50 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIONthose experiences will be of different sorts. Finally, since those experiences,
if they have occurred, are taken to be soteriologically central by the
traditions in which they are alleged to have occurred; it is assumed that
those sorts of experiences not only have occurred, but have made a
significant difference to the diagnosis and solution of the fundamental
problem the traditions in question assert us to have. So it seems plainly
appropriate to call these religious experiences. If there are, then, the
experiences that religious traditions claim there are, they are experiences
of different kinds or sorts.
Questions for reflection
1 Are the criteria offered for religious experiences being of different kinds
philosophically neutral and applied fairly?
2 What is a phenomenological description of a religious experience, and
why is it important that there be such descriptions?
3 Experiences that no one would think of as religious are also distinct in
kind according to the criteria presented. What are some examples of
different kinds of experience? For what sorts of claims do these
experiences provide evidence?
4 What can be learned about what different kinds of religious experiences
can provide evidence for by reflecting on what different kinds of non-
religious experiences can provide evidence for?
Annotated reading
Bowker, John (1973) The Sense of God, Oxford: Oxford University Press. This book
and the next discuss “experience of God” and social science theories, denying that
we have good reason to think that such experiences are merely subjective.
Bowker, John (1978) The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God, Oxford:
Clarendon Press. See previous reference.
Griffiths, Paul J. (1991) An Apology for Apologetics, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Defends the propriety of talking about religion in rational terms.
Smart, Ninian (1964) Philosophers and Religious Truth, London: SCM Press. A
discussion of the central views of Aquinas, Freud, Hume, and Wittgenstein.
Smart, Ninian (1973) The Science of Religion and the Sociology of Knowledge,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Argues the attempts to reduce claims
about knowledge to claims about what is believed in a culture are self-defeating.