Philosophy 1600 - Honors Seminar

 

Topic 6: Religious Experience and the Existence of God

Gary Gutting's Defense of an Argument
from Religious Experience

1. Criticism of Gary Gutting's Defense of an Argument from Religious Experience

Gutting does not provide a satisfactory account of the type of religious experience on which he is focusing, describing them only as follows:

"These, to summarize, are not given as mere feelings or images, nor are they literal physical visions or ineffable mystical insights. Rather they are perceptual but nonsensory experiences, purporting to be of a good and powerful being concerned with us." (140)

The problem is that there are very different types of religious experiences – including visual and auditory experiences, an inner voice, and mystical experiences – and what is to be said about the epistemological status depends very heavily upon the type of experience in question.

2. Further Comments

(1) It is useful to ask oneself what different types of mental states there are, and then to ask what sorts of mental states enter into the experiences that Gutting has in mid.

(2) It looks as if thoughts are part of the experiences in question.

(3) Are feelings part of them as well?

2. Once one has determined what types of mental states are involved, one needs to ask about the conditions under which mental states of the relevant sort are perceptual. If the experiences involve only thoughts and feelings, the situation is quite different from what Gutting thinks.

3. Gutting fails to consider seriously the objection that focuses upon the existence of conflicting religious experiences. He thinks that he can simply retreat to a common core, and thereby avoid the problem.

4. Gutting fails to bring the idea of an inference to the best explanation to bear upon the question of the force of naturalistic explanations of religious experiences.