Contents
Debate 1 with Paul Doland
(below)
Debate 2, (Following Debate 1)
William Lane Craig and Michael Tooley
and a discussion with Dr. Tooley
The Evidential Value of Religious Experience
Part 2 of a Debate
Between Paul Doland and Dennis Jensen
Lee Strobel has written four books in a series: The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for the Real Jesus, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2007 respectively). All four I have found to be very effective in arguing their respective claims. Strobel has interviewed various leading scholars in several different fields to present the strongest arguments available for Christianity. He has taken the time to present opposing arguments and claims within his books, so to a considerable degree he has presented possibly the most important pros and cons one would need to consider. But anyone who is honestly searching and evaluating the various religious and secular claims should look at the more developed critiques of Strobel’s arguments as well. Paul Doland claims to have presented one such critique of Strobel’s The Case for Faith, entitled “The Case Against Faith.”
From 2008 and 2010, Doland and I have carried out a debate following from Doland’s critique. References to Doland’s critique and similar critiques and to Doland’s selections from this debate can be found at the end of this article. The bulk of the entire debate is now available at this link as a PDF. The following portion of the debate looks at religious experience as evidence for Christianity or belief in God. The first portion of this debate on this website looks at the problem of evil, that is, how could a good God allow the amount of evil that exists in the world? The third portion looks at the question, Would the Christian God condemn honest unbelief? These are only selected topics from the original debate.
When quoting Doland or myself or any other speaker/writer, I have placed a number following the speaker’s name or the quotation. The number “1” will follow Strobel or one of his interviewees. Number “2” will follow Doland’s name for his first response to Strobel’s book. Number “3” will follow my name for my response to Doland’s last statement, etc. This will help the reader follow the sometimes extended line of dialogue. I have also underlined those portions of my statements to which Doland has selected to respond. Some references and links are in bold print indicating that the link has yet to be constructed.
Doland2: It’s not my place to dismiss the religious experiences of Strobel, Craig, or any other Christian. Lacking their first-hand experiences, it would be presumptuous for me to say anything about what they have experienced. I can only speak for myself, and I seem incapable of “experiencing” God. Many Christians thoughtlessly blame me for this, claiming that I haven’t had enough faith, didn’t try hard enough, or wouldn’t have accepted such experiences even if I had had them. All of these accusations are wide of the mark; they haven’t walked in my shoes. They don’t know how many times I’ve prayed and asked Jesus into my life. Since I don’t go around challenging the validity of Christians’ religious experiences, I would appreciate it if Christians would refrain from passing judgment on my lack thereof.
Jensen3: Doland’s point is well taken. I don’t know his life well enough to say that he did this or that wrong. Of the many religious experiences I’ve heard recounted, it seems as though there can be a wide variety of types. Often the seeker will initially gain only an increased hunger for God which will lead to an experience of an awareness of God, of God’s existence, of Jesus, etc. Some have recounted merely a sense of certainty that a belief is true. I think that as one looks at the epistemology of sense experience, one discovers this also to be the basic grounds for our acceptance of the veridicality of religious experience. Thus someone who has merely a “sense of certainty” type of experience is justified in so believing.
Some have had experiences almost immediately after beginning to seek, some have taken much longer. I know of one person who claims to have heard an audible voice immediately after asking God for the truth. A friend recounted how she was once at a point of extreme depression and about to cut her wrists. She told God that she had to know if he was really there. She said she then sensed a presence in her room, nothing more nor less. This was enough to keep her from suicide and to begin, through other evidence, to come to an assurance of God’s existence.[Minor alteration 10dc2020.]
A friend recounted how she was once at a point of extreme depression and about to cut her wrists. She told God that she had to know if he was really there. She said she then sensed a presence in her room, nothing more nor less.
Ann Paulk who is involved in a Christian ministry to homosexuals related that at a point in her life she called out to God for the truth. Later, at a Christian organization on the university she was attending, she said she sensed a presence filling the room. “An incredible being, the Holy Spirit, had enveloped us in gentleness, kindness, authority, reliability, and credibility” and she knew she wanted this more than anything else, including her homosexuality. (Leslie Montgomery, ed., Were it Not for Grace [Nashville,Tn: Broadman & Holman Pub, 2005], 170.) She also knew that God had answered her prayer to know the truth.
Kevin Harris in conversation with William Lane Craig relates the story of a friend who grew up as a Muslim in Indonesia. At age fifteen he cried out to God, “I want to know you!” He said he clearly heard a voice saying “Get a Bible and embrace my Son, Jesus.” (Reasonable Faith Podcast, 1oc08.) Will Anderson (late husband of writer Ann Kiemel) took a Bible out to the woods and told God he would not come back until he was given the truth. He came back believing in Jesus. These are just a few examples I’ve run into. A few more are noted the article on the Atheist Prayer Experiment and throughout this website. [Last two paragraphs added 23fb09.]
An important point I want to make is that if someone tells me that they have an experience like this, this should count as evidence for their claim.
But what of Doland’s claimed inability to have a religious experience? Jesus claimed that anyone who would will to do God’s will would know that his teaching is true (John 7:17). However, he didn’t claim a time limit to attaining this knowledge, though most of the people whom I have heard sharing their experiences have claimed that it has not taken years and years. So Paul, I would encourage you to keep seeking. God may not give you an experience at all. God might give you simply new evidence, a new way of looking at arguments that have bothered you, new arguments.
But Christianity is deeply experiential. St. Paul talked about God giving us “an earnest” or “foretaste of our inheritance.” Even if one does not receive an experience that would provide justification for belief, one should at least experience a more non-noetic type of experience such as comfort or peace or awe or exultation or joy. I hope It’s clear that I am not saying that the seeker may not find justification for belief. Even though a non-noetic experience does not justify belief, one will definitely will find good grounds for belief whether it be through religious experience or exposure to evidence/arguments. [Minor alteration for clarification 3mr15.]
One final point. I know of a Jewish lady who asked for the truth from God and happened to come across the Christian claims. She had never been exposed to this before and asked some friends what they knew about Christianity. The friends very strongly discouraged her from even considering such a thing. She did as they suggested and nothing more came of her religious search until years later when she cried out to God again.
A friend of mine (he calls himself a gay, punk rock, zombie) held to, I believe he said, something of a neopagan or New Age belief and he appeared to have experienced some unusual phenomena that seemed to support his beliefs. I asked him if he ever simply asked God for the truth. He said he did but he didn’t like the kind of new information that started coming his way.
My point is that we cannot be assured that the search will be successful unless we honestly evaluate whatever comes and unless we persevere in seeking. The John Lennons and the Ingmar Bergmans who expect God to answer immediately or don’t really want to find God when they ask, likely will never find God, or perhaps will find but then rationalize away what they had found. And I’m not saying this is you, Paul. I’m just saying, be patient and do begin again to seek. But don’t stop seeking.
