Argument Against Religious Experience as Validation
November 2, 2013 at 12:18 am
(This post was last modified: November 2, 2013 at 12:53 am by MindForgedManacle.)
For those waiting for me to finish responding to some posts, I'll do so tomorrow sometime. However, I thought about this particular claim by religious apologists (specifically William Lane Craig, but includes people like Richard Swinburne) and I wanted to get it out of my head so I didn't forget it. To quote Craig:
Okay, so this essentially says that the witness of the Holy Spirit and its impression on Craig's, erm, heart (he might want to get that checked out...) allows Craig to know his worldview is true, even if all the evidence was apparently against such.
Now clearly, Craig and his fellow apologists cannot accept this sort of spooky feeling of supernatural phenomenon be an actual epistemological standard, because otherwise ALL supernaturalists could claim that they feel the witness of Divine/Supernatural thing X as an automatic validation of their worldview. So Craig necessarily has to assume that only he and his fellow ideologues can make this move. That is special pleading. And notice how I haven't (yet) made the argument that such an experience cannot be a validation of whatever supernatural thing or that people do not have these experiences, just that one cannot be justified in saying that such validates their religious worldview as true over other supernaturalists.
But things get much worse for theists making this move: These religious experiences cannot be used in the first place as a validation of such a worldview or even as a basis for an inference to the best explanation. And the reason is very simple. Your experiences alone do not tell you anything about the cause, nature or origin of that which you're experiencing. I'm not special pleading against religious experiences here either, because this is the case with all experiences. Take this for exanple: Say there is someone (a young child, say) who only knows about, I dunno, fire from an experience of having been burned by it. What does this personal experience justify? Well, only what it is like to experience having been burned. This child's experience tells them nothing about what fire's nature is, its constituents are, how it works or what its origin is.
In other words, a mere personal experience alone, of any phenomena, is impotent for understanding it or using it as validation for some metaphysical truth.
And because I feel lie being a bit of an asshole, I'll throw this on the spot argument in there:
The argument is a simple modus ponens, so the validity is there as far as i can tell. And the only way that I can see that the soundness can be disputed is by making the extremely bold claim (among several) that one has defeated external world skepticism. And I'll be expecting to see your name in the philosophy texts books from now on if you do.
Quote:"The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit, in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenicating way of knowing Christianity is true, wholly apart from the evidence."
Okay, so this essentially says that the witness of the Holy Spirit and its impression on Craig's, erm, heart (he might want to get that checked out...) allows Craig to know his worldview is true, even if all the evidence was apparently against such.
Now clearly, Craig and his fellow apologists cannot accept this sort of spooky feeling of supernatural phenomenon be an actual epistemological standard, because otherwise ALL supernaturalists could claim that they feel the witness of Divine/Supernatural thing X as an automatic validation of their worldview. So Craig necessarily has to assume that only he and his fellow ideologues can make this move. That is special pleading. And notice how I haven't (yet) made the argument that such an experience cannot be a validation of whatever supernatural thing or that people do not have these experiences, just that one cannot be justified in saying that such validates their religious worldview as true over other supernaturalists.
But things get much worse for theists making this move: These religious experiences cannot be used in the first place as a validation of such a worldview or even as a basis for an inference to the best explanation. And the reason is very simple. Your experiences alone do not tell you anything about the cause, nature or origin of that which you're experiencing. I'm not special pleading against religious experiences here either, because this is the case with all experiences. Take this for exanple: Say there is someone (a young child, say) who only knows about, I dunno, fire from an experience of having been burned by it. What does this personal experience justify? Well, only what it is like to experience having been burned. This child's experience tells them nothing about what fire's nature is, its constituents are, how it works or what its origin is.
In other words, a mere personal experience alone, of any phenomena, is impotent for understanding it or using it as validation for some metaphysical truth.
And because I feel lie being a bit of an asshole, I'll throw this on the spot argument in there:
Argument Against Religious Experience as Validation Wrote:P1) Personal experience alone, of any phenomenon, doesn't give justification for claiming knowledge of the nature, workings or cause (NWC, shorthand) of that experience. (premise)
P2) If one knows of a phenomenon purely through a personal experience of it, they do not have justification for claims of knowledge regarding that phenomenon's NWC. (conditional)
P3) The "witness of the Holy Spirit" is a personal experience. (premise)
C) Therefore, the supposed experience of the Holy Spirit alone cannot be adequate justification for claiming knowledge of the NWCs of that experience. (conclusion, from 1 - 3)
The argument is a simple modus ponens, so the validity is there as far as i can tell. And the only way that I can see that the soundness can be disputed is by making the extremely bold claim (among several) that one has defeated external world skepticism. And I'll be expecting to see your name in the philosophy texts books from now on if you do.
