A phenomenal conservative perspective on religious experience

• Published in: International journal for philosophy of religion Vol. 81; no. 3; pp. 247 - 261
• Main Author: Burns, Aaran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Science + Business Media 01.06.2017; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Answers; Belief & doubt; Education; Epistemology; God; Justification; Non-Western Philosophy; Phenomenology; Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion; Religion; Religious beliefs; Religious experiences; Religious Studies; Phenomenal Conservatism; Disagreement; Religious experience; Principle of Credulity; God; Swinburne
• ISSN: 0020-7047; 1572-8684
• DOI: 10.1007/s11153-015-9557-7

Can religious experience justify belief in God? We best approach this question by splitting it in two: (1) Do religious experiences give their subjects any justification for believing that there is a God of the kind they experience? And (2) Does testimony about such experiences provides any justification for believing that there is a God for those who are not the subject of the experience? The most popular affirmative answers trace back to the work of Richard Swinburne, who appeals to the Principle of Credulity and the Principle of Testimony. Since then, development of his line of reasoning has gone in a number of distinct directions. Here I propose yet another development. I argue first that the Principle of Credulity is false on the grounds that it has several implausible commitments. I then offer a Phenomenal Conservative perspective on the epistemology of religious experience suggesting a categorically affirmative answer to (1) but a nuanced answer to (2) which allows the possibility of reasonable disagreement about religious experience.