The Christian view typically expressed is that if someone dies without believing in Jesus, they will be eternally lost. And I know we will get into this topic again soon, but I need to point out that this is an oversimplification. I do think the biblical view is pretty clear that anyone who knows that Christianity is true and rejects it is lost (John 3:18), but it also indicates that anyone who rejects Jesus and is unwilling to even seek the truth from God will also be lost. On the other hand, anyone who does seek God, as the passage mentioned earlier, John 7:17, points out, will not be lost. But is this so even if they do not come to believe in Jesus in this life? Jesus says here that they will come to know that it is true and the implication is that they will believe. (If one wills God’s will and then knows God’s will, will they not do what they have discovered God’s will to be?) But the problem is that it is not clearly stated how long it will take before one finds and believes. We generally think it will be within one’s lifetime and this is probably the general sense of the passage, but this is not definite. We cannot exclude the possibility that one may seek and never discover Christianity to be true in this life and yet they will not be lost. They will find it is true in the next life. Other passages that say that those who seek will find would therefore make this same point.
I make this long commentary here instead of later where it more logically belongs because I want to make a somewhat more personal point. I do this because you could not help but begin this topic with some personal comments about yourself, Paul. My point is that if you seek and continue to seek God, even if you never do come to believe in Christianity or even mere theism in this life, according to the Christian view (as I have argued), you will not be lost. I for one will never be the one who tells you that because you don’t believe in Jesus you will be lost, not if you do earnestly seek God and seek the truth from God. And of course, this is not merely a personal comment for you alone. There may be others who consider themselves in this same condition. I will refer back to these comments in our later discussion.
Sense of certainty type religious experience
Jensen3: [First underlined sentence in Jensen3 above.] Thus someone who has merely a “sense of certainty” type of experience is justified in so believing.
Doland4: The 9/11 hijackers had a “sense of certainty” that they would be rewarded by Allah. Sure, I know that using 9/11 is a cliché, but, it still happens to be a valid one. The point is “sense of certainty” by itself, is meaningless. People have “sense of certainty” about all sorts of things. Just ask any alleged alien abductee.
Jensen5: I’m talking about the same kind of sense of certainty that accompanies sense experience, not the mere socially engrained beliefs the 9/11 conspirators held to. People grow up with beliefs that become lithified because they don’t want to think to question them. These are just unquestioned beliefs, not beliefs that come with a distinct sense of certainty. Those who have this kind of socialized belief don’t have any distinct experience by which they could say, “I have an awareness that this is certain and true.” [This paragraph revised for clarity19oc08.]
The problem for the secularist is that the only reason we can trust our senses is by means of the accompanying sense of certainty. Doland said he has absolute certainty that his wife exists. The only reason he can feel certain is because he trusts in is his sense of certainty. He has no more (or less) reason to believe his wife exists than I do that my religious experience tells me that God is really there and that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. How does he know that his sense experience isn’t caused by Descartes’ evil demon? Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu asked (paraphrased), “If when I sleep I should dream I am a butterfly, how do I know when I am awake that I’m not really a butterfly dreaming I’m a man?” The veridicality of sense experience is obvious only to those who have not considered such problems. Those who have not thought through the major issues in the history of philosophy glibly ignore such problems. Yet even today, movies like The Matrix trilogy bring them home again. Doland’s absolute certainty is nothing more than the sense of certainty that accompanies his sense experience.
Certainly some of our religious experiences can be falsified just as can some of our sense experiences. That does not mean we have no reason to trust our religious experience or our sense experience. Until they are falsified, we should accept them.
Doland should put himself in the shoes of those who claim they were abducted by aliens. If they have a sense of certainty that they were really abducted and can remember the actual experience, how is this any less certain than Doland’s memory of seeing his wife yesterday? We have to trust our experiences. If someone has just taken a drug that they have heard sometimes produces an unusual visual or mental experience, they should then have reason to question the veridicality of their experience. That might be one means of falsification. (Though another hypothesis is that they may have opened the “doors of perception” to another world. So it is not obviously falsified.) [Sentences added 15fb09.] Or if someone who claims an alien abduction has someone tell them they had been observed to be sleeping during the time in question, this too could be considered relative falsifying evidence. But we cannot reject experience claims simply because we don’t think they are possible. Now there is some scientific evidence that aliens cannot visit the earth, simply because of physical limitation given the distances involved and the speeds that can be traveled. This too might be considered good falsifying evidence. But barring any falsifying evidence, we need to trust our religious experience just as we trust our sense experience.
Religious experience, continued
Jensen3: [Second underlined sentence group in first Jensen3 above.] A friend recounted how she was once at a point of extreme depression and about to cut her wrists. She told God that she had to know if it was real or not. She said she then sensed a presence in her room, nothing more nor less.
Doland4: And this doesn’t just scream psychosomatic to you? Part of her didn’t want to live, part of her did. So the part of her that did invented a reason to live. At least, that is very reasonable conclusion. Can I prove it absolutely? No. I can’t prove I don’t have an invisible alligator in my pants either. I go by reasonable conclusions.
Jensen5: We can’t just invent experiences like this. Well, maybe some of us can. But those who can and do usually have some incoherence or inconsistencies in their experiences that suggest non-veridicality. That’s how we know when some mental illness or abnormality is involved. If you can’t trust an experience that has no incoherence or inconsistency, you have no justification for claiming you should trust your sense experiences. You suggested a psychological explanation that fits well under a naturalistic world view. Her explanation fits well under a theistic world view. Neither explanation exhibits any incoherence that would suggest non-veridicality for the appropriate scenario or model. So what we are left with is that both explanations are each as likely as the other except for one deciding factor: my friend sensed that there was truly a presence next to her; she had a sense of certainty of the same kind that justifies our normal sense experiences. The same sense of certainty that allows you to believe beyond any doubt that your wife actually exists is also the same sense of certainty that allowed my friend to believe that there truly was a person, a presence next to her. We have to accept what our experience tells us until or unless we find an incoherence in the experiences that would lead us to another explanation for the experience. [Minor revision 17ap10.]
Honestly now Paul, can you tell me that if you were in her shoes, you would not believe that the presence of some unseen person was actually there standing next to you? Not just because it would save your life, but because we have no choice but to trust our experiences unless we know that they are untrustworthy. You’re about to cut your wrists and you tell God you have to know if God is really there or you’re going to do it. Then you sense this presence. Isn’t that one way God could show you it is real?
How else could God do it? Maybe God could find some other way. Maybe God could bring to mind the cosmological argument and you see a connection or a feature of the argument you had never seen before and you are finally aware that you were wrong before and that the argument really does work after all. Well, maybe something like that happens for some people who are looking for God but are not in quite such dire straights. But I doubt that someone in a near suicidal state would be in the state of mind to think about the intricacies of the cosmological argument. It just seems to me that my friend’s experience is the kind of thing one would expect for those who are crying out to know this God and who recognize that suicide is the only alternative. At least, for such a person, it is the kind of thing that would be expected from a God who is concerned about us personally, a God who seeks relationship with us, a God who wants us to know not by mere abstract reasoning but by relationship.
I talked with this person again recently about her experience. She said she just cannot believe this experience was an hallucination because she is just too rational of a person. She recently received her doctorate in physics at a major American university and is now starting postdoctoral work. Yes, I know, I’ve seen A Beautiful Mind too. I know that the most rational person can also have psychological illness, hallucinations, etc. But my point from my previous discussion still follows: we have to accept what our experience tells us until that experience claim is falsified. Otherwise we cannot trust any of our experiences. Trusting our coherent and consistent sense and religious experiences is the most reasonable conclusion.
