William Alston
God can be perceived as the world is perceived: a genuine source of knowledge.
Life
American philosopher who taught at Michigan, Rutgers, Illinois and then Syracuse, among others; a leading figure of analytic philosophy of religion and a founder of the Society of Christian Philosophers. He argues that religious experience can ground knowledge of God in the way perception grounds knowledge of the world.
Main works
Argues that perceiving God is a source of knowledge, on a par with sense perception.
Essays on how we can speak about God.
Essays in epistemology on the justification of belief.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceDefends belief in God as grounded in a direct, perception-like experience of God.
Alston, Perceiving God (1991)
He grants that the reliability of our basic sources of belief (perception, memory, religious experience) cannot be shown without circularity, yet holds that we may rely on them and have knowledge: neither a sceptic nor a champion of certainty.
Alston, The Reliability of Sense Perception (1993)
Argues religious experience is a rational basis of belief, on a par with sense perception: faith and reason agree.
Alston, Perceiving God (1991)