The argument for God from religious experience seems ludicrous to the popular atheist or agnostic. The argument lends itself all too easily to ridicule and mockery. “How can somebody claim to know something simply because they feel it to be true?” asks the skeptic. “Truthiness” is the word which Stephen Colbert used to describe it. The believers typical response does not help their case much either, “It’s not just a feeling. It was something more, something in my gut/heart which I can’t really describe.” In this post I will argue that a religious experience is indeed something more than just a mere feeling. I will also argue, however, that this fact does nothing to support the argument from religious experience for God’s existence. Indeed, I will conclude that by taking such religious experiences seriously, by not degrading them, the skeptic has a powerful argument against such an argument for God.
First, I should be clear about what I mean by “the argument from religious experience.” By this, I do not mean a full-blown vision or angelic visitation. Rather, I simply mean the private, inward experience which I take to be the most common form of religious experience. Anything beyond this private, deeply emotional experience I take to be rare and beyond the scope of this post.
I will characterize this religious experience as an emotional experience, nothing more and nothing less. This, however, is where the believer bristles and the skeptic snickers, for they both view mere emotions as being nothing more than a mere feeling with little, if any content or meaning to it. Such, however, is not the case. There is nothing “mere” about emotions, for emotions are not merely feelings. Feelings, as such, do not contain, nor do they provide information. As such, how could they possibly provide evidence for anything at all? Both the skeptic as well as the religionist recognize this.
Instead, I will follow Robert Solomon in characterizing emotions as active engagements with the world; engagements which can be, and usually are relatively intelligent in nature. As such, emotions are intentional, that is they are about the world or some part of it in some way. In other words, emotions are closely related to, if not a large subset of propositional attitudes. It is in virtue of the their propositional content that religious experiences can and are viewed as evidence for or against something. Not only are emotions feelings about something but, being active engagements with the world, are also constituted by their expressions; emotions and the way in which they are expressed cannot be fully separated. Thus, while the feelings of a religious experience are indeed private, such feelings are of secondary importance at best. Most of what an emotion consists of (intentional content, expression, etc.) is not intrinsically private, nor unavailable to public scrutiny.
At this point we have begun to seriously distance ourselves from the typical skeptic’s view of religious experience. Contrary to what our cynical skeptic may think, emotions are not only frequently rational in nature, but are actually a precondition for rationality. By providing salience in our engagements with the world, emotions determine what is and is not important to us. This, in turn, provides the context in which rationality can exist and function. Following one’s emotions, therefore, is not intrinsically irrational or even non-rational. Indeed, it would probably be highly irrational for an individual to not follow their emotions on a regular basis.
Then again, the idea that emotions are partially available for public scrutiny may also come as unexpected to the religionist. Nevertheless, that such experiences are at least somewhat publicly shareable is presupposed in the immense amount of time which some religious traditions spend speaking of and sharing such experiences on with another. The public availability of emotions is a consequence of as well as precondition for the way in which culture partially determines, or rather refines our emotional repertoires. When I say that I am in love, I am not arbitrarily applying names to some utterly private experience which is completely beyond comparison with other people’s experiences.
None of this, however, should be taken as an of passively accepting and following our emotional experiences and promptings. Just because emotions are quite intelligent or are largely rational, does not mean that they are perfectly intelligent or completely rational. As Aristotle pointed out, wisdom is to experience the right emotion, to the right degree, toward the right object, and express such in the right manner. It is highly unusualy for a person to do all these things . Since our emotions tend to be less than perfect, it is our responsibility to better them. While the Greeks viewed emotions as something which humans passively suffered, thereby placing emotions utterly beyond an individual’s responsbility, emotions-as-engagements is the very antithesis of such a view. We do have a say in what emotional habits we cultivate in our lives, and are therefore responsible not only for how we express our emotions, but how we experience emotions.
With this understanding of emotional experience in place, let us return to the argument from religious experience. There are a number of reasons for why a religious experiences seems as if it can be interpreted as evidence for God, and furthermore seems as if it should be interpreted as evidence for God. I will argue, however, that such experiences do not actually amount to evidence for the existence of God, for such experiences would arise even in conditions where there was no God. Furthermore, I will argue that this account of religious experiences is superior to that of the typical skeptic.