What I find most disturbing about the common atheistic reactions to religious experience arguments is their inconsistency. Doland does not question that his wife exists because he sees her. He says he is absolutely certain that she is there. Yet a religious experience he will consign to the same category as other commonly accepted non-veridical experiences (e.g., alien abductions) without providing any argument. Both the sense and the religious experience have the same evidential credentials, Paul. Show me that they do not. [21mr09.]
Jensen3: [Third underlined sentence group in first Jensen3 under “God can be immediately experienced” above.] I asked [a friend] if he ever simply asked God for the truth. He said he did but he didn’t like the kind of new information that started coming his way.
Doland4:You can’t do any better than lame anecdotes? Go to an alien abductee web site, and you’ll get all the anecdotes you could stand. Same for Elvis-is-alive sites, etc. You’ve got to do better than anecdotes. Too bad you can’t do any better, for you have nothing else to offer.
Jensen5: But anecdotes make up testimonial evidence and are very powerful. You can’t just wash away testimonial evidence by calling them anecdotes. Otherwise you will undermine the largest part of the evidential foundation of our legal system. As for the Elvis-is-alive experience claims, isn’t this something that should be expected? Should some people see someone who looks like Elvis walk out of a 7-11 at 2 in the morning, and they’ve heard about other people making these claims, wouldn’t they claim to have seen Elvis too? In a country as large as ours, it should not be at all surprising to find people who look very much like any given individual. So those experiences are very understandable and indeed veridical as to the appearance of the person experienced. They usually actually do see someone who looks very much like Elvis. And of course, the Elvis sighters cannot claim anything more than this. The religious experience “anecdotes” are quite sufficient to establish the truth of Christianity. [Minor additions 3mr15.]
Desire for/against belief
Jensen3: [From the fourth underlined sentence group in first Jensen3 above.] I do think the biblical view is pretty clear that anyone who knows that Christianity is true and rejects it is lost.
Doland4: Anybody that thinks Christianity is true should be a Christian! Who could possibly say, “Eternal bliss? Nah, no thanks”?
Jensen5: C.S. Lewis once asked, Do you really think Stalin or Hitler would actually desire the God of the Bible to be there? To give up some illicit pleasure now for the sake of doing what is right or doing what God desires one to do: that can be very difficult for some people even if they really believe Christians will have eternal life in heaven. I think Doland knows this is a very real feature of our human experience. He thinks religious people can ignore or suppress strong evidence for atheism and yet he won’t admit that atheists can do the same for religious belief.
Some who seek will find in the next life
Jensen3: [Fifth underlined sentence group in first Jensen3 above.] We cannot exclude the possibility that one may seek and never discover Christianity to be true in this life and yet they will not be lost. They will find it is true in the next life.
Doland4: You can claim that the Bible doesn’t specifically rule this out. Maybe true, but, there are an infinite number of things the Bible doesn’t specifically rule out. The point is, does it specifically state so? No. Besides, if your speculation is correct, you’ve obviated any need for this life. I believe most theologians would agree with me on this point, by they way. Most theologians say you get this life to decide what path to take and that’s that. That’s the whole purpose of this life. Your speculation is required simply because you realize that can’t be fair, so you have to speculate an “out.”
Jensen5: But I do agree that everyone will only “get this life to decide what path to take and that’s that” (unless they die too young). The distinction I’m making is between choice and knowledge. If one chooses to do God’s will and to seek God, one will find the knowledge that Christianity is true. For the few, that knowledge may come in the next life. And there is still a need to have this life since it is here that one decides which path to take.
The Bible does not preclude the possibility that some who do not believe in Jesus in this life and yet who seek God will not be lost. But if this fact is coupled with the passages I’ve cited that state that those who seek will find, it is a necessary conclusion that they will find in the next life. If you can show me an earnest seeker who on their deathbed still does not trust in Jesus, then we should assume that they will discover the truth of Christianity after death or perhaps at some twilight point between life and death (if the Bible is true). Of course we don’t really know any person’s mind and so we will never be sure this is a sincere seeker. But at least hypothetically, if there is truly someone in this situation, we know they will not discover Christianity is true in this life. I would say that my claim is the clearest implication of the biblical teaching.
It is of course possible that every earnest seeker will discover Christianity is true before death. This claim I cannot definitely disprove because, as I’ve said, we cannot with certainty know the minds of all who claim to be sincere seekers of God. But it simply seems unlikely that of the millions of people who profess other religions and non-religions, many with no access to even a knowledge of the Christian claims, that we should expect God to reveal the truth to every seeker among these groups before death.
(For more discussion see “The Religious Experience Debate 2” in the Tooley/Craig debate and discussion following this debate.)
Cat Stevens’ religious experience
Doland2: Zacharias recounts the story of a Muslim woman who, without understanding why, called out to Jesus, then later converted to Christianity (161). I take it that Zacharias counts this rather atypical occurrence as evidence that God transcends religious and cultural barriers. Of course, one can find similar examples preceding conversions to other religions: Cat Stevens, for instance, claims to have heard Allah before converting to Islam. Such anecdotes hardly constitute evidence of divine action, however; people convert from one religion to another (or to or from atheism) all of the time.
Jensen3: Why shouldn’t the story of the Muslim woman count as evidence? Stevens’ experience might count as evidence as well, so we should examine it to see if it does. There are important factors we need to consider when we make such an evaluation. What exactly did the voice say to him? Did he have any predisposition to believe in Islam or was he neutral or opposed? Did he call upon God, a God who deserves to be sought after, for the truth? Now none of these factors determine an experience to be veridical or nonveridical but they are important to consider.
After I wrote the above paragraph I took some time to see if I could find Steven’s (now Yusuf or Yosof Islam’s) account of the experience. I found that he became a Muslim after reading the Qur’an and coming to believe that it made sense and did not fit the prejudices he grew up believing about it. He did mention an incident before his conversion in which he was swimming in the ocean and found himself being swept out to sea by the current. He cried out to God saying he would work for God if God would save him. Just then a wave caught him and pushed him back enough for him to swim back to shore. If Stevens had heard a voice, he didn’t recount it in the particular autobiographical sketches I have found. Because he included enough detail in this account to cover the most important aspects of his experiences, I tend to think that he never did claim to hear God speak to him. Of course it is possible that I did not dig deeply enough and Doland or one of our readers may be able to direct me to this story. But for the moment I think this is likely just another rumor that has circulated enough to become accepted.
Merely because people convert to different religions or atheism is certainly no evidence for those beliefs, but if they had experienced something that had caused this conversion, that might constitute evidence.
Doland4: This was the incident I had heard about and was referring to. I may have misspoke when I said that Cat Stephens claims to have heard Allah. But I think we are splitting hairs here. He clearly recounts this story as part of his reasoning to accept Islam, whether he claims to have heard a voice or merely got a small miracle of a wave pushing him back to shore.
