Argument from Religious Experience

1. Introduction

The Argument from Religious Experience is a family of philosophical arguments that treat religious or mystical experiences as data bearing on the existence of God or some transcendent reality. Rather than beginning from abstract metaphysical principles, these arguments start from reports of experiences in which people take themselves to encounter a divine presence, ultimate reality, or a sacred dimension of the world.

In its most common form, the argument is inductive: it claims that the occurrence and character of religious experiences render theism or some kind of religious realism more probable than it would otherwise be. It typically relies on epistemic principles already used in ordinary life and science—especially that experiences are, other things equal, to be trusted (principle of credulity) and that people’s sincere reports of their experiences are usually reliable (principle of testimony).

Philosophers distinguish between:

• First‑person justification: how an individual’s own experience might justify their belief in God.
• Third‑person justification: how someone who has not had such experiences might take others’ reports as evidence.

The argument from religious experience is often contrasted with more traditional cosmological, teleological, or moral arguments, and sometimes appears as one strand in a cumulative case for theism. It has attracted both strong endorsements, especially from philosophers aiming to vindicate religious practice within broadly evidentialist standards, and forceful criticism from naturalists, skeptics, and religious pluralists.

Debates concentrate on several issues: how to classify religious experiences; whether and how they resemble ordinary perception; the impact of psychological and neuroscientific explanations; the problem of conflicting experiences across religions; and whether religious experience should function as inferential evidence at all or instead as a source of basic belief. The following sections examine the development, structure, varieties, and contested status of these arguments in detail.

2. Origin and Attribution

There is no single originator of the Argument from Religious Experience. Instead, it emerged gradually as philosophers and theologians systematized long‑standing appeals to encounters with the divine.

Key Figures and Attributions

Earlier theologians, such as Friedrich Schleiermacher and Paul Tillich, emphasized religious experience as the essence of religion, although they did not present fully analytic arguments from such experience to God’s existence. Later analytic philosophers, including John Hick and Alvin Plantinga, adapted experiential themes in distinct ways—Hick for a pluralist interpretation, Plantinga for a non‑evidentialist account of basic belief.

While Swinburne’s version is often cited as “the” Argument from Religious Experience in contemporary analytic philosophy, many authors treat the argument more generically as any inference from religious experience (broadly construed) to the truth or probability of some religious claim.

3. Historical Context and Antecedents

Although the modern Argument from Religious Experience is largely a product of late 19th‑ and 20th‑century thought, appeals to religious experience as a ground for belief have a much older pedigree.

Pre‑modern Antecedents

In these contexts, experience is typically embedded within doctrinal frameworks and spiritual disciplines, not yet isolated as a standalone evidential argument.

Early Modern to 19th Century

With the rise of empiricism and skepticism about metaphysics, some thinkers began to emphasize inner experience as a response:

• Blaise Pascal and John Wesley refer to personal religious experiences as confirmatory signs, though not in formal argument form.
• Friedrich Schleiermacher (late 18th–early 19th c.) identified religion with a “sense and taste for the Infinite” and a feeling of absolute dependence, giving experiential piety priority over dogma.
• Romanticism and existential strands in theology, later developed by Kierkegaard and Tillich, further elevated subjective experience as the locus of the divine–human encounter.

Late 19th–20th Century Context

The explicit philosophical argument emerges amid:

• Empiricism and scientific naturalism, which raised the question whether religious claims could be grounded in experience at all.
• Psychology of religion, exemplified by William James, which systematically collected and analyzed conversion narratives, mystical reports, and visionary experiences.
• Phenomenology (e.g., Husserl, Max Scheler), which encouraged careful description of lived experience, including religious consciousness.

This context prompted attempts—especially by Swinburne, Alston, and others—to re‑cast traditional experiential themes into arguments that would be intelligible within modern epistemology, while also inviting skeptical and naturalistic critiques.

4. The Argument from Religious Experience Stated

Philosophers formulate the Argument from Religious Experience in various ways, but a common core can be stated using the overview’s structure.

