Edexcel A2 Philosophy and Ethics - Religious Experiences Unit

2. Introduction:
• ‘Sense of the numinous’ –
Otto, meaning sense of God.
• Are someone's senses enough
proof for Gods existence or
are they to personal?
Argument:
• People claim to have
experienced God directly.
• If an entity is experienced, it
must exist.
• God is the sort of being that it
is possible to experience.
• Some argue for ‘direct
awareness’ – view that God
can be known intuitively by
the person perceiving him.
• Conclusion: God exists.
Inductive argument:
• Premise 1: experience of X
indicates the reality of X.
• Premise 2: Experience of God
indicates the reality of God.
• Premise 3: it is possible to
experience God.
• Conclusion: God exists as so
many have such experiences.
Evidence used:
• An inductive and a posteriori
argument based on the
evidence of witness and
testimonies.
The debate:
• Objective (fact for everyone) or
subjective (dependent on
personal belief)?
• Because they experience God,
you should believe.
St Teresa:
• ‘God establishes himself in the
interior of his soul in such a way
that when I return to myself, it is
wholly impossible for me to
doubt that I have been with God
and God was with me.’
John Wesley:
• ‘I felt my heart strangely
warmed. I felt I did trust in
Christ, Christ alone, for
salvation, and an
assurance was given me,
that he had taken away
my sins, even mine’
St Paul:
• ‘Suddenly a light from
heaven flashed around
him. He fell to the ground
and heard a voice say to
him ‘Saul Saul, why do you
persecute me?’
Conclusion:
• Experiences are objective
for the experiencer but
subjective to everyone else
– cant be!!
Summary:
• Religious experiences
examine the pending
question ‘is too see to
believe?’, the validity of
Otto’s ‘sense of the
numinous’ and whether
intuition can be trusted
when attempting to
prove God through
posteriori experiences.
• St Teresa states ‘it was
wholly impossible for me
to doubt’

3. Lifetime:
• Studied and wrote ‘Varieties of
Religious Experience’ and found they
all shared common factors:
• ‘Ineffability’ – struggled to find
a way to explain it.
• ‘Noetic’ – gained knowledge
that, to them, was 100% real.
• ‘Transiency’ – outside of
themselves, they don’t cause it.
• ‘Passivity’ – timeless/lasts ages.
Argued:
• ‘Absolutely authoritative’ – to the
people experiencing them and the
common factors point to God.
• However, claims it is still too
subjective to the person to prove God
to others.
Summary:
• James is not in favour of religious
experiences being proof of God for
everyone as he views it as subjective.
Argument:
• Religious experiences are deeply
personal.
• But this makes testimonies too
subjective.
• Only proves God to the experiencer.
• However, for them it is the most
convincing proof there is.
• The only thing that is unequivocally
testifies to is that we can experience
union with something greater than
ourselves.’
Conclusion:
• That we should judge the experience
on the impact it has on the person.
• To them it is 100% proof as they have
a noetic knowledge.
• ‘The result of religious experiences
are the only reliable bases for judging
whether it is a genuine experience of
the divine.’

4. Pragmatic Theory:
• Judge on the impact
• What effect does it have on peoples lives?
• Paul Tillich – ‘Ultimate concern.’
Summary of Religious Experiences:
• People intuitionally know ‘things’.
• So should be able to intuitionally prove God.
• Brian Davies – ‘Just as I can reasonably say that
there is a bed in my bedroom because I have
encountered it, so I can reasonably say that there is
a God, because I have directly encountered him.’
• They just self authenticate.
• H. Farmer - ‘It will not be possible to describe the
compelling touch of God other than a compelling
touch of God.’

5. Argument:
• Reasonable to suppose that God
would seek to engage and interact
with his creation if he existed.
• Fit with the nature and attributes of
God (omnipotent, benevolent) he
would be able to interact with us.
• If God exists, we should expect
religious experiences to take place
(higher probability).
• ‘An omnipotent and perfectly good
creator will seek to interact with his
creatures and in particular, with
human persons capable of knowing
him’.
Principle of credulity:
• Defends the idea that those
experiencing God should believe
intuitively what their
instincts/senses are telling them.
Principle of testimony:
• He also argues that we should
trust those who give accounts of
RE if there is no reason to doubt
them.
• Readily admits that known liars,
drug addicts and he like should
not be trusted.
• ‘In the absence of special
consideration the experiences of
the others are probably as they
report.’

6. Argument:
• Why God can act in the
world? – in small, day to day
experiences, not miracles.
• God can act in the world,
through religious
experiences.
• To understand this, must
understand that there are
two types of relationships:
• I-IT – day to day
relationships with objects
(pens, clothes).
• I-YOU (thou) – relationships
with people (deeper).
• Don’t need to verify
relationships with items as
you know empirically that
they exist.
• Can’t verify relationships
with friends/families but
don’t need to – intuitionally
know they are real, so why
would God be any different?
Experiencing God:
• Best way for God to be experienced is
through other people.
• Referred to God a ‘eternal thou’.
• So he can/does work through people,
with the experiencer using their intuition.
• ’…each thou we address the eternal thou.’
• Atheists still have such experiences but do
not recognise them as Gods work.
Quotes:
• ‘special kind of knowledge quite different
from our knowledge of them as an object
or thing…’ – don’t need to prove
relationships with God as with family.
• ‘You relation is immediately broken’ –
once you question your relationship with
God, it breaks.
• ‘The world is twofold for man in
accordance with his twofold attitude’.
Proof:
• Don’t need proof – experiences in
everyday life prove him.