Jensen5: This is hardly hair-splitting. I find that atheistic argumentation very often must rest upon such ambiguity to come up with its conclusions. Like Doland’s argument against free will, with a little clear thinking and closer analysis, their arguments turn to mist. Notice that a voice could have directed Stevens to Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or any of a number of different theistic views. Recall Doland’s original statement: “Cat Stevens, for instance, claims to have heard Allah before converting to Islam.” When it is claimed that someone hears Allah’s voice before converting to Islam, one will assume that some kind of direction toward Islam is given by this experience. In fact, merely being saved from drowning in the context given will provide one reason to believe God has answered one’s prayer, but it does not give one reason to accept one theistic belief over another. If there is any reason for believing in Islam, the only reason Yusuf gives is his reading of the Qu’ran and realizing that it did not fit his past misconceptions of it. The near drowning experience may have motivated him to seek spiritual truth more seriously, but it did not, as given, provide him evidence for Islam over any other theistic beliefs. Yet Doland originally claimed that Steven’s experience pointed him to Islam over any other religion. Doland did also claim that hearing God speak does not constitute evidence for divine action. He did not show how this does not constitute evidence for divine action, for it very obviously does.
The above can be found in the complete PDF on pages, 202-213, 362-364.
Notes
Revisions and alterations were added and noted in brackets within or at the ends of the some of my paragraphs. These were added primarily to add clarification. Any new material Doland has not seen should not be seen as part of the debate proper. They are added merely to give new information relevant to the debate.
References
Paul Doland’s critique of Strobel’s The Case for Faith, is entitled “The Case Against Faith.” See also J. P. Holding’s critique of Doland’s article. Paul also has gone under the pseudonym Paul Jacobsen and is addressed in Holding’s critique by that name. At his web site, Doland has other critiques of Strobel’s series the reader might wish to look at. One may also look at Doland’s articles containing portions of this debate (obscenities and all).
Doland’s reporting of the debate
The reader may find it interesting how feasible some of Doland’s arguments appear at first sight when he makes sure most of my responses are not included. Even without my responses, the plausibility of some of his statements will easily be lost once the reader takes the time to think carefully about them. In the reproduction of the full debate, I have edited out some of the excessive repetition found in the original, but I have included all of the arguments. No points Doland had considered important have been omitted.
Religious Experience Debate (2)
A Partial Debate Between Philosophers Michael Tooley
and William Lane Craig
and a Discussion with Dr. Tooley
In 1994 philosophers Michael Tooley and William Lane Craig debated the question, “Does God Exist.” They debated this topic again in 2010. After the first debate, Tooley discussed with Encounter several questions, one of which was Craig’s claim that religious experience provides sufficient reason to believe that Christianity is true. (Unless “religious experience” is used in a quotation, hereafter “RE” will be used.) This was Dr. Craig’s sixth argument for the existence of God within the debate and the fourth portion of the debate to be included in Encounter. The following includes this portion of the debate and the following discussion we had with Dr. Tooley. Another portion of this debate and discussion can also be found at this website: Does theism or atheism provide the simpler explanation for the existence of the universe? Craig and Tooley also debate the problem of the hiddenness of God.
Craig: God can be immediately known and experienced. This isn’t really an argument for God‘s existence; rather it’s the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing Him. This was the way that people in the Bible knew God, as Professor John Hick explains: “God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills, a sheer given reality as inescapably to be reckoned with as the storm and life giving sunshine. They did not think of God as an inferred entity but as an experienced reality. To them God was not an idea adopted by the mind, but the experiential reality which gave significance to their lives.” “Introduction,” The Existence of God, ed. John Hick, Problems of Philosophy Series (New York: Macmillan Co., 1964), 13-14.
Now if this is the case, then there’s a real danger that arguments for the existence of God could actually distract one’s attention from God Himself. If you’re sincerely seeking God, then God will make his existence evident to you. The New Testament promises, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you,” (James 4.8). We mustn’t so concentrate on the arguments that we fail to hear the inner voice of God to our own hearts. For those who listen, God becomes an immediate reality in their lives. . . .
I can just say that in my own life God has certainly been an immediate reality, and in the absence of any defeaters for that claim I don’t see any reason that I should deny the reality of His existence.
Craig: If you’re sincerely seeking God, then God will make his existence evident to you.
Tooley: The problem with the appeal to religious experience is that there are different religions, and believers in these very different religions all have experiences of the deities of their own religions. The question, then, is whether or not one can set out any justification for saying, yes, the experiences of Dr. Craig are veridical, but the conflicting experiences of someone in another religion are not veridical. It seems to me the latter claim simply represents a biased point of view, and that there’s no justification for it. Moreover, I believe that the diversity of religious experience provides a reason for concluding that any argument from religious experience to the existence of a certain sort of deity, if it appeals to an experience that can be different from one religion to another, must be an unsound argument.
Tooley: The question . . . is whether or not one can set out any justification for saying, yes, the experiences of Dr. Craig are veridical, but the conflicting experiences of someone in another religion are not. . . .
Discussion with Dr. Tooley
Encounter1: To say that because REs give conflicting evidence for different deities or religions that none of them can be veridical appears to be little different than saying that all sense experience must be non-veridical simply because we can point to hallucinations, optical illusions, and vivid dreams that conflict with normal sense experience. The proper conclusion is not that all sense experience is non-veridical but that at least one type is and that the conflicting type(s) might be veridical. Just as we might determine certain sense experiences to be veridical, we should assume the same for analogous REs.
We have two possible means of determining which (if any) of at least two conflicting experiences is veridical. First, an individual might seek an adjudicating experience for oneself.
If there is a being who deserves to be searched after and deserves our commitment and has greater power than any other existent being, then it is possible that we could receive an adjudicating experience from this being. If there is such a being, it is possible that any RE might be non-veridical if it has not been sought from this being. If we do not seek the truth from this being as we should, why should we be allowed to have the truth? Thus we need to seek spiritual truth from this being on just the possibility that this being does exist. If we fail to seek in this way, we can never be sure that our experience is veridical. So whatever other method we use to seek an adjudicating experience, this one must be included as well. On the possibility that there is no such being (or that this being doesn’t care to communicate with the spiritual seeker), then other methods of seeking the RE should also be considered.
An adjudicating experience would be the stronger, clearer, or more intense of two or more conflicting experiences. Or a simpler or otherwise better explanation might be found if one experience is hypothesized to be veridical rather than the other. There might be greater certitude in one than another. Or there might be a sense of certitude in one that the other is non-veridical.
A second approach one might take to judge between conflicting experiences would be to look at the experience claims of others who have sought an adjudicating experience. Here again [as in a previous discussion with Tooley] I would claim that an honest empirical study would indicate that probably most people who follow the above procedure have discovered biblical Christianity to be true. I would claim that most people will definitely discover this eventually before death and very possibly all will.
Four factors need to be taken into account that might be overlooked in such an investigation. The first applies more to the second approach mentioned above than to the first. We need to take into account human honesty. When someone claims to have had a RE or an adjudicating experience [an experience that would expose one experience to be veridical but another non-veridical] we have to trust their truthfulness [to some degree]. We might never be sure in any particular case whether someone is being honest in expressing their findings. Human desire for one conclusion over another might influence one’s final conclusion in such an investigation. We must be very watchful of this, both in ourselves and in the claims of others, in any such spiritual inquiry.