The typical skeptic’s view portrays the religionist as being totally irrational, if not mildly insane. Such a view, however, not only lacks charity toward the religionist’s position, but is surely a misrepresentation of it altogether. What the skeptic needs in order to be more effective in reasoning with believers, as well as account for the phenomenological data which should not be ignored, is a theory of religious experience which allows such experiences to seem like evidence for God to the the individual. They need a theory which allows for the skeptic to be the exception in not accepting such experiences as evidence for God rather than the rule (as seems to be the actual case). A theory is needed which does not speak so poorly of the vast majority which does consider such experiences to be valid evidence for God. I will argue that religious experiences as emotional engagements with the world accomplishes all of these things, while religious experiences as mere feelings accomplishes none of them.
The emotional experiences which are interpreted as religious would arise whether God existed or not. In order to illustrate this, I will follow the well-worn analogy of comparing such religious experiences to the love of one guy for his gal. The religionist is fond of this example, for it is notoriously difficult for the man to prove his love, just as it is difficult for the religionist to prove their beliefs. Nevertheless, we do recognize that people can pass judgment, sometimes fairly accurately, about whether a boy really does love his girlfriend. The boy will insist that he really does love his girlfriend and that nobody else knows anything about the matter. The others will claim that he is either experiencing “puppy love” or is simply confusing love with lust and that they have good reason for claiming such. What is particularly interesting about such cases is that usually the other people are right in their judgments, and often the boy, sometime down the line, comes to recognize this. By this I do not mean to equate religious experiences with puppy love or lust, but rather establish that religious experiences are not completely private, just as love is not.
Love feels like something which happens to us, often vividly so. Such, however, is simply not the case; there is no actual cupid or any other external thing which causes people to fall in love. Love is something which the guy creates himself, often through a rather long process of cultivation. The guy creates the emotional experience, though such does not seem to be the case from his perspective at all. So too is the religious experience. It seems as if the religionist is the passive effect of some external Cause, when in fact they have created the experience themselves, usually through a long process of cultivation. Just as we would never call the guy in love irrational or crazy in his interpretation of his experience, the skeptic should not see the religionist as being irrational or crazy. The man and the religionist are simply wrong inasmuch as they interpret these experiences as originating from some cause outside of them, even though such may seem to be the case.
Adding to the appearance of external causation is the fact that emotional repertoires are largely conditioned and sustained by outside forces, such as biology, culture and language. Thus, there is a fact of the matter as to whether an emotional experience really counts as “true love” or is simply “lust” or “puppy love”. Such emotional categories preexist and transcend the individual just as biology, culure and language transcend him; no supernatural entities need be invoked. Just as we question whether we would actually experience love if we did not have a word for it, so too we wonder if we would have religious experiences if we did not have any religious concepts in our culture? Religious experienceis, like love, an emotional category which has been largely created and sustained by natural forces which are external to us. This transcendence not only facilitates a feeling of transcendence in such experiences, but also gives the experience a rather factual feel to it.
Thus, we should fully expect the religious experience to seem very transcendent in origin as well as have a very factual feel to it. We should expect other people to describe and share what seems to be the exact same experiences with each other. Such things should characterize religious experiences even if there is no external cause of such experiences. Religious experiences take the concept “God” as their intentional content (they are about God whether He exists or not) and then seem to be of external origin (again, whether He exists or not), making it all too easy and reasonable for such experiences to be attributed to God’s influence.
We have done justice to the religious experience without belittling it or its followers and without any appeal to super-naturalism of any kind. In conclusion, if we can expect such experiences to arise in cases where God does not exist, and therefore cannot be the cause of them, just as they should in cases where God does exist and is the cause of them, why should they be taken as evidence for God’s existence? Sure, they may seem like they are from God, but they would seem that way even if they were not. The argument from the typical religious experience to God’s existence fails. This, however, is not an argument for why the religionist should not follow the promptings of such experiences by leading what we could call a religious life.
