PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

MONOTHEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 235

in whatever reasons they might have for not accepting their own
experiences as evidence that God exists.^9

Questions for reflection

1 Explain what is meant by a “phenomenological description” and why
they are useful in the philosophy of religion.
2 What is the difference between an experience providing direct
evidence for a claim that something exists and an experience
providing indirect evidence for a claim that something exists? Give
examples.
3 What is a principle of experiential evidence? What considerations are
relevant when one constructs one?
4 State and assess a direct argument from at least apparent experience
of God to God’s existence.
5 What sorts of experiences can be shown not to be evidence by
applying a principle of experiential evidence to them?
6 Can one person’s religious experience provide evidence for another
person?

Annotated reading

Alston, William (1991) Perceiving God, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Argues that the practice of belief-formation within which Christians claim to
experience God is reliable; considers a host of epistemological views.
Broad, C. D. (1953) Religion, Philosophy, and Psychical Research, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul. Contains a standard, rather favorable discussion of
religious experience by an agnostic.
Davis, Carolyn Franks (1989) The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, Oxford:
Clarendon Press. Argues that religious experience provides evidence for God’s
existence. Strength is its detailed discussion of social science theories; supposes
that there is only one kind of religious experience.
Hardy, Alister (1979) The Spiritual Nature of Man: A Study of Contemporary
Religious Experience, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Presents reports of religious
experiences by “ordinary people.”
Martin, C. B. (1989) Religious Experience, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Argues that religious experience does not provide evidence that God exists.
Rowe, W. L. (1982) “Religious experience and the principle of credulity,”
International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 13, pp. 85–92. Argues that
religious experience does not provide evidence for religious belief.
Yandell, Keith E. (1993) The Epistemology of Religious Experience, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Full-dress presentation of the argument of this
chapter.