Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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experience and life, in the case of deluded people and hallucinated people, and so
on. But when you get what one might c all the pure type, say St. Franc is of Assisi,
when you get an experienc e that results in an overflow of dynamic and c reative
love, the best explanation of that it seems to me is the actual existence of an
objective cause of the experience.
Russell: Well, I'm not c ontending in a dogmatic way that there is not a God. What
I'm c ontending is that we don't know that there is. I c an only take what is rec orded
as I should take other rec ords and I do find that a very great many things are
reported, and I am sure you would not ac c ept things about demons and devils and
what not – and they're reported in exactly the same tone of voice and with exactly
t he same c onvic t ion. And t he myst ic , if his vision is veridic al, may be said t o know
that there are devils. But I don't know that there are.
Copleston: But surely in the case of the devils there have been people speaking
mainly of visions, appearanc e, angels or demons and so on. I should rule out the
visual appearanc es, bec ause I think they c an be explained apart from the existence
of the object which is supposed to be seen.
Russell: But don't you think there are abundant rec orded c ases of people who
believe that they've heard Satan speaking to them in their hearts, in just the same
way as the mystics assert God – and I'm not talking now of an external vision, I'm
talking of a purely mental experience. That seems to be an experience of the same
sort as mystics' experience of God, and I don't seek that from what mystics tell us
you c an get any argument for God whic h is not equally an argument for Satan.
Copleston: I quite agree, of c ourse, that people have imagined or thought they
have heard of seen Satan. And I have no wish in passing to deny the existenc e of
Satan. But I do not think that people have claimed to have experienced Satan in
the precise way in which mystics claim to have experienced God. Take the case of a
non-Christ ian, Plot inus. He admit s t he experienc e is somet hing inexpressible, t he
object is an object of love, and therefore, not an objec t that c auses horror and
disgust. And the effec t of that experienc e is, I should say, borne out, or I mean the
validit y of t he experienc e is borne out in t he rec ords of t he life of Plot inus. At any
rate it is more reasonable to suppose that he had that experienc e if we're willing t o
ac c ept Porphyry's ac c ount of Plontinus' general kindness and benevolenc e.
Russell: The fac t that a belief has a good moral effec t upon a man is no evidenc e
whatsoever in favor of its truth.
Copleston: No, but if it c ould ac t ually be proved t hat t he belief was ac t ually
responsible for a good effec t on a man's life, I should c onsider it a presumpt ion in
favor of some truth, at any rate of the positive part of the belief not of its entire
validit y. But in any c ase I am using the character of the life as evidence in favor of
the mystic 's verac ity and sanity rather than as a proof of the truth of his beliefs.
Russell: But even that I don't think is any evidence. I've had experiences myself
that have altered my c harac ter profoundly. And I thought at the time at any rate
that it was altered for the good. Those experiences were important, but they did
not involve the existenc e of something outside me, and I don't think that if I'd
thought they did, the fac t that they had a wholesome effect would have been any
evidenc e that I was right.