important when discussing His existence. Thus, God would not coerce us into belief. Moser argues in “God is Great, God is Good” (cited below) that God, assuming He exists, could seek “to offer a profound existential, motivational challenge to wayward humans” (53). On the other hand, and here is a point Moser seems to make but never develop, the “authoritative call” aspect of God’s existence is something that I believe is of vital importance to an understanding of God’s existence and reality.

He does argue that we need to let God be God (which I read as an assertion of sovereignty) even in the areas of inquiry into His existence. Thus, we cannot make demands of a sovereign God, which would be counter-intuitive. Rather, God can make demands of us.

So how do we answer the question of God’s existence? Moser makes an argument for the existence of God that is essentially an argument from religious experience (see my own posts advancing this argument here and here). His argument is outlined in The Elusive God:

“The transformative gift [is defined as] via conscience, a person’s (a) being authoritatively convicted and forgiven by X of all that person’s wrongdoing and (b) thereby being authoritatively called and led by X both into noncoerced volitional fellowship with X in perfect love and into rightful worship toward X as wrothy of worship and, on that basis, transformed by X from (i) that person’s previous tendencies to selfishness and despair to (ii) a new volitional center with a default position of unselfish love and forgiveness toward all people and of hope in the ultimate triumph of good over evil by X” (134-135) Which leads to:

“1. Necessarily, if a human person is offered, and unselfishly receives, the transformative gift, then this is the result of the authoritative leading and sustaining power of a divine X of thoroughgoing forgiveness, fellowship in perfect love, worthiness of worship, and triumphant hope (namely, God).

“2. I have been offered, and have willingly unselfishly received, the transformative gift.

“3. Therefore, God exists” (135).

I’m still pondering this argument and trying to decide how weighty it is. The more I’ve looked it over and thought about it, the more interesting it seems to me. For now, I’ll advance my own argument, based on Moser’s writings and my own input:

1) The question “Does God exist?” must be asked in such a way that we humans acknowledge that if God does in fact exist, the question of His existence involves, necessarily, a life-changing, “creating anew” (2 Corinthians 5:17) that is the work of the Holy Spirit, which is a gift of God, not by our works (Ephesians 2:8-9). This is because i) if God exists, then, necessarily, His existence would apply to every aspect of all things (specifically, our lives).

2) Evidence of God’s existence thus entails an entirely life-changing event that is the work of God and not of ourselves (e.g. baptism). It can thus be seen (Moser’s words) as “purposively available evidence”–evidence with the purpose of justification/creating a new [see 1) above].

3) God allows people to reject such life-changing evidence

4) We humans are often in rebellion against God and refuse to acknowledge 1), 2), and 3)

5) If we are in rebellion against God, then we reject the life-changing gift as seen in 2)- faith worked by the Spirit

6) Therefore, God’s existence may indeed be justifiably inaccessible to humans who are in rebellion against God, for the most powerful evidence of God’s existence can be found in 2)–the life-changing gift of the work of the Holy Spirit, and humans who are in rebellion against God reject such evidence, despite its being (purposively) available

I believe that this argument avoids some of my theological objections to Moser’s brand of (some kind of) universalism while still advancing an answer to “Why doesn’t God make his existence blatantly obvious?” I agree wholeheartedly with Moser that God could certainly have reasons for keeping his existence hidden. These reasons could be innumerable, but for now I’m content to settle with the argument that God’s purposes are to use evidence for His existence such as to be life changing through the means of grace (eg. baptism, communion, other religious experience).

My argument is obviously not so much an argument for the existence of God as it is an argument about how exactly we should go about trying to discover the answer to the question “Does God exist?”. I am not here begging the question of the existence of God. Instead, this argument is pointing to the means by which one might go about further inquiring into the question of God’s existence. If Christianity is true, then this argument is (I believe) completely sound.

Now it is appropriate to return to Meister’s argument for the existence of God and similarly modify it.

1)If the God of classical theism exists, He is sovereign

2) If the God of classical theism God exists and is (therefore) sovereign, then His existence would likely be purposively available (see argument above)

3) If there is purposively available evidence that is available and life-changing (read: applicable to every aspect of everything, specifically our lives), then God exists

4) I have perceived such purposively available evidence of God’s existence (as a gift of the Holy Spirit through baptism, communion, and religious experience).

5) Therefore, God exists.

Clearly this doesn’t solve any issue of religious pluralism, which is something  beyond the range of this post. What it does say, however, is that someone may be justified in holding the belief that God exists based on religious experience of purposively available evidence. Thus, such belief is not irrational or unjustified.

These reflections were based on information found in the following sources: Paul K. Moser, The Elusive God. I’ve also read his discussions in two other places: the book “God is Great, God is Good” (edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister) and the publication “Philosophia Christi” (Volume 11, Number 2, 2009) which is published by the Evangelical Philosophical Society (a society that I am a student member of!).