A Standard Formulation

One influential version, associated with Richard Swinburne, may be summarized as follows:

1. Many individuals across cultures and history report experiences that they interpret as awareness of God or a transcendent reality.
2. In general, it is reasonable to trust experiences as veridical unless there are specific reasons to doubt them (principle of credulity).
3. There are no universally compelling reasons to think that religious experiences are systematically unreliable or wholly explainable in non‑religious terms.
4. Background considerations do not decisively rule out the existence of God or a transcendent reality.
5. Therefore, it is reasonable to regard at least some religious experiences as veridical, which increases the probability that God or some ultimate reality exists.

This formulation is inductive and probabilistic: it does not claim to prove theism conclusively, but to raise its likelihood or confer justification.

First‑Person vs Third‑Person Versions

A distinction sometimes drawn is:

Some formulations target general theism (the existence of a personal God), others a more generic transcendent reality (as in some pluralist or non‑theistic interpretations), and still others attempt to defend specific doctrinal claims (for instance, particular Christian beliefs) on experiential grounds. The differences among these formulations, and their respective strengths and vulnerabilities, are addressed in later sections.

5. Logical Structure and Inductive Form

The Argument from Religious Experience is typically framed as an inductive rather than deductive argument. Its premises, even if true, are taken to make the conclusion more probable rather than logically unavoidable.

Inductive and Cumulative Aspects

At its core, the argument has the following structure:

1. Data premise: Reports of religious experiences (of God, the numinous, ultimate reality, etc.) are widespread, cross‑cultural, and often powerful.
2. Epistemic premise: In the absence of specific defeating conditions, seemings—how things experientially appear—are to be treated as veridical.
3. No‑defeater premise: There is no overarching, well‑supported theory showing that religious experiences are generally deceptive or fully reducible to non‑religious causes.
4. Background premise: Other evidence does not make the existence of God or a transcendent reality extremely improbable.
5. Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of God or a transcendent reality is more probable than it would otherwise be; religious experiences provide some degree of evidential support.

Many proponents embed this reasoning in a cumulative‑case framework: religious experience is one set of data among others (cosmological, moral, fine‑tuning, etc.), each contributing incrementally to the overall probability of theism.

Probabilistic Formalizations

Swinburne and some others employ Bayesian language: the likelihood of the observed pattern of experiences is claimed to be higher on the hypothesis that God exists than on a purely naturalistic hypothesis. The structure can be expressed schematically:

• If God exists, the probability of people having experiences they take as of God is relatively high.
• If God does not exist, the probability of this whole body of experiences is lower (given only naturalistic factors).
• Observing these experiences therefore raises the posterior probability of God’s existence.

Critics contest both the probability assignments and the conditionalization on background information, while some proponents emphasize less technical, more intuitive inductive reasoning instead of formal Bayesianism.

6. Types of Religious Experience

The term religious experience covers a wide variety of phenomena. Philosophers and scholars often distinguish types in order to assess their potential evidential force.

Common Classifications

Internal vs External, Theistic vs Non‑theistic

Scholars also distinguish:

• Internal experiences (e.g., an inner awareness or conviction) vs apparently external experiences (e.g., hearing a voice, seeing a figure).
• Theistic experiences (of a personal God) vs non‑theistic or impersonal experiences (e.g., of emptiness, suchness, or Brahman without qualities).

Some versions of the argument focus on a narrow subset, such as mystical experiences of unity, while others appeal to the whole range as a cumulative body of experiential data. How different types compare in evidential value—given, for instance, their susceptibility to psychological explanation or doctrinal interpretation—remains a major point of contention.

7. The Principle of Credulity and Testimony

Two epistemic principles play a central role in many formulations of the Argument from Religious Experience: the Principle of Credulity and the Principle of Testimony, articulated most explicitly by Richard Swinburne.

The Principle of Credulity

Swinburne states the principle roughly as:

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“If it seems to a subject that x is present, then, in the absence of special considerations, it is rational to believe that x is present as it seems to be.”

— Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (1979/2004)

Applied to religious experience, the idea is that if it seems to a person that they are experiencing God (or the divine), they are prima facie justified in believing this, unless they possess defeaters (e.g., evidence of hallucination, strong counter‑arguments to theism, conflicting experiences, or special circumstances like drug use).

Advocates often note that ordinary perceptual beliefs—such as seeing trees or hearing voices—are routinely accepted on similar grounds; religious experiences, they argue, should not be singled out for uniquely skeptical treatment without special reasons.

