of experiences of God sometimes describe what seems to come with the thought included
that “This is God.” Whatever the epistemological merits of such an experience might be,
it would be quite natural to say that its phenomenology includes the datum that it is an
experience “of God,” in particular.
9. Epistemology: The Doxastic Practice Approach and the Argument
from Perception
There are two distinct epistemological questions to be asked about religious and mystical
experience. The first is whether a situated person is warranted in thinking that his or her
experiences (or perhaps those of one's religious affiliates) are veridical or have evidential
value. The second is whether “we” who in our wisdom examine the phenomenon of such
experiences “from afar” are warranted in thinking them veridical or endowed with
evidential value. These questions, though related, can be answered independently of one
another.
The major philosophical defense of the right of a person to accept his or her religious
experience as valid (whether or not “we” are entitled to see validity in the phenomenon of
religious experience) may be called the “doxastic practice approach.” The major defense
of the evidential value of at least some religious experiences, from a general vantage
point, may be called the “argument from perception.”
9.1 The Doxastic Practice Approach
William Alston (1991) has defended beliefs a person forms based on mystical and
religious experience, Alston defines a “doxastic practice” as consisting of socially
established ways of forming and epistemically evaluating beliefs with a certain kind of
content from various inputs, such as cognitive and perceptual (100). The
end p.153
practice of forming physical-object beliefs derived from sense perception is an example
of one “doxastic practice,” and the practice of drawing deductive conclusions from
premises is another. Alston argues that the justification of every doxastic practice is
“epistemically circular”; that is, its reliability cannot be established in an independent
way. This includes the “sense-perception practice.” However, we cannot avoid engaging
in doxastic practices. Therefore, Alston contends, it is rational to continue to engage in
them providing there is no good reason to think they are unreliable. Now, there exist
doxastic practices consisting of forming beliefs grounded on religious and mystical
experiences such as “God is now appearing to me.” Such, for example, is the “Christian
doxastic practice.” It follows that it is rational for a person to take the belief outputs of
such a practice as true unless the practice is shown to be unreliable.