The second factor is that one cannot, like John Lennon or Ingmar Bergman, begin such a search and then end it when nothing immediately happens. There is no time limit for this kind of investigation. Though I think this would be the exception, one should be prepared even to live one’s entire life in an honest continuously searching agnosticism. One might even feel, as you do, that the evidence against belief is so strong they must profess to be an atheist. Now I suspect that to be an atheist one must have repressed some good evidence that God had once given this person at one time or another in one’s life. But even if this is so, as long as the atheist is honestly seeking a God who deserves one’s search and commitment, is seeking the truth from this God, and wills to do this God’s will, then upon merely admitting the sheer possibility that there is such a being, the atheist has fulfilled his or her spiritual responsibility until they are made aware of any other. The Christian believes (or should believe) that this individual is not under God’s judgment unless they reject or repress what God attempts to show them.
The third factor that needs to be remembered in such an investigation is that one might discover a particular religious belief to be true not through what we usually think of as an RE but through other means such as exposure to new evidence, new insight concerning a logical argument, and so on. [If one seeks the truth from God, one may be given the requested information by means other than an RE.]
The last point that needs to be emphasized has only been touched on earlier. It is most important that one seek the truth from one who deserves to be searched after. In Mormonism, for example, it is common to appeal to RE to verify that belief. An individual might speak of receiving a “burning in my bosom” as proof of the belief. One minor problem with this claim is that it is at least troubling to trust in such a non-noetic experience, an experience that is very different from normal sensory or other knowledge bestowing experiences. But the more important problem is that one has to ask if this individual has followed the proper criterion in seeking this experience. If a person should seek the truth from the god of Mormonism, it would be very questionable whether they have indeed sought it from one who deserves to be searched after. This is a created being, a god who was originally a man; this is the kind of god we are supposed to be able to become according to Mormonism. Even if someone were to merely “seek the truth from God,” I have to wonder whether this might not lead to the Mormon experience (if that belief is being considered) or to any other of a number of possible seemingly belief-verifying experiences. The “God” one seeks the truth from might mean a number of different things to different people and we do not know that there are not a number of spiritual beings willing to provide a deceptive experience. That is why it is important to qualify this title “God” as one being deserving of our search, commitment, and obedience.
[(November 2020) One point I assumed was obvious in this last paragraph may have been missed by Tooley. So I need to make it very clear that in seeking the truth from a God who deserves our commitment, we also must seek this God and admit our willingness to commit ourselves to this God if we discover that God exists. This is a point Craig implied in his argument when he said that one must be “sincerely seeking God.”]
One final comment. For the person who has had an RE and has come to a particular belief because of it, if this person is not yet aware of any conflicting experiences, he or she should be aware that their own RE should be considered veridical until then. We accept the veridicity of a sense experience until we have reason to question it. So it must be with RE.
Tooley1: First, you attribute to me the view that “because religious experiences give conflicting evidence for different deities or religions none of them can be true,” (par. 1). This is a misattribution, since the two claims that I advance are simply these: First, that the diversity of religious experience means that if one is going to claim that the religious experiences of Dr. Craig are veridical, one needs to justify that claim in a way that provides a reason for thinking that while his experiences are veridical, those of, say, a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, etc., are not. Craig provided no such justification. Indeed, he did not even acknowledge the need for such a justification in the argument that he offered.
My second point was essentially just a corollary—namely, that given the diversity of religious experience, any argument for the existence of, say, the Christian God that appeals to Christian religious experiences cannot, unless supplemented by other sorts of considerations, possibly be sound, since if it were a parallel argument, appealing to Muslim religious experiences in support of the existence of Allah, would be equally sound. But the total evidence concerning religious experiences—both Christian and Muslim—cannot provide sound grounds for concluding both that the Christian God exists, and that Allah exists, since the existence of Allah is logically incompatible with the existence of the Christian God.
Secondly, you introduce a comparison between religious experience and ordinary sense experience, noting that the fact that there are non-veridical sense experiences doesn’t entail that there aren’t veridical sense experiences. This comparison, however, rather than providing support for Craig’s argument from religious experience, undermines it further. The reason is that our grounds for holding sense experiences provide us with knowledge of an external, objective reality include the following two facts: (1) Sense experience is characterized by intersubjectivity; (2) Sense experience is not characterized by cultural dependence. Thus, as regards the first point, two individuals, situated in the same situation, will have sense experiences that map into one another, so that the beliefs that it will be natural for one to form about the part of the world in which they are will be very closely related to the beliefs that it will be natural for the other to form. So, for example, if you and I are in the vicinity of one another, and my sensory experience gives rise in me to the belief that there is a table between us that contains two apples, four books, and a vase of flowers, your sensory experiences will also give rise to the belief in you that here is a table between us that contains two apples, four books, and a vase of flowers.
As regards the second point, take two people from cultures as different as you like, and, if they speak different languages, have them learn each other’s language, so that they can communicate. What one will then find is that, when they are in the same situation, they will assent to the same perceptual claims about their immediate environment. So perceptual beliefs do not depend, in any interesting way, upon the culture in which a person is raised.
Religious experiences differ very markedly from sensory experience in both respects. Thus, religious experiences are not characterized by intersubjectivity: not only do people not, in general, have the same religious experiences in a given situation, but two people may well be such that neither person has religious experiences of a sort that the other person has. Such variation, moreover, is not a random matter. On the contrary, there are overwhelming correlations between the sort of religious experiences that one has, and the culture in which one has been raised.
In short, two factors that play a crucial role in justifying the claim that sensory experiences provide one with information about an objective, external reality—namely, intersubjectivity and the absence of cultural dependence—are absent in the case of religious experiences, and this means that the type of case for veridicality that can be developed in the case of sense experience cannot be advanced in the case of religious experience. But, in addition, the absence of intersubjectivity in the case of religious experience, coupled with the dependence of the nature of one’s religious experiences upon the culture in which one was raised, strongly suggests that the content of an individual’s religious experiences is produced by the religious beliefs that the individual in question accepts. There is, accordingly, strong reason for concluding that religious experiences are probably non-veridical.
You go on to suggest “two possible means of determining which (if any) of two conflicting experiences is veridical.” The first point that I want to make here is that I cannot see that what you suggest here is at all helpful. For keep in mind the problem here: A Christian has an experience of what he or she takes to be a triune creator; a Muslim has an experience of what he or she takes to be Allah; a Jew has an experience of what he or she takes to be the non-triune deity, Yahweh. At most one of these three deities can exist, and so at most one of the experiences in question can be veridical. So the question is, What reason is there for thinking—as Craig does—that the Christian religious experience is veridical, whereas the Muslim and the Jewish religious experiences are both non-veridical? You have not, it seems to me, really addressed this question, let alone provided any satisfactory answer.
Second, your second suggested approach involves looking at “the experience claims of others who have sought an adjudicating experience” and here you go on to say: “I would claim that an honest empirical study would indicate that probably most people who follow the above procedure have discovered biblical Christianity to be true,” I don’t want to be overly harsh here, but I think that I must say quite frankly that this claim is both an extraordinarily arrogant one—for which you offer no evidence at all—and one that is contrary to the evidence provided by studies in comparative religion, and by careful investigations of religious experience by famous researchers, such as William James in his classic book, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Southampton, UK: Mentor, 1958.) and James Bissett Pratt, in The Religious Consciousness: A Psychological Study (New York: Hafner Pub. Co., 1971). All such studies appear to indicate that there is no general type of religious experience that is present in one religion that is not also present in many other religions.