The Principle of Testimony

The Principle of Testimony extends this reasoning to other people’s reports:

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“In the absence of special considerations, the experiences of others are probably as they report them to be.”

— Paraphrasing Swinburne’s formulation

This principle underwrites much of everyday and scientific knowledge, which heavily depends on others’ testimony. In the religious case, it is used to argue that outsiders are prima facie justified in taking reports of religious experiences as evidence, unless they have reasons to doubt the sincerity, reliability, or interpretive accuracy of the reporters.

Scope and Controversy

Supporters claim these principles are modest and widely presupposed outside religious contexts. Critics question whether they should apply unmodified to rare, extraordinary, or metaphysically loaded experiences, or whether the background probability of theism and the risk of error significantly weaken their force when applied to religious claims. These disputes shape much of the subsequent debate about the argument’s epistemic legitimacy.

8. Key Variations and Formulations

The Argument from Religious Experience appears in several distinct formulations, reflecting different epistemological and theological commitments.

Narrow vs Broad Targets

Direct vs Inference‑to‑Best‑Explanation

• Direct experiential argument: Maintains that an experience of God is itself evidence for God’s existence, via the Principle of Credulity, without invoking broader explanatory considerations.
• Inference‑to‑best‑explanation argument: Treats the total pattern of religious experiences as data best explained by the reality of a divine or transcendent source, compared to rival naturalistic explanations (developed by some contemporary theists using explanatory virtues).

Individual vs Cumulative‑Case Roles

• Standalone role: Some formulations present the argument as independently sufficient for rational belief (at least for the experiencer).
• Cumulative‑case role: Others, including Swinburne and many contemporary theists, treat it as one probabilistic factor among many in assessing theism vs naturalism.

Internalist vs Externalist Justification

• Internalist formulations focus on what the subject can access reflectively (seemings, reasons, evidence).
• Externalist formulations (e.g., some forms of reliabilism) argue that if experiences are produced by reliable faculties, they can confer warrant even if the subject cannot show this by argument.

Some accounts, such as William Alston’s “doxastic practice” approach, emphasize socially established practices of forming beliefs based on religious experience, while others, influenced by Reformed epistemology, downplay the inferential dimension and treat experience more as a trigger for basic belief (though this is discussed in more detail in a later dedicated section).

9. Premises Examined: Reliability of Experience

A central premise in many versions of the argument is that experiences—religious ones included—are prima facie reliable. Philosophical discussion analyzes this claim by comparing religious with ordinary perception.

Analogies to Sense Perception

Supporters contend that:

• Everyday perceptual beliefs (about tables, trees, or other people) rely on taking experiences at face value.
• Systematic skepticism about such experiences is typically rejected as self‑defeating or impractical.
• Religious experiences may share structural features with perception: they present themselves as involuntary, vivid, and about something external to the subject.

William Alston advances the idea of “mystical perception” as a socially established doxastic practice analogous to sense perception. Within such a practice, it is prima facie reasonable to trust experiences unless defeaters arise, even if we cannot provide a non‑circular proof of the practice’s reliability.

Disanalogies and Constraints

Critics highlight important differences:

Skeptics maintain that the rarity, cultural shaping, and internal variability of religious experiences undermine analogies to ordinary perception. They also argue that background probabilities (e.g., concerning theism’s plausibility) significantly affect how much trust is warranted.

Internal Conditions and Epistemic Virtues

Some philosophers propose criteria for assessing reliability in specific cases: coherence with the subject’s other beliefs, moral and psychological fruits, long‑term stability, and the absence of known distorting factors (such as substance use or extreme stress). While not eliminating disagreement, such criteria aim to refine the premise that experiences, when occurring under “normal” and “favourable” conditions, enjoy a presumption of reliability, including in religious contexts.

10. Premises Examined: Defeaters and Naturalistic Explanations

Another key premise claims that there are no sufficiently strong, global defeaters for religious experience—no considerations that would undermine their evidential force across the board. Discussion centers on naturalistic explanations and broader skeptical challenges.

