Questions Does God exist?If God seems present, he probably is

Does God exist?TheismReligious experience

If God seems present, he probably is

The argument from religious experience

Richard Swinburne born 1934God's existence is the simplest explanation of the universe, its order and consciousness.

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What it claims

These experiences are good grounds for believing that God is there: it is reasonable to believe that God probably exists.

Why

When something seems present it probably is, barring reasons for doubt; and many people sense God's presence.

The same idea through history

William James1902In The Varieties of Religious Experience, he gathers hundreds of testimonies and concludes that mystical states are authoritative for those who have them, but do not oblige others to believe them.

C. D. Broad1939He already states a rule close to the principle of credulity: we take what we perceive as true unless there is a positive reason to doubt it; and he judges it inconsistent not to apply it to mystics too when they agree with one another.

Richard Swinburne1979He gives the rule a name, the "principle of credulity", adds a "principle of testimony", and makes it the last step of his book on the existence of God.

William Alston1982He moves from single experiences to whole practices: a way of forming beliefs (perceiving the world, or perceiving God) is "innocent until proved guilty". He develops the idea in Perceiving God (1991).

Henri Bergson1932The agreement of the great mystics, who corroborate one another without knowing each other, makes probable the existence of what they say they encounter.

In short

"If God seems present, he probably is" is an argument by Richard Swinburne (The Existence of God, 1979, ch. 13, 1979) on the question "Does God exist?" (answer: theism). Its claim: These experiences are good grounds for believing that God is there: it is reasonable to believe that God probably exists. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 4 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The Existence of God, 1979, ch. 13

Valid with an implicit premise

You believe there is a tree in front of you because you see it. You have no proof that your eyes are not deceiving you: you trust them, unless there is a special reason to doubt. The English philosopher Richard Swinburne calls this rule the principle of credulity. Without it, we could know nothing, not even through memory. Now many people, in every age and in many cultures, say they have felt the presence of God. If we apply the same rule, says Swinburne, we must take these experiences seriously, like all others. And those who have had no such experience can rely on the principle of testimony: in general, what others say they perceived did happen. To reject these experiences, then, one would need a good reason: it is up to the atheist to find one.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world where many people report experiences of God and both principles are true, but where the rest of our knowledge makes God very improbable: there is then a special reason to doubt, and the conclusion no longer follows. It is like seeing a pink elephant: the principle of credulity is true, but we know otherwise that there are no pink elephants.

Valid with P5. Swinburne does not really leave it unstated: he defends it in the twelve previous chapters of his book, where he judges that the universe, its order and consciousness make God at least not improbable. But the argument presented on its own needs it. Critics mainly target P1 (does the principle hold for God as for a tree?) and P4 (is there really no special reason to doubt?). Richard Gale (1994) also asks why the atheist should have to show that God is very improbable, rather than just improbable.

Analogy. A hiker thinks she sees a deer in the mist. She is right to believe there is a deer, unless she knows she has a fever, that the mist often misleads, or that there are no deer in this area. If we demanded proof before believing what we see, we could no longer believe anything at all. For Swinburne, someone who senses God's presence is in the same situation as the hiker.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

David Hume 1748 · attacks premise 4

Religious experiences do not all say the same thing. Hume noted this about miracles: in religion, whatever is different is contrary. The religions of Rome, Turkey, Siam and China cannot all be right, and each miracle, by supporting its own religion, attacks the others. The same goes for experiences: the Christian sees the Virgin Mary, the Hindu sees Krishna, the Buddhist sees no personal God at all. The witnesses contradict one another, so there is indeed a special reason to doubt.

Swinburne replies

Richard Swinburne 1979

The conflict is exaggerated. Most of these experiences are compatible: God can show himself in different forms to people of different cultures. That a Portuguese peasant sees Mary dressed as on the walls of her church does not prove she is wrong: if Mary shows herself, she will dress so as to be recognised.

Richard Gale 1994

The real problem is not that the reports contradict one another, but that religions do not share the same tests for recognising a genuine experience. For sight, everyone agrees on how to check: look more closely, ask others. In religion, the criteria (growth in holiness, revealed truths) change from one tradition to another and clash. That is an important difference from ordinary perception.

The debate goes on (our summary) William Alston, in Perceiving God (1991), grants that this is the real difficulty. He answers that this disagreement over methods weakens the confidence one can have in one's own religious practice, but does not make it unreasonable. Gale judges this answer insufficient: questioning a person's very method challenges them more seriously than questioning some of their beliefs.