In your final comment, you suggest that if a person who has had a particular religious experience, and come to a particular belief because of it, is not aware of any conflicting religious experiences, then that person is justified in treating the experience as veridical. If one is considering a person who is in a society where he or she does not even know of the existence of other religions, that may be so. But virtually no one in contemporary society is in such a situation. Almost everyone is aware of the fact that there are other people with different religious beliefs, and given such knowledge, it seems clear that, in a matter as important as that of religious belief, that knowledge puts one under an obligation to determine whether people in those religions do not in fact have comparable religious experiences, but whose content supports belief, for example, in a different deity. So your remark, even if it would be true of people in certain situations of a sort that may have been not uncommon in past times and places, has no real relevance to the situation in which contemporary believers find themselves.
Encounter2: First let me deal with a minor issue lest the reader be confused. I did not say of you that “because REs give conflicting evidence for different deities or religions none of them can be true,” (Tooley1, par. 1; citing Encounter1, par. 1.) I used the word ‘veridical,’ not ‘true.’ Thus I was not speaking of a religion being false but of the experience being non-veridical or untrustworthy. No, you did not say that none of these conflicting experiences can be veridical; . . . but you did say that [given Craig’s argument] we do not know (and presumably cannot know) which ones are veridical. [For you to say that Craig needs to show that his experience is veridical while also showing that any conflicting ones are not, in order for his argument to be sound, is to claim that his argument, as given, is unsound.]
I do agree that an argument from RE is unsound if we can point to differing REs that arrive at conflicting conclusions, if we cannot show the other conflicting experiences to be non-veridical.
[(November 2020.) I’m not sure I can agree with this last claim any longer. I made the claim because I believe that all REs will eventually be shown to the respective experient to be veridical or non-veridical, either in this life or in the next. Nevertheless, in principle, even if this verification and falsification should never occur, I think that the experient is justified in believing that their noetic RE is veridical even if in fact it is not. We can have justified false beliefs. Until such a belief is falsified by some other means (further experience, philosophical proofs, etc.), one should continue to believe it. Even being aware that others have apparent conflicting noetic REs does not give one reason to reject one’s RE. Only if one were even somewhat persuaded that another person’s conflicting RE were veridical, should one question one’s own RE.]
You complain that “Craig provided no such justification [for the belief that his RE is veridical and that conflicting REs of different religions are not]. Indeed, he did not even acknowledge the need for such a justification in the argument that he offered” (Tooley1, par. 1). No, Craig did not deal with this issue of conflicting experiences. But one has no obligation to answer even the most obvious defeaters to one’s argument in the first presentation of that argument. But furthermore, he did not thereafter have a chance to respond to your argument. He merely stated that the prima facie case goes to RE “in the absence of any defeaters.” At that point in the debate you had not yet presented any claimed defeaters like conflicting experience and Craig had no opportunity to respond after you did. So contrary to your claim, there was no need for Craig to justify his claim by answering your objection at that point in the argument. Because we can claim to have knowledge through our sense experience, so we should through our RE. That I take to be the gist of Craig’s argument.
You claim that intersubjectivity and cultural independence are among the crucial features that show sense experience to be veridical and that their absence in RE shows that it is not (Tooley1, par. 3-6). To consider this objection we need to imagine the kind of world—or world view—envisioned when one makes a claim based on RE.
One might think that by following the proper techniques, one might perceive spiritual realities that would otherwise be hidden to us. In sense experience one must always follow the proper criteria. If I am going to confirm that I also see the books, apples, and flowers on the table, I cannot simply sit across from you with my eyes closed and say I don’t see anything. Likewise, to have the proffered RE one has to follow the criteria or use the technique followed by someone who has claimed to have had that experience already.
Thus one might open the Huxlean “doors of perception” by following the proper technique. These techniques might include praying, fasting, chanting, meditating, taking drugs, or enduring some type of sensory or physical deprivation or overload.
In contrast to assuming a purely mechanistic albeit spiritual world view as the above techniques might suggest, one might think the RE could be given by one who reveals to us what we cannot see. The Flatlander cannot see into the third dimension but the reality of that dimension might be revealed to him or her by a three dimensional being. Here too one must follow the proper criteria to have this experience though of course this is not to say that the revealer cannot so act when one has not followed the criteria. (Abbott’s book, Flatland, includes just such a story.)
In the revelatory world view one should not expect the experiences to likely show intersubjectivity, although that might be present. (Examples of intersubjective REs might include more than one person seeing a vision of a spiritual being at the same time; mass auditions, more than one person hearing a voice, such as a voice from heaven; ecstatic experiences, etc. People have claimed all of these kinds of experiences.) It all depends on the choice of the revealer. But if intersubjectivity is absent from the RE, this in no way gives us reason to disbelieve in its veridicity. You have given us no reason to think that intersubjectivity is needed for a noetic experience, whether a sense experience or an RE, to be veridical. Let me expand on this a little more.
This is substantiated by the fact that we very often lack intersubjectivity in unquestioned sense experience. Before a certain time in our recent history, no one had ever seen the far side of the moon. Suppose the first astronaut or cosmonaut to do so was unable to photograph it or otherwise send back images to the earth. Suppose further that the surface was demolished by an enormous rain of meteorites shortly after the moon was observed. Would we have reason to doubt the astronaut’s description of what was seen, at least as to the major features? Certainly not.
Some would say that at least the astronaut’s experience was in principle intersubjective whereas the RE—the common ones we are usually concerned with—are not. But the distinction between in principle and in practice does not really make any difference to the argument. If the astronaut’s experience was not in practice intersubjective, how is it really any different from an experience which is in principle lacking intersubjectivity? In either case we still do not have intersubjectivity. We can think of other commonly accepted sense experiences which lack intersubjectivity. When only one person is there to observe an event and it cannot be repeated, the experience should not be rejected because it lacks intersubjectivity. Sense and RE are sufficiently analogous for us to accept the veridicity of both and on the same grounds.
The appeal to intersubjectivity is often part of a fuller argument claiming a need for checking procedures. I know there is a pencil in my hand because I can check the tactile experience by other senses: by vision, or even by sound if I tap it on the desk. But I can further check it by asking another person what they see or feel or hear. Most, or at least many, REs only involve one sense. Many involve nothing like a normal perceptual experience but only an inner intuition or awareness. [But such a difference cannot be demonstrated to give credence to the one kind of experience but not to the other.]
If an unchecked or uncheckable experience must be rejected, then why should the checked experience be accepted? If an unchecked experience (touching the pencil alone) has zero veridicity, then so does any other experience I’m checking it with (seeing or hearing the pencil). Likewise asking another person what they see or hear or feel is checking by reference to another unchecked experience. I don’t know that the person is even there except by seeing, hearing, or touching them. I might awaken in a moment only to find that my visual and auditory experience of another person was all just a very vivid dream. If a single experience alone has zero veridicity value, neither can several together. Zero plus zero plus zero will always equal zero. If a single experience has a finite amount of veridicity value, then, yes, further checking procedures (with similar veridicity for each additional checking experience) can give it greater veridicity. But you have to begin with a certain value for the single experience. And it is totally arbitrary to claim that the value of the single unchecked experience is not quite enough but the checked experience is just enough to establish acceptable veridicity.