Hey Jeff. Good post. I was going to write a separate post at my own blog as an answer. But I decided just to leave some comments here.
First off I agree with you on “emotions” broadly construed. (I didn’t read all your older posts on the subject, but managed to find time to reread many and largely agreed, although I had a few semantic quibbles here and there) In Peircean terms (yeah, I know, I know – I keep bringing him up since I just find him more and more useful for my thought as time goes on) I think emotions have aspects of 1stness, 2cdness and 3rdness and can’t be reduced to just one of those. Thus firstness (what they are in themselves), secondness (emotions as pure relation or force) and thirdness (their representational or intentional content) are all important.
My complaint with your approach isn’t that I disagree with what you say. I do. Rather my complaint is that you’ve divorced emotion from context. That is what gives emotion useful and meaningful content is its relationship to the world. So, if I always have say an emotional experience of anger towards a person I can take that as a sign that this person has done something to offend or bother me. But what lets this content be taken as truthful and meaningful is (a) the repeated nature; (b) the normed conditions it is found it (i.e. this is a standard interpretation by others of this situation; and (c) the testability of further inquiry. (i.e. I can look for tests to see if this interpretation of content is accurate, thereby strengthening this Code of the sign as an accurate meaning)
Put simply, one has to delve into the type-token relationship and the content and Code which lets it function as a type-token.
So I certainly agree that by themselves emotional experiences are not evidence for God.
What is at hand isn’t the nature of emotions, for the reasons you outline. Rather what is at issue is he predictive patterns, the social patterns, and all the things that let any sign be a type-token relationship.
So consider the example of lust vs. love. (An example I believe I already brought up into the discussion) The experience is insufficient for several reasons. First, is there the repetition to discern it as a sign for love? No. Quite the contrary typically. Second are there existing codes which give it a different meaning. Yes. Thirdly how does the process of inquiry treat the experience? Quite poorly.
Now I do happen to think that probably the majority of religious experiences do fit this pattern. (Indeed I’d brought up the example of love/lust at my blog precisely to argue that it does invalidate most religious experience) But does it invalidate all religious experience. No. Quite the contrary.
But that’s why I talk of experience, which is more broad than simply emotion. There is far more involved in any experience than can be reduced to emotion. Put simply context and the issues of difference and repetition are key aspects of any experience qua experience. And that is key.
Comment by Clark — December 2, 2006 @ 11:14 pm
I must confess that there is much about your comment that I do not understand. (Pretty much all Peirce stuff)
First of all, I strongly disagree that I have divorced emotion from context. I think that context if part of what emotion is, especially in the case of religious experiences. I see my account as being completely compatible with, perhaps even requiring the repetition and context which you speak of.
Comment by Jeff G — December 3, 2006 @ 2:08 am
Over at Mormon Metaphysics, Blake has responded to my post with a number of criticisms. I will first copy most of his comment and then respond to it.
“Jeff’s argument that his view of “feelings” is non-reductive because he credits them with some intelligence (i.e., non-cognitive ability to lead us to a right result thru evolutionary adaptation though we think we’re really experiencing what we are not) also is false. His view is reductive to the extent it reduces religious experiences to “feelings” that lead us to get something about the world, just not what we think based on the “feelings”. He doesn’t hesitate to declare that we create these feelings and there is no external cause to them. There is so much that is wrong-headed about this that I hardly know where to begin.
“First, I am no fan of the rank speculation that goes on in the name of evolutionary explanation. It is merely speculation about what could possibly explain a phenomena in terms of evolutionary thought — what could work. it is speculation of the most baseless sort. I see it all the time without a shred of sensible evidence to support it.
“Second, it is unquestionable that we are somehow involved in creating our feelings since if we were dead we wouldn’t have them. It take a living, interacting entity. Beyondt that, there isn’t much to support Jeff’s claim. It is clear that sometimes we have “mere feelings” and that we misattribute causes to them. It doesn’t follow that we always do so — same fallacy that Michael D. committed.
