Should the Principle of Credulity Apply to Religious Experiences?
The principle of credulity states that if it seems to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present. Generally, says Swinburne, it is reasonable to believe that the world is probably as we experience it to be. Unless we have some specific reason to question a religious experience, therefore, then we ought to accept that it is at least prima facie evidence for the existence of God.
Swinburne thinks this argument supports religious belief, but Michael Martin disagrees.
Swinburne thinks this argument supports religious belief, but Michael Martin disagrees.
posted by Victor Reppert @ 1:37 PM
6 Comments:
At January 02, 2009 7:22 PM ,
philip m said...
I think Pascal has a quote that goes something like, "If you find something at one point, this means it always is."
For many Christians experience the absence of God as well, like Screwtape points out in his seventh or eighth letter. But quite clearly to say you have never met someone is not to offer evidence that they don't exist; it could be either the case that they do not exist or simply that you have not met yet. That question is settled only for people who then meet the person in question.
At January 04, 2009 10:26 AM ,
Blue Devil Knight said...
Your argument convinces me that Athena is real.
At January 04, 2009 4:09 PM ,
philip m said...
No counter-arguments? Really?
At January 06, 2009 8:43 PM ,
Ilíon said...
Of course not.
'Atheists' generally seem unable to conceive of God as other than one more version of Zeus; they nearly always imagine that "the universe" or "nature" can occupy God's place.
So ... perhaps it's not really that they cannot understand the proper conception of God, but that they *will not* understand it.
At January 06, 2009 8:46 PM ,
Ilíon said...
Amuzingly enough, atheism cannot offer a rational denial that Zeus (or Athena) is real.
At August 05, 2009 10:03 PM ,
Kyle said...
What do we do in the case where one person has an experience of Jehovah, another of Allah, and another of Vishnu? These are mutually exclusive claims, so experience can't support all of them. Maybe, at most, religious experience can confirm the existence of some sort of transcendent reality?
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