What are religious experiences, can they be evidence for God, and how do James, Otto, Swinburne and their critics assess them?
Religious experience: types (mystical, conversion, numinous, corporate), William James and the marks of mysticism, Otto and the numinous, Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and naturalistic challenges.
A CCEA AS 8 guide to religious experience. Covers the main types (mystical, conversion, numinous and corporate), William James's four marks of mysticism, Otto and the numinous, Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and the naturalistic challenges to using experience as evidence for God.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
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What this dot point is asking
You need to explain religious experience, including its main types (mystical, conversion, numinous and corporate), William James's four marks of mysticism, Rudolf Otto's account of the numinous, and Richard Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and then evaluate whether religious experience is good evidence for God, weighing the naturalistic challenges. This is the third main strand of AS 8, asking whether direct experience can support belief in God where the classical arguments fall short.
Types of religious experience
William James and the marks of mysticism
Otto and the numinous
Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony
Richard Swinburne argued that religious experience can count as evidence for God using two rational principles.
- The principle of credulity. In the absence of special reasons to doubt, we should believe that things are as they seem to be; so if it seems to someone that they have experienced God, that is prima facie reason to think they have.
- The principle of testimony. In the absence of special reasons to doubt, we should believe that others are telling the truth about their experiences; so the many sincere reports of religious experience are evidence to be taken seriously.
Together these mean the sheer volume of religious experiences provides cumulative, though not conclusive, evidence for God, unless the special challenges below defeat them.
The naturalistic challenges
A model evaluation paragraph might run: "Religious experience has a real evidential pull: Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony are the same principles we rely on in ordinary perception and history, so to refuse them only for religious claims looks arbitrary, and the transforming fruits of experience, as James emphasised, are hard to dismiss as illusion. Yet the naturalistic challenges are serious. Psychologists from Freud onwards explain experience as projection or wish-fulfilment; neuroscience links experiences to temporal-lobe activity; similar states can be induced by drugs or fasting; experiences across religions conflict, so they cannot all be veridical; and, being private, they cannot be independently verified. The judgement, therefore, is that religious experience offers genuine cumulative support for theism for the one who has it and, via testimony, some weight for others, but falls short of proof, since naturalistic explanations and conflicting claims leave room for reasonable doubt."
Try this
Q1. Name William James's four marks of mystical experience. [2 marks]
- Cue. Ineffability, noetic quality, transiency and passivity.
Q2. Explain Otto's idea of the numinous. [6 marks]
- Cue. The non-rational experience of the holy as mysterium tremendum et fascinans: a mystery that is awe-inspiring and terrifying yet fascinating and attractive, an irreducible category.
Q3. "Naturalistic explanations show that religious experience is not evidence for God." Discuss. [12 marks]
- Cue. Weigh psychological, neurological and drug-based explanations and conflicting experiences against Swinburne's principles and the reply that a brain correlate does not disprove an external cause. Reach a judgement.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of CCEA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
CCEA AS 8 201912 marksExplain William James's account of mystical experience.Show worked answer →
An AO1 question, so reward accurate exposition of James's four marks and
approach.
The four marks. Explain James's four characteristics of mystical
experience: ineffability (it cannot be described in words), noetic quality
(it gives knowledge or insight), transiency (it is temporary) and passivity
(the subject feels acted upon, not in control).
His method. A strong answer notes that James, in The Varieties of Religious
Experience, studied experience empirically, judging it by its fruits (its
effects on the person's life) rather than its origins.
His conclusion. James held that religious experiences are real psychological
events that point to a "something more", though he was cautious about what
they prove. Accurate use of the four marks reaches the top band.
CCEA AS 8 202112 marksComment on the view that religious experience provides good evidence for the existence of God.Show worked answer →
An AO2 evaluation question, so argue both sides and judge.
Supporting the claim. Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony
hold that we should normally trust how things seem and what others report,
so the vast number of religious experiences counts as evidence for God.
Challenging the claim. Naturalistic explanations (psychological need,
neuroscience, drugs), the problem of conflicting experiences across
religions, and the impossibility of verifying private experiences weaken
the case.
A judgement that religious experience offers some cumulative support but is
not conclusive, given naturalistic alternatives and the privacy of the
experiences, reaches the higher bands.
Related dot points
- The design (teleological) argument: Aquinas's fifth way, Paley's watchmaker analogy, the argument from order and purpose, and the challenges from Hume, Darwin and the problem of evil, with the anthropic principle as a modern restatement.
A CCEA AS 8 guide to the design (teleological) argument. Covers Aquinas's fifth way, Paley's watchmaker analogy, the arguments from order and purpose, and the criticisms from Hume, Darwin and the problem of evil, with the anthropic principle as a modern restatement.
- The cosmological argument: Aquinas's first three ways (motion, cause and contingency), the principle of sufficient reason and the rejection of infinite regress, the Kalam argument, and the criticisms from Hume and Russell.
A CCEA AS 8 guide to the cosmological argument. Covers Aquinas's first three ways (motion, cause and contingency), the rejection of infinite regress, the principle of sufficient reason, the Kalam argument, and the criticisms from Hume and Russell.
- The problem of evil: the logical and evidential problems, the inconsistent triad, moral and natural evil, and the Augustinian and Irenaean theodicies as responses, with the free will defence.
A CCEA AS 8 guide to the problem of evil. Covers the logical and evidential problems, the inconsistent triad, the distinction between moral and natural evil, the free will defence, and the Augustinian and Irenaean theodicies as responses to the challenge.
- The relationship between religion and morality: divine command theory, the Euthyphro dilemma, the autonomy and heteronomy of ethics, conscience, and whether morality depends on God.
A CCEA AS 7 guide to the relationship between religion and morality. Covers divine command theory, the Euthyphro dilemma, the autonomy and heteronomy of ethics, the role of conscience, and the debate over whether morality depends on God or can stand independently of religion.
Sources & how we know this
- CCEA GCE Religious Studies (2016) specification — CCEA (2016)