“Third, reducing the experiences of “knowing that” that is both a cognitive and connative experience to “feelings” of the sort Jeff talks about (gut feelings or hunches really) doesn’t do the experience justice. Moreover, there is an entire dimension of the experience of “knowing that” that gets lost because what is at issue is both a “knowing that” in terms of Latin “sapere” and knowing whom in terms of Latin “conoscere”. It is like the distiction between knowing a fact by reading about it knowing it through direct experience. I know that a rose smells sweet, but until I smell the sweetness of the rose I have no idea what is being referred to in terms of experiential knowledge.”
Blake, despite his brilliance with which I am well acquainted as well as admiring, has completely missed the purpose as well as content of my argument.
1) I go to great lengths to distance emotion from mere feelings, a derogatory term which Blake seems to see me characterizing religious experience with. Such is not the case.
2) I don’t think I mentioned “evolution” or “adaptation” a single time in the post. I simply don’t see what role evolution is supposed to be playing in my argument.
3) I am not arguing (I also go to great lengths in my post to make this clear) that my account is somehow an argument that all religious experiences MUST be self-caused. Rather, I argue that since these experience would arise even if there was no God they cannot themselves count as evidence for an external cause of them. Religious experience cannot count as evidence that such experiences are caused by an external agent. Maybe they are caused by an external agent, but these same experiences do NOT count as evidence for such.
4) My account seems entirely harmonious with a good deal of both “know that” as well as knowledge by acquaintance. Indeed, that is the entire point of my distancing emotion from mere feelings.
Later on in the post, Blake says,
“is there some test or criteria to determine when an experience is externally referring rather than merely internally referring as Jeff asserts — is that one can know only by having the experience itself.”
I covered this in (3). My whole point is that having the experience is not at all a criterion for distinguishing external from internal causation.
I have had the experiences which Blake is referring to. Accordingly, Blake may be able to argue that I don’t know what the experience is really like since due to the utter privacy of such experiences I can never be sure that I have had the “real” thing. Following such reasoning, I can in turn argue that I do know what it is like and that he has no way of calling this assertion into question due to the utter privacy of my experiences.
Nevertheless, as I argued in the post, such emotions are NOT utterly private in nature. Indeed, much of what religionists do presupposes that they are not entirely private. It’s almost as if Blake did not read the post at all (which is possible since the post was inspired by an earlier thread which we were both engaged in).
Comment by Jeff G — December 3, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
I strongly disagree that I have divorced emotion from context. I think that context if part of what emotion is, especially in the case of religious experiences. I see my account as being completely compatible with, perhaps even requiring the repetition and context which you speak of.
If that is true then there is nothing to stop an emotional experience being correlated to other phenomena. Put succinctly, there’s nothing unique about emotions as a sign. What counts is the relationship to what is signified. And that is discerned via making hypothesis (abduction) and testing them (induction).
So I guess my answer is, what makes religion so special as opposed to every other kind of event where we seem able to infer significance and test it?
Comment by Clark — December 3, 2006 @ 6:03 pm
Jeff: First, you are right that I haven’t read this post, but I didn’t need to since after reading it there is nothing that changes. Your account of “emotions” is reductive nonetheless. You assert that “emotions determine what is important to us,” but that also seems to be unsupported. I suggest that an agent often makes such a determination and there is no such determination — citations of experimental data to follow.
Jeff said: “Rather, I argue that since these experience would arise even if there was no God they cannot themselves count as evidence for an external cause of them.”
What is the basis for this rather bold assertion? What is the basis for asserting the (counterfactual) that these experiences would occur even if there were no God? It is mere assertion so far as I can tell. Yet this baseless assertion is the bottom line. I see no reason whatsoever to credit it.
With respect to your claim to have had the “emotion” in questions — I suggest that you may well have. However, it is like once having had a relationship. A memory of a relationship is not the same as being in a relationship. The “emotion” is not merely an emotion — it is a living, present reality of being in relation. Since you are no longer in relation, you don’t have presently what I am referring to. a memory of once having had a testimony is not the same thing as having a testimony.
