Broad Categories Of Religious Experience

According to the traditional Christian theistic tradition, God exists and is an omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent being that desires to be in an intimate relationship with his creation. One way that God chooses to connect and communicate with his creation is through religious experiences. There are accounts throughout history of people such as Paul, or Saul (Acts 9), Joan of Arc and Teresa of Avila (P&R 220) being privy to these types of experience. Over time these religious experiences have been used as evidence for the argument for the existence of God. In this paper I will address this argument originally defined by C.D. Broad as well as the objections raised against it showing that these religious experiences are indeed sufficient

evidence to prove the existence of God due to the common thread present in all experiences.
Before beginning to address the argument from religious experience, first we must correctly define the terms that will be used throughout the paper. If we do not have in mind the correct definition of religious experience and how it is different from mystical experience the argument will not be coherent.
One should take care not to confuse mystical experience with religious experience. A mystical experience is defined as a “super or sub sensory perceptual experience that grants the subject the acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are not accessible by normal sensory perception or standard introspection” (Gellman). This is a type of experience that is not perceived through the typical 5 senses such as vision or other senses such as a sense of pain or body temperature but rather an elected type of sensation that could be described as an out of body experience. These sensations allow a person to become aware of the presence of one or more realities such as the impermanence of reality (Gellman). In order for an experience to be considered mystical and veridical there are 4 identifying attributes that separate the mystical experience from non-mystical experiences. The experience must be ineffable: it cannot be properly described with our normal vocabulary or or is is just simply indescribable. It must be transient: it must last for a short amount of time and the disappears. It must be passive: religious experiences occur to someone, a person does nothing to have this experience occur to him or her. Finally, religious experiences must be noetic: a person must take themselves to be encountering a deep truth, or as William James puts it, “the deepest of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect” (James 225).
On the other hand a religious experience is defined by most philosophers as “an experience which the subject takes to be an experience of God or some supernatural thing”. (Rowe 1). Religious experiences are different from mystical experiences because of the religious content or context present in the experience but the same 4 attributes of mystical experiences are still necessary. It is not simply the interpretation of the experience that is religious but experience itself.
In the broad category of religious experience there are 5 specific kinds as defined by Richard Swinburne (Swinburne 249-52).

The first are experiences which epistemically seem to the subject to be experiences of God or another supernatural being in perceiving a perfectly ordinary non-religious object. An example of this experience would be a theist seeing God’s handiwork in the night sky. The second kind of experience occur when perceiving very unusual public objects which may or may not violate a natural law. An example of this experience are the resurrection appearances of Jesus as described in the bible. The third kind of experiences occurs when the subject has a religious experience in having certain sensations private to herself that can be described with a normal vocabulary used for describing sensations resulting from use of our 5 sense. Another example from the bible is in Matthew when Joseph dreams he sees an angel telling him to leave Bethlehem and go to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. The fourth kind of experience is when the subject has sensations private to herself that cannot be described by a normal vocabulary. This is the type of experience that people find difficult if not possible to describe yet feel as there is something to be described. The final type of religious experience is one the subject does not have by having sensations. The subject seems to be aware of God or some timeless reality but not because she is having certain sensations only because it

so seems to her.
Atheists and theists alike can agree that religious experiences do in fact occur. The point of contention between the two parties is whether some or all religious experiences are veridical rather than delusory and if they provide justification for other people besides the one having the experience. An experience that is veridical means that the subject really did encounter a divine being. An experience that is delusory means that the subject took the experience to be one of a divine being but was mistaken in so taking it. Two terms referring to justification are weak and strong. Weak justification is when a religious experience provides enough evidence for the mystic to believe the experience is veridical. Strong justification is when a religious experience provides enough evidence for not only the mystic but for the non-mystics as well to believe the experience is veridical.
One philosopher who makes a case for those who have religious experience is C.D.