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Religious Experience: Evidence for Beliefs About God

I think that perhaps one of the most often dismissed evidences for the existence of God is Religious Experience–that is, an experience that someone takes to be an experience of God of the supernatural. I have experienced more than one such experience, and this claim is of course met with ridicule or at least massive skepticism by non-theists, and surprisingly enough even by many Christians. Why is this? I personally think that it is due to 1) on the side of the Christian or theist who doubts it, the granting of a kind of empirical belief that such things should be viewed quite skeptically and only believed in light of massive evidence and 2) on the side of the non-theist, an obvious presupposition that such things are obviously false and explainable naturalistically.

So, is there really a case for believing that Religious Experience can give any grounds for belief in (here I’ll more be arguing for beliefs about) God at all? I believe there is a rather strong case. I’ve argued elsewhere that such an experience can grant at least some amount of warrant for belief in God. But I believe that there is more to be said.

First we must discuss sense perception. What does it mean when someone senses something (here “sense” meaning using one of the five senses to ascertain knowledge of something)? There are a number of explanations, but I believe the most obvious one is simply that (in the case of sight) someone (x) sees something (y). Thus, I believe there is a kind of immediacy to sense perception. (Just a side note–this doesn’t go against my beliefs in a kind of Theistic Idealism, as my form of idealism involves a “real world” in the sense of Husserl’s “empty x” that we can perceive.) Now of course sense perception can be wrong, but the main idea is that when x sees y, it is just the case that x sees y, not the case that, say, x believes that x sees y or something even more drawn out.

But then what exactly is our justification for believing that sense perception has warrant? There really is no non-circular way to justify a belief based on a sense perception. Yet we continually believe that we are reliable when we form beliefs based on perceptions. The most common argument for the validation of sense perception in epistemic warrant is to say that our beliefs are justified because sense perception continues to feed us valid data (i.e. we are justified for believing that we are being appeared to “redly” because it is most often the case that when we believe we are being appeared to “redly” we are, in fact, being appeared to “redly”). But of course such a kind of justification is quite circular. It basically boils down to saying that our beliefs formed because of sense perception are valid because sense perception confirms such beliefs. So why do we trust our sense perceptions? It seems as though we have a few alternatives here (not trying to be comprehensive, merely illustrative): 1) we can simply not trust our sense perceptions, or 2) we can agree that it is possible for some system of epistemic justification to validate itself through repeated confirmation (as in the case of being appeared to “redly”). But if 2) is the case, as it almost certainly is, then we must be consistent with ourselves on this regard (this argument is based off Alston’s, cited below).

So then let us return to religious experience. Beliefs from religious experiences are, it seems, justified epistemically in the same way. The subject forms a belief based on the confirmation of that belief within the system. Let us say that some subject has a religious experience in which they believe that God is presenting himself as good. The subject then justifies this belief on the basis that they believe they are being appeared to “goodly” by God and that this is backed up by other experience (perhaps the belief that God continually sustains all things). While this may be circular in nature, one cannot object to the circularity unless they wish to subject sense perception to the same objection. Either both must be rejected, or neither. And if neither is rejected, then it is possible to have justification for a belief about God based on a religious experience.

There is more to say, of course. I mentioned above that I believe it is the case that when x sees y, x simply sees y. That can be applied to religious experience, especially those varieties of religious experience in which the subject claims to have a kind of sense perception of God (like “I saw a great light…” or something of the sort). Thus, when it is the case that the subject, x, experiences in a religious experience some sensation, y, it is simply the case that x experiences y, without any intermediaries.

Here now I’ll turn to a very commonly raised objection to religious experience. It may be claimed that when one experiences such a perception, they are subjected to a kind of euphoric state, either by drugs, by their own control over their brains (they want so badly to experience the religious that they cause it, unknowingly, to happen), or some other factor. These experiences can then be boiled down to a kind of reduction to brain waves, chemicals in the brain, etc. And because these experiences can be explained naturalistically, they are invalid for epistemic justification.

I believe this claim is utterly false. Again we can point to sense perception as being subjected to the same kind of reduction. If religious experience is merely the matter of neurons firing in the brain (among other things), then so is sense perception and indeed all knowledge in itself. But then we must reject everything that we perceive by our senses! For if we are to be consistent in our claim that if something can be reduced to natural causes, it has no epistemic warrant, then yes, religious experience could possibly be reduced to simply brain activity, but so could the existence of things outside of our heads, for we could observe brain activity happening when we observe things and form beliefs about them. Thus, for the sake of consistency, we would need to reject the reality of objects outside of our heads! This is of course not something that someone who raises such an objection is willing to do, but if they want to raise such an objection, their own beliefs are subject to the exact same scrutiny, and it will turn out to be the case that there is no such thing as a belief at all, if indeed all things are just brain activity (a hypothesis I utterly disagree with).

So it seems to me that it is indeed the case that people can form beliefs based on religious experience. I will write more in the future about whether these experiences can have any kind of warrant for those who did not experience the same thing, the problem of religious diversity in regards to claims of religious experience, and more on the concept of warrant with religious experience. For now, however, I’ll leave this as it stands. People can indeed be justified in believing something based on religious experience, if one wants to object in any of the ways outlined above, they simply must be consistent and reject sense perception, material objects, and the like.

Sources:

Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Kwan, Kai-Man. “The Argument from Religious Experience.” The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Blackwell, 2009.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Religious Experiences: Providing Warrant for Belief in God