NOTES 3835 To describe something completely is to state every truth about that thing. There is
nothing whatever such that any human person can completely describe it. Other than
the unsurprising fact that we are not omniscient, it is hard to see that anything of
particular philosophical interest follows from this.
6 See Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential force of Religious Experience (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1989). A strength of this book is its excellent discussion of social science
explanations of religious belief. An unnecessary weakness is its assumption that all
religious experiences are the same, or of the same sort.
7 For what it is worth, conceptual, moral, and aesthetic experiences are more like religious
experiences in these respects than like sensory experiences.
8 Here is one version of an evidential argument from religious experience:
1 Experiences occur which are a matter of their subjects at least seeming to experience
God.
2 If experiences of this sort are not canceled or counterbalanced or compromised or
contradicted or confuted or logically consumed or empirically consumed, then their
occurrence is evidence that God exists.
3 Experiences of this sort are not canceled or counterbalanced or compromised or
contradicted or confuted or logically consumed or empirically consumed.Hence:4 These experiences are evidence that God exists, (from 1–3)It continues:5 If these experiences occur in various cultures, and at various times, to people of
various backgrounds and socio-economic status, their evidential force is increased.
6 These experiences occur in various cultures, and at various times, to people of various
backgrounds and socio-economic status.Hence:7 Their evidential force is increased.While the claims that appear in the premises of this argument are interesting,
controversial, and – in the present author’s view – entirely defensible, discussing
them in detail would take us far afield – into discussions, for example, of the similarity
or otherwise of at least apparent experiences of God as these occur in different times
and places and religious traditions.
9 A final issue should be mentioned. If one sees a cup on the table and not unreasonably
comes to believe that There is a cup on the table, in all strictness one believes more than
one’s current experience tells. The cup one believes is on the table, if it exists at all, is an
enduring thing; one’s current experience is momentary. It is not a matter of pure report
of sensory experiences if one looks again and has an experience with the same sensory
phenomenology that one says that the same cup is still there; it is logically possible that
the old cup has passed away and been replaced by a new one. Cups have other sides, and
one sees only this side; perhaps one sees only a cup façade. The point is not to provide a
basis for skepticism about cups, but simply to note that even a very modest claim about