Broad. His argument is important because it solidifies the reliability of the mystics having the experiences. If mystics are considered unreliable then there is no need to continue on with the argument from religious experience. Broad creates an analogy between those who have religious experiences to those who have an ear for music. Those who have certain recognizable religious experiences are equivalent to those who have an ear for music. Those who do not have certain recognizable religious experiences are equivalent to people considered tone-deaf (Broad 120). Going along with this line of thinking, it would be absurd for someone who does not have any recognizable religious experience to not only consider themselves superior then those who do but to also construct their own theories. One should also not expect too much of people who have these religious experiences. Just because they have these experiences does not mean there is a guarantee of high intelligence. In the words of C.D. Broad, “He may also be almost as ignorant about other aspects of reality as the non-musical or non-religious man is about musical or religious experience.” (Broad 121). Those opposed such as Bertrand Russell accuse those who have these religious experiences as having certain neurological problems or physical ailments that cause them to have delusions that they consider religious experiences. This theory is

simply not true of all mystics. Furthermore, not simply considering religious genius but science or art, and there are very few people considered a genius in one area that are perfectly normal mentally or physically. It might simply be normal for these types of genius to be slightly crazy and eccentric. Is also highly likely that in order for a person to be in touch with a reality outside of our own, a person we need to be slightly eccentric or loosened so to speak from this reality in order to fully come into contact with another one. Finally, if one were to have a religious experience we would expect it to have a profound impact on a person and cause them to change their whole life around.
The most potent objection to the argument from religious experience I will respond to is the problem of justification. Do religious experiences provided justification for people who do not have the experience or even the people themselves who have the experience? Philosopher Louis Pojman says no but I agree that it does. A religious experience is similar to normal sensory experience except that at times the vocabulary used to describe the experience is hard to find or non-existent. This does not mean, however, that the person is not justified by the experience. There is a common thread or theme in all religious experiences that makes them justifiable and that is the presence of an ultimate religious reality.
All religious experiences are imposed upon us by some higher order being or creature no matter the religious tradition or inclination and brought to understand some higher reality outside of the normal realm of senses. “All the major faiths offer a way of encountering one and the same ultimate religious reality” (Wynn). If we deal with the traditional definition and interpretation of the Christian God, this being would do whatever it takes to be in a relationship with his creation. There is plenty of evidence in the bible of this fact, simply in the sacrificing of his son Jesus as an atonement for the sins of the world. It makes no sense for this being to approach every single person in the same exact way for not everyone would react the same way. Each experience must conform to some form of the person’s belief system and religious background in order for it to be applicable to them in a meaningful way.
It is logically impossible for every single religious experience to be of the same nature and description and if this were so would raise more questions about its veridicality than if it is now when all experiences are different and unique. If the details of every single religious experience were the exact same you would begin to wonder if the experience as a whole was manufactured. The belief would not be that the experiences were too varied to be true but that it was a sham created to convince the world of God’s existence. Tradition affects how the details of the experience are interpreted (Broad 121). The same sensations within the experience will be interpreted differently by each person depending on their belief system. Traditional beliefs will also affect the many details of the experience itself. For example, a Christian would not have visions of the Virgin Mary and the saints but a Catholic would. These experiences also aid in building upon the existing beliefs and refining them into a more sophisticated system. Not only are religious experiences influenced by different belief systems they are key part in the formation of the systems themselves.
This is also true for scientific discovery. “There has been a gradual refinement and purification of religious beliefs and concepts in the course of history, just as there has been in the beliefs and concepts of science” (Broad 126). At the beginning of each tradition, scientific, religious or any other topic, one person had a theory or belief and as time passed this was refined. How can we discredit religious experiences because they are influenced by different religions and beliefs and not discredit the many scientific discoveries that are formed with similar methods? This inconsistency negates the objection brought about by those who reject the argument from religious experience.
Those who have the religious experiences are justified in believing them to be reliable and veridical, it is the same case with those who are not privy to these experiences. Not everyone can fully understand and comprehend the most difficult physics or scientific dilemmas, but we take those who are experienced and well-versed in each subject field at their word and trust their judgement and knowledge. Why would the same not be true for religious experiences? If a person gives us no reason to doubt their reliability then there is no reason for us to doubt that their religious experiences aren't veridical. As stated previously, the certain characteristics that might make on think someone is not of the right mind or sanity are not excuses for disregarding religious experiences, they are almost necessary qualities to be justified by the experiences. When something is beyond our understanding we look to those who are experts in whatever field it may be and trust that they are right. We are not able to physically verify their theories because we are incapable of doing so, we merely observe and make decisions based on that. This is no different in the case of religious experience. There is no concrete way for us to verify their experiences but based on the commonality of the experiences and the stability and reliability of the people describing them it is logical and reasonable to consider them veridical.