Comment by Blake — December 3, 2006 @ 6:27 pm
Unfortunately, Clark and I have a number of threads on this topic going on at the same time. He post this in at least partial response to this post.
My response was this:
“I must confess that I have no clue what corrective your account of signs actually offers my account of emotions. I see feelings as being of secondary importance to emotions, at best. You seem to say that same thing.
I say that what is most important about an emotion is both its formal object, the judgments we pass on that object and our expression of such judgments. You say that interpretation is most important. I see no difference.
Where I think you are placing most of your emphasis, in terms of refuting my argument is here:
“Ultimately what I’m after is how anything becomes a token for a type. What I’d suggest is that we (a) have an interpretive model. That is, a theory which predicts certain phenomena and allows us to categorize phenomena. We then have (b) the experiences in question. Finally we (c) generate new hypothesis which modify (a) and (b). We then finally (d) test our hypothesis.”
But this is exactly where I have no clue what you are talking about. I don’t see how one can meaningfully distinguish the experience of emotions, our interpreting them as being in one category or another, and testing them. These things all seem to be the same thing. Perhaps you could elaborate.”
I see Clark as still being too wed to the idea that emotions are primarily feelings. Instead, I view them as experiences which include not only feelings, but interpretations, judgments and expressions. Given this, of course I allow religious experiences to be signs for other things, but the point which I try to make is that these experiences themselves do not provide any reason for their being interpreted as originating from anywhere other than the natural realm.
Comment by Jeff G — December 4, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
Now as for Blake, who is much more of a fire-cracker than Clark is,
There are a few things which I think you need to clear up before I properly engage you:
1) What, exactly, do you mean by my account being reductive in nature?
2) I claim that emotions provide salience by which somethings stand out, or come to mean more than other things do. I admit that “determine” is too strong a word for this. I should also point out that I strongly reject the idea that emotions are biologically hard-wired in any meaningful way. The link in the original post about the refinement of emotions is also relevant to this. As such, I allow for the agent to play some role, though this role is small compared to that of culture and language. Your first response, which you think remains unchanged, seems to presuppose a view of biological emotions, when such is simply not the case. (To be honest, I’m not sure what this is supposed to say for or against my argument.)
3) The experiences which would exist with or without God are two fold: First, we would have experiences which were religion in nature, in that they are about religious ideas. Second, these emotional experiences would still seem as if they were acting upon us, when such is simply not the case. Here is another link which I discuss such passive seemings. Consider, as an example of this, how many people are discussing and worshipping Gods which the Christian takes to not exist. Nevertheless, this person has strong emotions which are “about” these non-existent Gods and do seem to come from an external source. This is exactly what I am arguing for all relevant religious experiences.
4) While I certainly recognize the difference between an emotion and my remembering an emotion, I see absolutely no reason why I cannot pass just as much judgment about remembered emotions as I can about actual emotions. I can say without qualification whether some past love was actually love or not. Indeed, such a comparison leads one to think that hindsight with regards to emotions is actually clearer than is the present experience do to the experience being less intense.
Comment by Jeff G — December 4, 2006 @ 1:49 pm
Basically, my point is this: Emotional experience is a wonderfully rich and meaningful aspect of our lives which is best that do not trivialize nor ignore on any kind of regular basis. Nevertheless, it is a terrible way to discover what the world is actually like in any kind of objective manner. Emotions are designed to help us engage the world properly, not discover what the world is like.
Comment by Jeff G — December 4, 2006 @ 4:48 pm
Jeff: I see Clark as still being too wed to the idea that emotions are primarily feelings. Instead, I view them as experiences which include not only feelings, but interpretations, judgments and expressions.
Oh, I buy that. I accept your distinction which is why I had to reread your posts on emotions. To see where, if anywhere, I actually disagreed with you. As I said at my blog I just don’t see how emotions are cut off from signifying anything important. That seems to be your key claim but I’m still missing the fundamental argument for it.
i.e. what makes emotions different?
BTW – for clarity, why don’t we get into the minutae of the emotion argument here rather than in the evidence thread at my blog. So feel free to answer my questions there here.