7. Owen’s Work:
• Intuition is the same as religious
experiences.
• Can use our ability to
think/intuition allows us to have a
primary awareness of ourselves.
• Can use intuition of finite thing to
confirm they are significantly
religious.
• However, knows this isn’t the best
proof in philosophy but is for
experience.
Summary:
• Religious experience is a genuine source of religious knowledge.
• Religious experiences are not grand events (they are miracles) but
day-to-day events (feeling in church)
• Knowledge comes from intuition, not reason or argument.
• Intuition is what allows us to make sense of our experiences.
• God works through out intuition; inner self.
• Through our understanding of the world.
• ‘… sense of God’s reality can… be produced by the contemplation of
beauty and order in nature.’
Write up:
• Claimed that religious experiences are a
genuine source of religious knowledge, by
this he meant away a person experiences
God and therefore knows God is real. Just
as we use our intuition to interpret the
world around us, so too can we use our
intuition to know that God is real. God
works through intuition (past experiences
tells us nothing happens without sufficient
reason). Experiences that we encounter
are processed through our senses which
are interpreted by our intuition. We can
use our intuition to interpret the order and
structure in nature plus its ‘beauty’ and
understanding that it is the work of God.
For Owen, religious experiences are God’s
way of having a relationship wit us, the
only way he can do this is by working
through out intuition.

8. Argument:
• Love is just a chemical, physical reaction.
• Can not be certain our experience is correct.
• The reliability of our ‘sense of intuition’ is not
something to be taken for granted, as an independent
guide to genuine knowledge.
• No doubt that we have reliable intuitions in some
situations but…
• Not always the case: out intuitive knowledge of other
people (which the argument relies on) the feeling that
we have profound and certain knowledge may be false.
• Should stick to a priori argument – as uses the
brain/reason.
• ‘more groping method of the intellect are in the long
run more reliable.’
Argument:
• Wrong to draw evidence from people’s claim to religious
experiences – analogies don’t work (Davis – just because
he knows there is a bed in his room which he can
empirically test (he can go and look) does not prove
God).
• There are ‘disanalogies’ between religious experiences
and other, normal experiences. Analogies only work if
they are comparative, which religious experiences are
not.
• Religious experiences have different characteristics from
other perceptions, so they should not carry the same
degree of authority.
• Not part if the same scheme of shared and verified
experiences common in daily life.

9. Argument:
• Created an electronic helmet that inducted
‘religious experiences’.
• Small electric signals and magnetic
vibrations into the temporal lobes.
• Suppressed parts of brain, the sense of
individuality was lost, and rest of James’
points.
• People reported feeling ‘something there’
• But couldn’t name it.
• Some even reported ‘mystical experiences’.
Summary:
• Religious experiences can be induced so are therefore not God, they are
just psychological problems.

10. A. J. Ayer: A. Flew: (falsification
principle)
• To argue one has sensed the numinous, is not to conclude it
to be the result of God.
• Not the same as other intuitional experiences or yellow
(language game) as they can be empirically proven within
language – intuition of God is different from intuition of
other things – not helpful to have an indescribable
experience.
• Can not empirically test these experiences, so shouldn’t say
anything.
• To also argue that a religious experience is ‘Ineffable’ (James)
is to admit that they are meaningless.
• ’the fact that he cannot reveal what he knows or even
himself devise an empirical test to validate his knowledge,
shows that the state of the mystic intuition is not a genuinely
cognitive state’ – fact that Farmer cant explain what he felt is
an underlying sign of psychological problem, the fact that you
can not test it means it is not a cognitive state you are in.
• Can only ever be subjective, never objective.
• Religious believers are bias in outlook, meaning their
testimonies are unreliable.
• The believer will not allow evidence to the contrary, as
they continue to believe.
• Hard to know the validity of the religious experiences
(can’t disprove Santa) as it just proves just how
pointless the argument is.
• If God does not exist, you have no experience of him
and therefore by nature religious experiences are not
real.
• Can we know it is God? – no way to empirically test it.
• ‘in order to say something which may possibly be true,
we must say something which may possible be false.’ –
to say for definite that it is the work of God, must prove
him but can’t (also can’t not prove him).