Psychological and Neurological Accounts

Naturalistic critics point to:

• Psychodynamic theories (e.g., Freud), viewing religious experiences as wish‑fulfilling illusions or projections of parental figures.
• Social and cultural conditioning, suggesting that religious content reflects background narratives rather than external reality.
• Neuroscientific findings, such as stimulation of temporal lobes or certain epileptic patterns, which can induce experiences similar to reported religious states.

From this perspective, religious experiences are fully explainable in terms of brain states, cognitive biases, and sociocultural factors, thereby functioning as defeaters for interpreting them as veridical.

Defenders respond that a naturalistic mechanism of experience does not by itself show illusoriness; all experiences, including ordinary perception, are mediated by brain processes. They argue that such explanations may be compatibilist (showing how God could work through natural processes) or at least underdetermined between theistic and naturalistic interpretations.

Global vs Local Defeaters

Philosophers distinguish:

Proponents generally accept local defeaters but deny that existing psychological or sociological theories amount to a strong global defeater. Critics argue that the cumulative weight of such theories, combined with religious disagreement and absence of public confirmatory tests, does function as a significant global challenge.

Background Evidence and Competing Hypotheses

Debate also concerns how background evidence—such as arguments from evil, success of natural science, or prior probability assessments of theism—affects whether naturalistic explanations count as overriding defeaters. Some philosophers propose comparative explanatory assessments (discussed in a later section) to evaluate whether religious or naturalistic accounts better accommodate the full range of experiential data.

11. Religious Diversity and Conflict of Experiences

Religious experiences appear in many traditions, often supporting mutually incompatible doctrinal claims. This diversity raises the question whether such experiences can collectively function as reliable guides to truth.

The Diversity Objection

Critics argue:

1. Devout practitioners in different religions report experiences they interpret as confirming, for example, Christian Trinitarianism, Islamic strict monotheism, various Hindu understandings of the divine, or even non‑theistic Buddhist insights.
2. These interpretations frequently entail conflicting truth‑claims (e.g., about God’s nature, incarnation, or ultimate reality’s personality).
3. If religious experience systematically yields incompatible beliefs without a neutral way to adjudicate them, then its overall reliability as a cognitive faculty is doubtful.

Some suggest an analogy with disagreement among expert witnesses: when purported experts conflict irreconcilably, their testimony’s evidential force is reduced.

Responses: Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism

Different strategies interpret the diversity data in contrasting ways:

John Hick’s influential pluralist account treats diverse mystical experiences as varying “phenomenal manifestations” of the same Real, arguing that doctrinal contradictions do not entirely cancel the evidential support for a transcendent ground.

Epistemic Significance of Disagreement

Some philosophers apply general theories of peer disagreement: if equally informed, sincere, and competent people disagree about a topic, that may reduce one’s confidence in one’s own view. Applied to religious experience, this suggests that encountering widespread, equally compelling experiences in rival traditions can function as a defeater for strong experiential claims, though opinions differ on how far this undermines more modest conclusions (such as “some transcendent reality exists”).

12. Major Objections and Critical Responses

Debate over the Argument from Religious Experience has crystallized around several prominent objections and corresponding replies.

Main Objections

Typical Critical Responses

Proponents offer several lines of reply:

1. Parity with Ordinary Experience: They argue that all experiences, including those central to science, rely on personal seemings and testimony; religious experiences should be treated similarly unless special reasons for doubt are shown.
2. Limits of Naturalistic Explanations: Defenders maintain that even if psychological or neurological mechanisms are identified, these do not necessarily undercut the veridicality of the experience, just as knowing the neural basis of vision does not show that perceived objects are unreal.
3. Qualified Use of Credulity: Some refine the Principle of Credulity to include background evidence and context sensitivity, insisting that it is reasonable to trust experiences under normal conditions, while acknowledging that rare or extraordinary experiences may require stronger scrutiny.
4. Expanded Conception of Evidence: In response to the public evidence objection, some philosophers and theologians argue for a broader epistemology in which private but interpersonally reportable experiences still count as evidence, particularly within communities, even if they do not meet strict scientific replicability standards.
5. Pluralist and Minimalist Conclusions: In light of diversity, some propose weakening the argument’s conclusion: instead of supporting detailed doctrinal claims, religious experience may provide only generic support for “something more” than the natural world (e.g., a transcendent reality of some kind).

These responses aim to preserve at least a moderate evidential role for religious experience, while conceding that it is fallible and contested.

