The importance of religious experience. Part 2

The importance of religious experience

Part 2: What’s going on when we experience anything?

The argument from religious experience is a very strong one. If I am experiencing now things in the external world – eg I can see trees and houses, and tables and chairs and people – then I am happy to accept that I am experiencing this table because there is a table in front of me. If I experience internal states – eg feeling happy or sad – I accept that I am indeed experiencing these emotions for real, as I know that this is what I’m experiencing, and, in nearly every case, I can give an explanation of why I’m experiencing these emotions. It would seem strange to be asked to validate these experiences of feelings as though it was possible to argue, “I know you’re feeling happy at the moment, but is it a “real” happiness or is it just something that you’re experiencing in your mind?”. With internal states, I know directly that what I’m experiencing is real, because I have access to my own mind, and with external realities, I am experiencing things in my mind because my senses have communicated them to me – eg I can see a table. There are some difficulties, for example, when people perceive external realities incorrectly, such as colour blindness, or are having hallucinations. However, these objections tend to be of the “on a technicality” basis, and for nearly everyone, nearly all the time, life in practice becomes impossible if we do not accept that the images in our minds exist there because we are sensing an actually existing external reality.

So, when I say that I am experiencing the presence of God, why should that experience be questioned? I experienced the table because there is a table; I experienced happiness because I am happy; I experience God’s presence because there is a God who is with me now.

Of course, God is in a special category here: a reality that is known directly in the mind, rather than communicated to us through our senses from the external reality of the physical world. This sets off alarm bells for many – but perhaps because they are refusing to accept this special category, whereas for believers, that’s why God is God – precisely because he is in a special category of his own. Nevertheless, it is a valid objection: if all the other things we experience directly in our minds are there because they are the product of our internal minds, then surely this must mean that God too is a product of our own minds, rather than an independently existing reality?