So the appeal to intersubjectivity or checking simply does not work to exclude an unchecked RE. If you experience something to be true by RE, you should accept it to be true just as you would accept any sense experience to give you the truth even if no one else is present to confirm it.
One final point concerning intersubjectivity. One very common feature of RE is that one person may have an experience showing that x is true and another person might have a similar or a very different experience also showing that x is true. This is not sufficiently different than a normal intersubjective sense experience; we have the same claim confirmed by two experiences. In normal intersubjective sense experience both parties rarely have the same experience. If I sit across from you at the table and confirm the presence of apples, flowers, etc., I still haven’t had the same experience you’ve had. You’ve seen the objects from your side of the table, I from mine. If such perceptual experiences can by this means be considered to be intersubjectively checked, why shouldn’t the REs I’ve just suggested?
While in Yogic trance, he experienced that, “I was Lord of the universe, with no problems, no unrest, no uncertainty.” In contrast, he relates a later experience at a time he was receiving worship from a poor neighbor: “Reaching out to touch her forehead in bestowal of my blessing, I was startled by a voice of unmistakable omnipotent authority: ‘You are not God, Rabi!’ My arm froze in midair. ‘You . . . are . . . not . . . God!’ . . . Instinctively I knew that the true God, the Creator of all, had spoken these words, and I began to tremble.”
Concerning your claim that “there are overwhelming correlations between the sort of REs that one has, and the culture in which one has been raised,” you haven’t given me any examples to consider and I’m not entirely sure as to what you are referring. For example, you might be referring to the kind of problem Antony Flew discussed when he said that the character of RE “seems to depend on the interests, background, and expectations of those who have them rather than upon anything separate and autonomous. . . . The expert natural historian of religious experience would be altogether astonished to hear of the vision of Bernadette Soubirous occurring not to a Roman Catholic at Lourdes but to an Hindu in Benares, or of Apollo manifest not in classical Delphi but in Kyoto under the Shoguns” (God and Philosophy (New York: Dell Publishing, 1966), 126, 127, [6.6]).
If you are referring to something else, please let me know. For now I will simply answer Flew’s argument and hope that I will have thereby answered your criticism as well.
First of all, if one has an RE, the revealing being might consider it necessary or at least important that it be given some nonessential coloring in order that it be received and understood. For example, a vision of Mary to a medieval monk might appear quite different from Miriam, the mother of Jesus, as she looked in her earthly life. Or would a Bodhisattva be recognizable to a Chinese follower if he appeared in a vision as he actually looked in his lifetime? A change in appearance may be necessary simply to be recognized. Thus the fact that there could be the kind of cultural correspondences Flew talks about does not count as evidence against the experiences.
The other problem with Flew’s claim is simply that it is an excessive overgeneralization and it does not apply to most REs. Some REs do correspond to the “interests, backgrounds, and expectations” of the experients (those who have the experience), but there are many individuals who have reached experiences which are clearly at variance with their pasts or their expectations. The apostle Paul is a classic example. Because of his RE, Paul did undergo a complete conversion from a very anti-Christian form of Judaism to become a dedicated Jesus follower. William James records the vision experience of one M. Ratisbonne, “a free thinking French Jew” which caused him to convert to Catholicism (Varieties, 181). Throughout the history of this paper, Encounter, . . . we have provided accounts of individuals who have had REs which were at odds with their predispositions, expectations and backgrounds. Some have had experiences that have brought them to believe things they definitely did not want to believe. It is these “case studies,” if you will, that provide some of the strongest evidence for the beliefs these individuals have come to hold.
We should accept any noetic RE as prima facie veridical until we have reason to doubt it just as we do with sense experience. Once we have reason to doubt it, the important thing would be to test such experiences by following the proper criteria mentioned in factor four and in the suggested means of attaining an adjudicating experience or determination of the truth (Encounter1, par. 3, 5, 9, 10).
If A experiences x to be true, that experience should not be discounted simply because A happened to have a desire for x to be true. Should a scientific experiment be discounted if it demonstrates something the scientist hoped to be true?
What of the problem of widespread correspondence of REs to beliefs (e.g., Catholic monks never experiencing visions of the Krishna and medieval Buddhist monks never experiencing visions of Jesus)? Though there are many notable exceptions, why would each group tend to have such uniform experiences supporting only their own beliefs? Since we do know that there are very many such self-confirming experiences, we should question why this might be. Why would we have so many instances of x believer experiencing ‘x and not y’ and y believer experiencing ‘y and not x’?
If naturalism is true, it is likely because the experiences are self-created and nonveridical. On the other hand, if a benevolent theism were true, it could be because, to a very large degree, God only shows himself or his truth to those who seek God and there may be relatively few who do so. Therefore, as under either world view, people might have experiences that are the creation of their own psyches and those experiences would tend to confirm what they already believe. Or deceiving spirits (if there be such) might give experiences fitting what the people want to believe since God might have no reason to stop them. But given the kind of benevolent theism I just suggested, those who seek the truth from God should be given the truth and therefore might eventually be given experiences which conflict with their accepted beliefs. The old beliefs would likely then be rejected. (Accounts of individuals who come to reject old beliefs because of their experiences, such as some I have previously mentioned, would provide evidence of this last possibility.) Or the old accepted beliefs might be close enough to the truth that the seeker will be given little or even no differing information or they may be given new information only very slowly or gradually. In some cases God might give no new information to the seeker until after death even if their previous beliefs are far from accurate (see the debate and discussion concerning Dr. Tooley’s argument from the hiddenness of God). Again, we are merely taking into account the possibility that it may be true that there is a God who deserves our commitment and that all God requires is that we one confess to seek God and will to do God’s will. So the social correspondence of a large number of REs to different religious followers’ respective beliefs is what we would expect under either world view when the suggested criteria are not followed to attain or adjudicate conflicting REs. It is also what we might expect if, in many cases, these criteria are followed, though, if there is such a God, the number of conflicting REs will likely be far fewer.
You claim that I have not given any grounds for judging between conflicting experiences (Tooley1, par. 7; re Encounter1, par. 3-4, 9). You say that I have not “really addressed this question” when that is exactly what I have done. My statement was that to attain an adjudicating experience, an experience which will show us which of two or more conflicting experiences are veridical, one should seek the truth from one who deserves our highest commitment (Encounter1, par. 9). I was assuming that it was also obvious that we must seek and admit our commitment to this being. It is important to make this commitment on the possibility that there is such a revealing being who is able and willing to share with us spiritual truth on that condition. On the possibility that there is such a deserving being, we should not expect to receive an adjudicating experience if we do not follow this criterion, if we do not admit a willingness to commit ourselves to this being. On the possibility that other world views are true such as atheism, we should also follow other criteria; for example, simply evaluate the available appropriate philosophical, scientific, historical, and other evidence and arguments. Nevertheless, on the possibility that there is one who deserves our commitment, we should not neglect the criterion of seeking this being and seeking the truth from this being. I mentioned possible characteristics of such an experience that should give us reason to believe which experience is or is not veridical (Encounter1, par. 4). I have not shown that one belief is true and that any conflicting beliefs are false. That was not my intention. I have rather offered a means by which one can do so: by seeking the truth from One who deserves our commitment.