Michael Persinger 1983 · attacks premise 4

The neuroscientist Michael Persinger proposes a brain explanation: religious and mystical experiences would be produced by small, transient electrical discharges in the temporal lobe. Life crises and the approach of death favour them. If the brain is enough to explain these experiences, there is no need for God: we have a special reason to doubt them. Later, Persinger even claims to induce a "sensed presence" in many volunteers with weak magnetic fields (the "God helmet").

Swinburne replies

William James 1902 · Answer given in advance (1902)

James calls this way of judging "medical materialism": turning Saint Paul's vision into an epileptic fit, Saint Teresa into a hysteric. But all our states of mind, scientific ideas as well as religious emotions, the atheist's as well as the believer's, depend on the body. Saying where an experience comes from does not say what it is worth.

C. D. Broad 1939 · Answer given in advance (1939)

That mystics often function unusually is not a very strong argument. If part of reality escapes ordinary life, it probably takes a somewhat abnormal mind to reach it: that is just what we would expect if their experiences were genuine.

See the rest of the debate (3)

Richard Swinburne 1979

If God exists, he is the ultimate cause of everything and can bring about effects anywhere. Then every experience that seems to be of God is genuine: it does come from him. To dismiss these experiences by their cause, one must first show that God does not exist.

Richard Gale 1994

For an ordinary perception, we can check that it was caused in the right way (by the object, and not by a drug or an electrode). If an experience of God can never fail this test, it is no longer a test. A test that cannot be failed is no test at all.

Pehr Granqvist and colleagues 2005

Repeating the "helmet" experiment double-blind (89 people, with a sham field for the control group), they find no effect of the magnetic fields. What predicts the "sensed presence" is how suggestible people are. Persinger's experimental basis is therefore fragile.

The debate goes on (our summary) Persinger disputed these results in the same journal (2005), and the experimental debate goes on. But the objection does not depend on this helmet: whether or not we ever know the exact mechanism in the brain, the real question remains which explanation is best. Critics judge that a known natural cause makes God unnecessary; Swinburne and James answer that a natural cause does not prove the absence of a divine cause.

Michael Martin 1986 · attacks premise 1

If the principle of credulity is right, so is its opposite: if something seems absent to someone, it is probably absent. Yet many people, even when searching sincerely, have never felt God's presence. According to this "negative principle of credulity", their experiences count against God, and they are far more numerous.

Swinburne replies

Richard Swinburne 1979 · Answer given in advance (1979)

Not seeing something only counts against it if one should have expected to see it. But we do not know who should experience God if he were there. That weakens the force of each experience somewhat, but only somewhat.

Richard Gale 1994

Then witnesses agreeing confirms an experience of God, but their disagreeing never disconfirms it. For sight, if no one else sees the tree, we doubt. A test that can be passed but never failed is a very strange test: one more difference between religious experience and perception.

See the rest of the debate (1)

William Alston 1982 · Answer given in advance (1982)

We need not demand of the perception of God the same checks as for the perception of objects. God is not an object in the world: we cannot expect to grasp him like a table, and, according to all the major religions, one finds him only by progressing in the spiritual life. "God is not available for voyeurs." The lack of these checks is therefore not a sufficient reason to judge the practice unreliable.

The debate goes on (our summary) The debate turns on a hard question: what counts as a genuine perception? Defenders of Swinburne and Alston say that demanding the checks of sight for everything else is a bias in favour of the senses. Their opponents answer that without any possible check, a genuine experience can no longer be told apart from a sincere illusion.

William James 1902 · attacks premise 2

James himself, though very sympathetic to mystics, sets a limit: their experiences are authoritative for those who have them, but no authority comes from them that would oblige others to accept their revelations without examining them. Someone who has experienced nothing has only the report, not the experience.

Swinburne replies

Richard Swinburne 1979

The report still counts. If someone says that something seems present to them, that is a reason for others too to believe it is there, even if a weaker reason than for the one having the experience.

The debate goes on (our summary) The two positions are not so far apart: James only rejects "uncritical" acceptance, and Swinburne grants that the report is worth less than the experience. Everything then depends on the other objections: if there is a special reason to doubt (diversity, brain explanation), testimony loses its force.

What today's voices say

Defend it

Philip GoffHe argues it is a double standard to trust our senses but not a mystical experience, and cites James on mysticism.

Criticize it

Steven "Destiny" BonnellAgainst a pastor's religious experience, he says that after a dream or a drug state we can judge it was probably not real.

Mohammed HijabAsked about believers who feel their prayers answered, he says personal experience cannot prove that a given religion is true.