Religious Experience: Objections to RE (Part 5 of 5)

Description of Video 5:

Common core of RE (via Davis, 1989, p. 191):

(1) The mundane world of physical bodies, physical processes, and narrow centres of consciousness is not the whole or ultimate reality.

(2) … there is a far deeper ‘true self’ which in some way depends on and participates in the ultimate reality.

(3) Whatever is the ultimate reality is holy, eternal, and of supreme value; it can appear to be more truly real than all else, since everything else depends on it.

(4) This holy power can be experience as an awesome, loving, pardoning, guiding (etc.) presence with whom individuals can have a personal relationship …

(5) … at least some mystical experiences are experiences of a very intimate union with the holy power …

(6) Some kind of union or harmonious relation with the ultimate reality is the human being’s summo bonum, his final liberation or salvation, and the means by which he discovers his ‘true self’ or ‘true home’.

Objection 8 detailed:

Eighth, an objector can claim that REs are so various and mutually contradictory, we should regard them as suspicious or nonveridical. There are three points I’d like to make here. First, we can use the Principle of Critical Trust (defined in part 4’s description) to sift out which experiences hold initial trust and which experiences are defeated. Second, if we use a courtroom analogy, conflicting testimonies do not lead to the rejection of all the testimonies. Rather, the common core or content of that experience is accepted while the details are hashed out. Consider Caroline Davis’ common core of RE (See description). Third, we can redefine RE to TE, as Kwan does, and differentiate between experiences that are pro-theistic (e.g. Encounter with a light being, experience of design, ecstasy and peak experience) and anti-theistic in nature (e.g. impersonal experiences such as monistic mysticism or experiences of minor deities) to see via ground level-sifting which holds the most weight. The problematic experiences here are the anti-theistic REs (e.g. impersonal experience, Monism). For the sake of time constraints, I will simply suggest that via ground level sifting, TE has more weight than Monism. Now if I need to defend this point I will (Conrad Livingston), but for now this will suffice.

References:

Craig, W.L., & Moreland, J.P. (2009). The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pulishing Ltd

Hick, J. (2006) The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience and the Transcendent. Basingstoke, England and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Moreland, J.P. (1987). Scaling the Secular City. Grand Rapids: MI, Baker Book House

Nash, R. H. (1988). Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan

Plantinga, A., & Wolterstorff, N. (1983). Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Norte Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press

Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 250-521

Schaefer, R.T. and Lamm, R.P. (1995) Sociology (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

William Rowe, (1982) “Religious experience and the principle of credulity,” International Journal fro Philosophy of Religion, 13, 85-92

Category:

Education

Tags:

• religious
• experience
• argument
• justification
• epistemology
• God
• principle
• of
• credulity
• reformed
• Kai-Man
• Kwan
• argum

[wowownzu]

Whats the music in intro?

[telemantros]

Mausam & Escape

[disofchrist]

Thanks for producing this series it has been very helpful and I will be studying them over and over, they are definately going in my favorites.... God Bless you brother!

[telemantros]

Great! God bless, Tele

[dashan091]

I had a dream where I died at the hands of a Japanese sword in ww2. I was lead by an old mentor priest who showed me a paradise which I assumed was heaven. I was on a high for days after. Now u can interpret that dream how u like e.g. wishful thinking or whatever. I know however, in my case the ecstasy I experienced that followed was real. Sadly the physical world caught up with me but I still have the vivid memory of that experience

Pace in terra

[zarkoff45]

How do you question religious experiences?

watch?v=zahFKGVpQGg

[isin17123]

Ohhhhh, I just did a paper on this. Why didn't I see this earlier?!?! Still, great series of vids.

[migkillertwo]

An attack on a belief's origin certainly does not undermine its truth, I would agree with that. However, on an externalist view of justification, saying that a belief's being generated by mental projections would undercut its status of knowledge, for you would undercut its justification.