13. Reformed Epistemology and Basic Belief

Reformed epistemology, associated especially with Alvin Plantinga, reshapes the role of religious experience in discussions of rational belief in God. Instead of functioning primarily as a premise in an argument, religious experience is taken as part of the grounding for properly basic belief.

Properly Basic Belief in God

Plantinga argues that certain beliefs can be rational and warranted without being inferred from other beliefs. Examples often cited include:

• Beliefs about the external world (“There is a tree”).
• Beliefs about other minds (“This person is conscious”).
• Some moral beliefs (“This action is wrong”).

He suggests that belief in God can belong to this category when formed in the right circumstances (e.g., sensing God’s presence, experiencing guilt, gratitude, or dependence). Religious experience is then a trigger for belief rather than evidence in a traditional, inferential sense.

The Sensus Divinitatis

Plantinga draws on the Reformed theological idea of a sensus divinitatis—an innate, God‑given faculty that produces belief in God under appropriate conditions. On this view:

• If God exists and the sensus divinitatis is functioning properly in the right environment, then belief in God can have warrant even without arguments.
• Religious experiences (for example, in worship, awe at nature, or moral conviction) are occasions on which this faculty operates.

Relation to the Argument from Religious Experience

Reformed epistemology does not necessarily reject experiential arguments, but it de‑emphasizes their centrality. Some key contrasts:

Critics of Reformed epistemology argue that this framework can appear question‑begging (since warrant depends on God’s actual existence) and may be too permissive, potentially legitimizing a wide range of incompatible basic religious beliefs. Supporters contend that the approach reflects how many believers in fact form and maintain their beliefs, and that it re‑frames the debate: the main task becomes defending the epistemic permissibility of basic theistic belief, rather than establishing God’s existence via experiential evidence.

14. Comparative Explanatory Power: Theism vs Naturalism

Some contemporary discussions evaluate religious experience by comparing how well theism and naturalism explain the total body of such experiences. This shifts focus from local justifications to inference to the best explanation.

Theistic Explanations

On theistic hypotheses:

• A personal God or transcendent reality exists and has reason to make itself knowable.
• Humans are endowed with cognitive and affective capacities suited to relating to this reality.
• Religious experiences—mystical, numinous, moral, etc.—are at least partly the intended or expected result of this divine–human relationship.

Proponents argue that theism offers a unified explanation for:

• The widespread occurrence of religious experiences across cultures.
• Their often transformative moral and existential effects.
• Their persistent resistance to purely reductive naturalistic accounts.

Naturalistic Explanations

On naturalistic accounts:

• Religious experiences arise from psychological, neurological, and social mechanisms shaped by evolutionary and cultural factors.
• Phenomena such as agency detection biases, pattern recognition, emotional regulation, and group cohesion can, in combination, generate experiences that are then interpreted religiously.

Supporters of naturalism claim advantages:

• Parsimony: Fewer ontological commitments; no need to posit supernatural entities.
• Integration with science: Models draw on established cognitive science, neuroscience, and sociology.
• Explanatory reach: Naturalism can account for both religious and non‑religious experiences using similar mechanisms.

Comparative Criteria

Philosophers employ standard explanatory virtues to compare views:

No consensus exists on which explanation is superior. Assessments often depend on prior commitments about the plausibility of theism, the weight given to parsimony vs experiential data, and views about whether naturalistic explanations necessarily displace or can coexist with religious interpretations.

15. The Argument in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

Within contemporary analytic philosophy of religion, the Argument from Religious Experience occupies a contested but prominent place.

Central Contributors and Themes

Key figures include:

• Richard Swinburne, whose formulation using the principles of credulity and testimony is a standard reference point.
• William Alston, who develops a doxastic practice model in Perceiving God, arguing that Christian mystical perception is epistemically on a par with other socially grounded belief‑forming practices.
• John Hick, who both critiques exclusivist appeals to experience and proposes a pluralist reinterpretation in which religious experiences point to the “Real.”
• J. L. Mackie, Michael Martin, and other skeptics, who articulate influential naturalistic and evidentialist objections.