11. S. Freud: Dawkins:
• Psychological need:
• Religious experiences maybe the result of man’s desire for
God as the mind has the ability to do this.
• Religion is part of a projective system – ideas from inside you
that you project into reality.
• ‘universal neurosis’ – regarded as illusionary.
• You do feel it, but not God, just your psyche.
• Therefore, religious experiences are projections/illusions..
• Your desire to have a relationship, with a greater being, a
great father figure onto God.
• ‘Mans relation to God could recover the intimacy and
intensity, of a child’s relation to his father’.
• No one can deal with this desire, so it is projected onto God.
• Personal experiences often used in an appeal to God
because people are ignorant of more straight-forward
physical or psychological (water) explanation for what
they perceive.
• ‘it is an argument based on ignorance’.
• In his book, The God Delusions, he tells a story from his
uni days – he recalls that a fellow undergraduate was
camping in Scotland and claimed to have heard the
voice of the devil – Satan himself – which is an ignorant
claim as they didn’t bother looking for an alternative.
• It was just the call of the Devil bird.

12. R. Hare: L. Wittgenstein:
• ‘Bliks’ - an unverifiable/falsifiable way of looking at the
world (biased in head, a presumed idea)
• Theists have religious bliks – way of looking at the world
which is religious (wind=God or wind=science)
• Means all experiences point to God.
• Those experiences become empirical facts.
• Uses example of the ‘lunatic and the Don’.
• ‘seeing as’ - e.g. – pretty/ugly.
• Plato’s cave – mistake what we experience, thinking
shadows are people, thinking experiences are God.
• Not lying, just misinterpreting/their way of seeing it.
• Duck and Rabbit illusion – just see it differently.
• Therefore, experiences don’t prove God as they just
misinterpret what they are seeing.
Lunatic and the Don:
• A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons want to murder him. His friends introduce him to all the mildest
and most respectable dons that they can find, and after each of them has retired, they say, 'You see, he
doesn't really want to murder you; he spoke to you in a most cordial manner; surely you are convinced now?'
But the lunatic replies, 'Yes, but that was only his diabolical cunning; he's really plotting against me the whole
time, like the rest of them; I know it I tell you'. However many kindly dons are produced, the reaction is still
the same.

13. Ayer Persinger Flew Hare Wittgenstein Russell Freud Dawkins Mackie
Swinburne
S: verify
A: can’t
empirically test as
not the same as
family relations.
S: principle
of testimony
P: shouldn’t
trust – psych
problems
S: test
experience
using
intuition
F: nothing to
test
S: should trust
experiencers.
H: bliks make
testimonies
bias – not
high prob.
S: experiencers
see God
through
intuition.
W: misinterpret
S:
experience
God through
intuition.
W: intuition
is just a
chemical
reaction.
S: should trust
testimonies.
F: shouldn’t –
just psyche
projecting.
S: should trust
testimonies.
D: just
misassumptio
ns – don’t
bother
looking for
alternative.
S: should
trust
testimonies.
M: RE’s
have
different
characteristi
cs.
James
J: absolute
authoritive
A: not – may not
be God
J:
characteristic
s.
P: not God -
replicated
J: absolute
authoritive
F: can not not
prove God, so
not an
authoritive.
J: absolute
authoritive.
H: bliks cause
bias
testimonies –
not an
authoritive.
J: noetic
knowledge
W: just seeing
it differently
than others.
J: should
trust
experiences.
R: can’t use
intuition in
this case.
J: similarities
in experiences
F: just how
the psyche
works.
J: noetic
knowledge.
D: don’t
bother
looking for
alternative.
J:
similarities
M: different
from daily
experiences
Buber
B: ‘thou’ relations
are proof.
A: not the same
relation.
B: use
intuition as
proof.
F: biased
intuition.
B: experience
him in
everyday life.
P: don’t, just
neurosis
B: see God
through
everyday
experiences.
H: just think
you
experience
him
B: ‘thou’
relationships
W: just think
what is
happening is
God when it
isn’t.
B: ‘thou’
relationships
R: can use
other things
than
intuition to
know others,
not God
B:
experiences
God through
others.
F: just project
him onto
others to feel
better.
B: ‘thou’
relations.
D: just nice
people – not
God.
B: thou
relations are
same for
God.
M:
dianalogies
– not the
same

14. James:
• Important to the person equals
God.
Swinburne:
• High probability because of the
huge number of people having
experiences.
Buber:
• God shows himself in ways we
can understand – through
others.
Farmer:
• Self-authentication: prove
themselves.
Owen:
• God is what makes intuition
work, experiences are
interpreted through intuition.
Ayer:
• Can not test the experience so does not
prove God’s existence.
• The words used in religious experiences
do not prove God’s existence.
Flew:
• Does not prove/falsify God as we can
not test the evidence offered to God’s
existence.
Persinger:
• Religious experiences can be explained
by the brain – helmet.
Hare:
• Bias when looking at experiences
because of bliks so could be not God.
Wittgenstein:
• Misinterpret what they see –
duck/rabbit
Russell:
• Impossible to use intuition to prove
God as it is effected by emotion.
Freud:
• Project God into existence as need a
guiding father figure.
Dawkins:
• People conclude God when they so
not bother looking for another
example.
Mackie:
• Analogies are wrong – use ones that
can be empirically tested whereas
God cannot.