Religious experience

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INTERLOCUTOR SAID:

Okay, say I have a "religous experience." Specifically, when I open up a Bible and read I experience a "burning in the bosom"--I know this is a Mormon metaphor, but wasn't something like this said by Calvin or Luther about discerning what is canonical? [If this specific example is troubling, replace it with one that you feel is legitimate--e.g. an encounter with God through worship, etc.)

Anyway, I take this experience to be a "religious experience"--maybe I read it as the Holy Spirit guiding me to the truth of the Bible.

Now, though, I am talking to a Mormon friend. I don't believe that Mormonism is Christianity. This friend says to me that she experiences a burning in the bosom when she reads the book of Mormon. Similarly, I speak to a Muslim friend who experiences the same thing when reading the Koran.

It seems, then, that many are having the same kind of experience where, according to my theology, they should not.

Now, I, certainly, have many options. I can deny that they are really experiencing what I am. I can say that they are experiencing what I am experiencing, but that their experience is the result of a demon attempting to deceive them. Or, I could begin to doubt the "relegiousity" of my own experience. In other words, I could say that the experience is real, but that it has nothing to do with encoutering a spiritual being, but rather a psychological experience explained in other terms (e.g. the people in my community tell me that this is a spiritual book, it is revered by prominent members of my community, it is used to substantiate the claims of people giving testimony in court, etc.). I can say that my "religious experience" is merely a psychological experience brought about by communal teaching about the book. I experienced a burning bosom because of my background.

Other people of other faiths experience the same burning bosom because of their backgrounds and contexts.

So, now, on the basis of experiencing others who claim to have the same "religious experience" I have had, I begin to look for a way to justify the authenticity of my experience and the inauthenticity of theirs. To do this, I must go outside of my experience.

Now, though, it seems we are right back at the spot that Exapologist described. In order to justify the authenticity of religious experience, we look to arguments. When we doubt the arguments, we can't justify the authenticity of our religious experience, and we begin to doubt the veracity of the subject of our faith.

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To get one thing out of the way at the outset, I’ve already addressed the Mormon argument from experience:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/07/plastic-pearl-of-great-price.html

We also need to draw a number of distinctions:

1.There’s a difference between a genuine experience and a veridical experience.

It’s somewhat redundant to speak of a “genuine” or “authentic” experience. Any experience qua experience is genuine. Even a delusive experience is an authentic experience.

If I had a dream, I had real dream, even if what I dreamt about was unreal.

2.So we need to distinguish between the subjective and objective aspects of experience. the question at issue is whether the experience is a genuine—or more precisely, veridical—experience *of* something else beyond the experience itself. What was the experience *about*?

3.For purposes of this discussion, I’m defining religious experience as an experience of God—a way of experiencing the existence and/or nature of God.

In principle, I could extend the definition to include occult experience, which is also a form of religious experience.

4.There’s a difference between religious experience and the *argument* from religious experience.

Religious experience qua experience is not, of itself, an *argument* for the existence of God. Rather, it is, in the first instance, a way of apprehending God apart from argument.

5.In some cases, religious experience can be turned into a theistic argument. But the experience of God, or resultant belief, is not, ipso facto a formal argument for God’s existence, or even an informal inference.

6.Rather, when the subject is in a receptive frame of mind, and when he is exposed to suitable evidence, there is a spontaneous apprehension of God’s existence.

7.This may operate at a subliminal level. The subject isn’t forming conscious propositions about God.

8.Now, if you ask the subject *why* he believes in God, he may cite his religious experience as a *reason*.

This is not quite the same thing as an *argument*. Rather, it’s a form of *testimony*.

9.It may be possible for a more philosophically astute Christian to turn this into a formal argument. But that’s about two steps removed from the raw experience.

10.It is quite possible for the reprobate to experience God. Not every religious experience is a redemptive experience.

11.We need to distinguish between the first-order act of knowing something, and the second-order act of knowing how we know it. It is quite possible to know something without knowing how we know it. And I can know something for myself even if I’m unable to prove it to a second-party.

For purposes of *argument*, it is necessary to *show* that you know something. To demonstrate the point for the benefit of an outsider who isn’t privy to your experience.

12.It is also possible to prepare yourself for a religious experience. There is no formula which will guarantee a religious experience. But you are more likely to have a religious experience if you place yourself in a religious environment, and less likely to have a religious experience if you absent yourself from a religious environment.

13.Religious experience varies in its specificity. There are different ways of encountering God.

The subject can truly experience God, and form a true belief about God, without that experience validating a religious belief-system. It depends, in part, on the particular object of experience.

14.The possibility and/or content of religious experience also depends, in some measure, on your general epistemology. If you’re a radical empiricist, then the scope or of religious experience is more limited than if you believe in nonempirical sources of knowledge.

But in principle, it could also work in reverse. You could begin with a very restrictive epistemology, then have an experience which forces you to revise and broaden your theory of knowledge.

15.The subject of a religious experience can misinterpret the identity of his experience. But that is true of any experience, whether religious or otherwise.

16.The veridicality of any experience, whether religious or otherwise, is subject to considerations beyond the experience itself.

If, for example, Muhammad says that his message is merely a confirmation of OT and NT revelation, and if, in fact, his message is clearly inconsistent with OT and NT revelation, then his prophetic claims are falsified by his own yardstick.

That would invalidate his religious experience, as well as the religious experience of a Muslim reading the Koran.

17.From a Christian standpoint, it’s ultimately up to God whether any particular individual has had a veridical experience of God—much less a redemptive experience.