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Arguments concerning

nonmonotheistic conceptions (2)

Appeals to enlightenment experience

A

ppeals to religious experience as evidence for religious belief are
not, of course, limited to consideration of experiences that are taken
by their subjects to be experiences of God. Appeals are made to
enlightenment experiences as well. While, as noted earlier, the psychological
features (detachment, calm, bliss, and the like) of Advaita, Jain, and Buddhist
enlightenment experiences are very similar, their reported structure and their
proposed doctrinal significance are quite different. Enlightenment experiences
are not viewed by religious traditions in which they are prized as a sort of cosmic
Prozac; they are not primarily prized for their psychological features. They are
believed to cure, not remove symptoms, and the ills they are said to cure are not
depression, but the basic illness common to us all, as each particular religious
tradition perceives it. If a devotee of Advaita Vedanta appeals to Advaita
enlightenment experience as evidence for religious belief, it will be Advaita
beliefs that are said to be supported by the experience. Analogously, of course,
for Jain or Buddhist appeals to Jain or Buddhist enlightenment experiences.

The exact nature of the appeals to experiential evidence

An appeal to experience as evidence typically involves, as we have seen, referring
to a description of the experience and explicitly or implicitly assuming some
conceptual connection between the occurrence of an experience that fits that
description and the proposition for whose truth that occurrence is said to provide
evidence. The core idea is:

1 An experience that fits description D has occurred.
2 If an experience that fits description D has occurred, that fact is evidence that
proposition P is true. So:
3 That fact is evidence that P is true.