Comment by Clark — December 4, 2006 @ 9:59 pm
Alright, I understand all the type-token and peircian symbolism and the like. I just don’t see how or what the religious experience is supposed to symbolize. How is the atheists’ getting really frustrated by the mention of Jesus symbolically different than the Christian’s experiencing warmth by his mention?
Comment by Jeff G — December 4, 2006 @ 10:06 pm
BTW – for the type-token relationship.
A basic definition
Nice intro to semiotics that discusses it (Note that’s the second page in the tutorial – but it covers the type-token bit)
Types and Tokens at the SEP.
Comment by Clark — December 4, 2006 @ 10:09 pm
In response to your other questions, I see the distinction as being more one of activity vs passivity. Things are not naturally triggers, nor do we volitionally choose what will and will not be a trigger. Rather, we construe somethings as triggers and actively engage the world by way of our emotional experience which has been constrained by our social environment.
Comment by Jeff G — December 4, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
You don’t think biology provides natural triggers? Further do you think construeal is conscious? The “don’t think of blue” sentence seems to undermine that view, if you hold it. Although you do agree with me that it need not be volitional, which is good.
But beyond those issues, I don’t see how this says anything about the key issues. After all language is also set up of of triggers yet we can understand meanings and implications using those triggers. So why not emotions?
I’m still not at all clear on why emotions are so limited as signs as opposed to any other entity. If emotions have content (and thus enter into a type-token relationship) then that content can be utilized for communication. I don’t see how anyone could argue otherwise.
Comment by Clark — December 4, 2006 @ 10:45 pm
Yes, I do think that our biology provides natural triggers, in that we are designed to see some things as triggers. No, I don’t see it as being a conscious process by and large.
While you may not see why emotions are so limited as signs, I still have no clue what religious emotions are supposed to be signs of. If you could answer this question I’m sure I will be able to address your point far more clearly.
Comment by Jeff G — December 5, 2006 @ 10:12 am
They could be signs of anything. The issue of religious signification seems to me to be a secondary issue. So I can’t tell if you are making a practical claim or a philosophical claim when you limit the signification of emotions. To me nothing limits signification due to the fact that within symbols the sign is arbitrary. So long as I can create a normed relationship between the token and the type then anything could, in theory, go. With in this case the emotion being the token and the religious meaning being the type.
Comment by Clark — December 5, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
See, I guess I just don’t understand the relevance here. Religious experience can be a symbol for whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean that they count as evidence for the existence of anything. Thus, I fully allow for the religious experience to be as meaningful as a person wants to interpret such as being. Just don’t think that it counts as evidence for the objective existence of anything at all.
Comment by Jeff G — December 5, 2006 @ 2:28 pm
But if they can act as a symbol then through an analysis of the emotional event as token combined with an analysis of the context we can discern the symbol. But that means they can act as a symbol for God that is knowable. That is, we can know the origin of the emotion. Over at my blog post you say that you acknowledge God could be the trigger but don’t think this is discernable. Now from your comments it isn’t clear if you are saying discernable purely within the emotion or discernable within a more general analysis. If the former then you’re simply arguing against a strawman since I don’t think anyone is arguing that an emotion of itself provides anything. Certainly I’ve been talking about processes and thus something broader that includes inferred connections to contexts that can be checked. Indeed my two examples were all about relating emotions to context and seeing what we can justifiably infer from that.
For your argument to work you have to be able to establish that one can’t infer anything from an emotion even in an overall context. But that just seems prima facie false. It seems we do this all the time. If I feel uncomfortable around my wife I infer that she’s upset at me and that I’ve done something to bother her even if I can’t discern anything beyond my emotional state. I do this all the time. We all do. So to argue that we can’t infer triggers or anything external from emotions seems to have the burden of proof. But you’ve just not met this.
While I’m not sure I agree with some of Blake’s comments, I do think you are effectively making an empirical claim that needs empirical backing. If you are making a philosophical claim then I think semiotics simply invalidates it due to the nature of what a sign is and how it functions.
Comment by Clark — December 6, 2006 @ 10:04 am