So if my point was not clear, I hope it is now or will be with the following example. Perhaps we need to see how a very definite adjudicating experience might look, although the following is not the only form a noetic RE might take.
Rabindrath Maharaj became a highly esteemed local Yogi in his Hindu community in the West Indies. While in Yogic trance, he experienced that, “I was Lord of the universe, with no problems, no unrest, no uncertainty.” In contrast, he relates a later experience at a time he was receiving worship from a poor neighbor:
“Reaching out to touch her forehead in bestowal of my blessing, I was startled by a voice of unmistakable omnipotent authority: ‘You are not God, Rabi!’ My arm froze in midair. ‘You . . . are . . . not . . . God!’ The words smote me like the slash of a cutlass felling the tall green cane.
“Instinctively I knew that the true God, the Creator of all, had spoken these words, and I began to tremble.” (Dave Hunt and Rabindrath Maharaj, Death of a Guru [New York: Holman, 1977], 73, 115.)
Obviously this individual was able to judge between the two conflicting experiences by their character or nature. He did not yet have an experience adjudicating different kinds of theistic experiences, experiences judging between, say, Islam and Christianity—that would come later.
I have claimed “that an honest empirical study would indicate that probably most people who follow the above procedure have discovered biblical Christianity to be true” (Encounter1, par. 5) and you called this an arrogant claim (Tooley1, par. 8). But you haven’t told me why this claim is arrogant. I’ve merely given you my own experience of what I have usually found to be the case. If to claim that the religious seeker will discover that Christianity is true is arrogant, is your claim that they will not any less arrogant? If you think your claim is less arrogant, why?
Next you say that my claim is contrary to the evidence of comparative religion and the investigations of researchers like James and Pratt who show that “there is no general type of religious experience that is present in one religion that is not also present in many other religions.” But I’m not claiming that the general type of experience is different; I’m not contradicting James or Pratt. On the other hand one may obviously have different experiences which differ in certitude or similar characteristics. And these characteristics might cause one to value or trust one experience over the other if the experiences conflict. If you can give evidence from James or Pratt or anyone else that this is not the case, I would love to hear it. [I offered an example of a Hindu who had two experiences, the latter of which caused him to reject the former as non-veridical.]
Lastly you suggest that almost everyone is aware that other people have differing religious beliefs and as a result are obligated to investigate whether they have conflicting REs (Tooley1, par. 9; re Encounter1, par. 10). Thus you argue that I cannot claim that, at least for almost everyone today, one’s experience is veridical if one is unaware of conflicting REs.
[The first thing I should say, and this is one factor we very often overlook, is that many people in the world do not even have access to the educational institutions and information systems we have in the West. Those who lack such resources and live in societies in which there is only one religion would not be able to research such issues if they wanted to.]
Many people who have a religious background assume that most religious people—and that includes people of all religions—are like themselves. They believe what they believe because that is what they have always been taught. And I think most or at least many nonreligious people think the same way. They think that people of differing religions believe, not because of any good reason or because of any noetic (information imparting) experience, but because of their upbringing and tradition. And they think that new religions either flourish or flounder primarily because the hearers either liked or disliked what they heard or because of other purely psychological and social reasons. [I hear this again and again; sometimes from even the more sophisticated atheistic apologists. How often do we hear the claim that if you were born in India, you would be a Hindu or Muslim, or that because you were born in America, you are a Christian? Though I disagree that all people simply accept the religious views or secular ideology they had been brought up with, my point is that there are very many people who do accept their particular religious beliefs for such reasons.]
Now imagine that you are such a person, either an atheist or someone who has grown up with a particular religious belief; you have an RE such that you come to believe a particular religion to be true (the religious believer may have their original beliefs confirmed or another belief may be given). Until you become aware of others who have experiences that confirm their own very different beliefs, you will assume what you had believed all along, namely that nobody else has such experiences. You have just discovered that your religion (or another religion depending on just what you have experienced) is different and that there is someone (a God, spirit, Ascended Master, Bodhisattva, etc.) who has shown you that it is true.
If you have “discovered” something to be true, wouldn’t you be inclined to think that there is no way a differing belief can be similarly evidenced to be true, that there are no other similar experiences that verify other religions? Would you really feel obligated to take the time to investigate whether some other religion or religions have similar experiential phenomena? At least wouldn’t you think that if there might be such, those experiences certainly would not be veridical? After all, God had the option of showing you the truth of any one of a number of possible religions and this is the one God showed you, or so you would think. [Now should you come into contact with followers of other religions or maybe read accounts of other religions and at some point hear or read accounts of other REs which provide evidence of these conflicting religion, you might begin to question your RE. Just hearing someone’s confident assurance that their RE has shown them that a belief which conflicts with your own is true should begin to stir doubt concerning your own RE. (Nov 2020.)]
I will grant you that if some of those who have had too little contact with other religions or religious followers do think through their views very well they should question their experience. Many religions, certainly most of the western theistic religions, will warn their followers and inquirers that deceiving forces or spirits (Satan, demons, jinn, etc.) will give deceiving experiences. Might it be, they might ask themselves, that theirs is a deceiving experience? So as you suggest, but for largely other reasons, some of the experients, if they do much thinking about it at all, should at least eventually consider the possibility that their experience might be non-veridical.
So I would maintain that there are many people—many more than you suggest—who, if they have an RE which confirms their belief or brings them to another religious belief, will never consider the possibility of conflicting experiences and they should consider their experience as prima facie veridical. Others who do come to question their RE will need to find a means of testing it. I’ve pointed out the most important means of adjudicating conflicting experiences.
In summary, one who follows the criterion I’ve suggested—that of seeking the truth from one who deserves our commitment on the possibility of their existence—should feel assured that they have or will discover the truth or will arrive at the most justified conclusion if that world view is correct. This is also the most important criterion to use for seeking an adjudicating experience when confronting conflicting RE claims. And simply honestly investigating the available philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence will bring us to the most justified conclusion if this or most other possible world views are true. So both procedures should be followed so far as one is able to do so. If a benevolent theism is true (there exists a good God, deserving of our commitment, who is willing and able to give the honest seeker the truth) and the seeker does not find reason to believe theism or any other spiritual claims to be true within their lifetime, they should continue to seek God while holding to an honest agnosticism. Though I think it would be very uncommon, under this world view they will at least discover spiritual truth after death.
Note: For further discussion concerning the evidential value of religious experience, see my debate with Paul Doland regarding his critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith (at the top of this page). Our discussion with Dr. Tooley took place not too long after the initial debate in 1994 and was first published in 2000. Material in brackets were added at a later date, the latest in November 2020. Dennis Jensen is speaking for Encounter in this discussion. The included portions of the debate are used with permission.
Dr. William Lane Craig. Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Birmingham, England, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Munich.
Dr. Michael Tooley. Distinguished professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at the time of these debates. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and is a noted author. He is a fellow at the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a member of the American Philosophical Association, and he has served on the faculties of several universities both here and abroad.
