2.6 Strengths of religious experience

Question 1

How does credibility link to religious experience?

Answer 1

• religious experiences are often based on personal testimony
• Richard Swinburne’s (b. 1934) “Principle of Credulity” states that unless we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then we should believe that things are as they seem to be
• our experiences are normally reliable, so on the balance of probability, experience can not be trusted as being more likely to be true than not
• we should therefore trust our perceptions about our experience of God

Question 2

What are Swinburne’s premises for the credibility for religious experience?

Answer 2

1. experience of _____ implies the reality of _____
2. experience of God implies the reality of God
   conclusion: God exists

Question 3

List out the (general) strengths of religious experience

Question 4

Describe Richard Swinburne’s five-part classification

Answer 4

Swinburne classifies five types of religious experience:

1. experience of God mediated through a common ‘public’ sensory object, like a sunset or an ocean
2. experiences of God mediated through an uncommon public sensory object; by this, Swinburne means the kind of experience had by Moses at the burning bush
3. experience of God mediated through a private object that can be described empirically; for example, in Acts 10:10-16, Peter sees a vision