Placement in Broader Debates

The argument intersects several broader analytic debates:

• Evidentialism vs non‑evidentialism: To what extent must religious belief be supported by publicly sharable evidence?
• Internalism vs externalism about justification: Is reflective access to one’s reasons necessary, or can reliable processes suffice?
• Phenomenology of religious experience: How should the structure and content of such experiences be described without begging metaphysical questions?

Current Trends

Recent work includes:

• Bayesian and formal epistemology approaches evaluating how much religious experience should shift one’s credences.
• Engagement with empirical psychology and cognitive science of religion to refine or challenge premises about the occurrence and interpretation of experiences.
• Discussions of peer disagreement, applying general epistemic theories of disagreement to religious diversity.
• Renewed interest in mystical perception, with some philosophers exploring parallels between religious and aesthetic or moral experiences.

While the argument is far from universally accepted—many analytic philosophers remain skeptical or agnostic—it continues to be a standard topic in textbooks, anthologies, and graduate seminars, serving as a focal point for examining the interface between personal experience, epistemic norms, and metaphysical commitment.

16. Implications for Religious Practice and Theology

Appeals to religious experience as evidential or justificatory have influenced how religious practitioners and theologians understand faith, doctrine, and spirituality.

Experiential Emphasis in Practice

In many traditions, religious experience is seen as:

• A confirmation of faith: personal encounters with the divine are taken to strengthen commitment and resilience.
• A motivator of moral transformation: experiences of forgiveness, grace, or conviction are linked to ethical change.
• A guide in decision‑making: perceived divine guidance or inner leadings inform practical choices.

Some communities emphasize cultivating experiences (e.g., through contemplative prayer, meditation, charismatic worship), while others view such experiences more cautiously, stressing scriptural and doctrinal norms.

Theological Conceptions of Revelation

The role of experience in theology varies:

Some theologians integrate philosophical discussions of the argument to defend the rationality of taking experiences as signs of revelation, while others are wary of over‑intellectualizing what they see as gifts of grace or Spirit.

Pastoral and Ecumenical Implications

Recognition of the variety and ambiguity of religious experiences has several practical implications:

• Discernment: Many traditions develop criteria (moral fruits, doctrinal coherence, communal discernment) for distinguishing constructive from misleading experiences.
• Ecumenical and interfaith dialogue: Awareness of genuine experiences across traditions can foster mutual respect, even amid doctrinal disagreement, and may support more inclusivist or pluralist theologies.
• Response to skepticism: Philosophical defenses of experiential justification are sometimes used in apologetics to reassure believers that their experiences are not epistemically suspect by default.

At the same time, some theologians caution that overreliance on private experience can lead to subjectivism, neglect of community norms, or vulnerability to manipulation, underscoring the need for critical reflection alongside experiential piety.

17. Legacy and Historical Significance

The Argument from Religious Experience has had a notable impact on both philosophy and the wider understanding of religion in the modern era.

Philosophical Legacy

Within philosophy of religion, the argument:

• Helped shift attention from purely a priori or cosmological arguments to the phenomenology of religious life.
• Encouraged closer dialogue between analytic philosophy, psychology of religion, and phenomenology, especially following William James’s pioneering work.
• Catalyzed debates over epistemic norms, contributing to discussions of credulity, testimony, peer disagreement, and the scope of evidence.

It has also played a role in the development of Reformed epistemology and renewed interest in mystical experience as a topic of serious philosophical inquiry, rather than merely an object of skepticism or pathology.

Influence Beyond Philosophy

In theology and religious studies, attention to religious experience:

• Reinforced currents that emphasize lived religion and practice over purely doctrinal approaches.
• Informed ecumenical and interreligious engagements, as shared experiential motifs (e.g., awe, transcendence, transformation) became points of comparison.
• Stimulated empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science of religion, which often takes experiential claims as primary data, even when interpreted naturalistically.

Ongoing Significance

The argument’s enduring significance lies less in any consensus about its success and more in how it has:

• Forced clarification of what counts as evidence in religious contexts.
• Highlighted the importance of first‑person perspectives in epistemology.
• Kept questions about the meaning, interpretation, and possible veridicality of religious experience central to interdisciplinary inquiry.

Even among those who reject its conclusions, the Argument from Religious Experience has shaped a century of reflection on whether, and how, human experiences of the sacred might bear on metaphysical questions about God and ultimate reality.