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‘If there is a God, any Experience which seems to be of God, will be Genuine’1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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In The Existence of God Richard Swinburne argues that ‘if there is a God, any experience which seems to be of God, will be genuine – will be of God.’ On the face of it this claim of the essential veridicality of any religious experience, given the existence of God, is incredible. Consider what is being claimed by looking at a particularly dramatic example – but one that is well within the purview of Swinburne's claim. The ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ who murdered at least thirteen women, claimed to hear voices telling him to kill. He took these voices to be divine. While it is easy enough to suspect the killer's sanity, it is not so easy to doubt his sincerity. Yet since Swinburne claims that God probably exists, he is committed to the view that the Ripper had a series of genuine religious experiences – so much for the arduous preparations sometime taken as necessary for a ‘vision’ of God.
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References
2 Chapter 13, ‘The Argument From Religious Experience’, esp. pp. 269–70Google Scholar.
3 Swinburne does not explicitly describe these experiments as being essentially veridical, but I take it that this is more or less what he means. Note that an essentially veridical' experience, or an experience that has the property of being ‘veridical essentially’ if there are any, should not be confused with a self-authenticating experience. If it is possible that an experience be essentially veridical it may be so even if it is not and cannot be self-authenticating. (However, I do take it that any experience that is self-authenticating must be essentially veridical). Robert Oakes has described a self-authenticating experience of God as one that ‘would have the epistemic uniqueness of guaranteeing – all by itself – its veridicality to the person who had it.’ Oakes, Robert, ‘Religious Experience, Self-Authentication, and Modality De Re: a Prolegomenon’, American Philosophical Quarterly VI (1979), 217–24.Google Scholar Quotation is on p. 217. For an argument that the self-authenticating and essentially veridical should not be equated see my ‘Can There Be Self-Authenticating Experiences of God?’, Religious Studies XIX (1983), 229–34.Google Scholar
4 Mackie, J. L. mentions this case in The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 180.Google Scholar
5 See, Martin, Michael, ‘The Principle of Credulity and Religious Experience’, Religious Studies, XXII (1986), 79–94;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRowe, William, ‘Religious Experience and The Principle of Credulity’, International Journal For Philosophy Of Religion XVI (1982), 85–92;CrossRefGoogle ScholarClarke, R. W., ‘The Evidential Value of Religious Experi’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion XVI (1984), 189–202;CrossRefGoogle ScholarForgie, William, ‘The Principle of Credulity and The Evidential Value of Religious Experience’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion XVI (1986), 145–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 They still would not be self-authenticating since one could not know that the experiences were essentially veridical on the basis of the experience alone.
7 Mackie, J. L., The Cement of The Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 62.Google Scholar
8 Swinburne, says ‘ … if Mary has survived death, what reason is there to suppose that she now has to dress the way she did in Palestine? If she is to manifest herself in bodily form the obvious way for her to dress is the way in which she would be recognized by those to whom she appears’ (268n)Google Scholar. Surely if Mary can dress for the occasion she may also appear in numerous places at once. Contrary to Swinburne's interpretation I believe the ‘orthodox’ view is to suppose that Mary can appear simultaneously in any number of places.
One kind of case where more than normal scepticism about a subject's reports of his experience are called for is where the subject claims that God has told him to do something … because there is a natural tendency of many men to believe that others,
9 The idea that God would issue commands of the sort Swinburne thinks he might on moral grounds is very different than simply asserting that God might allow certain kinds of evil – where that assertion is part of a standard theodicy. It is a fanatical claim and one that does not play a role in standard theodicies such as the freewill defence.