The foundations of faith (6)

Religious experiences are real and certain, even if God isn’t. Part 1: The evidence is clear, but we still have a choice to make

Religious experiences are the heart of my faith. I regard myself as very blessed that I have them pretty often.

In Religious Studies philosophy of religion A level terms, the basic argument is this:-

People have religious experiences because God exists and has just given them the experience. The alternative explanation is that, though the experience exists, its cause is something other than God – usually a psychological explanation.

So, as a young person I had lots of lovely religious experiences; I had been told that these could happen and when they did, it would be because God was calling out to me. So, when that did start to happen it was “proof” that God is real and is calling to me. Then you meet the explanation that perhaps your experiences have a purely psychological explanation – nothing to do with God. This could provoke a crisis, and you either give up faith, or master the challenge by making a judgement that the idea that God is responsible for the religious experience is the better explanation. This is a faith judgement; there is no certainty either way; you either choose for or against continuing in faith. This is why, ultimately, I think of faith as a way of life. I regard faith more as a verb than a noun. I don’t deny that faith is a noun too, but I think what trips up both believers and atheists is the view that faith is a thing – let’s use the image of faith as a bar of gold. Atheists say, “Well, I’ve never discovered that bar of gold” But I don’t think faith is like that – not for us believers either. My faith is not like the certainty of holding up a bar of gold I found hidden in a field; my faith is a choice to live in a certain way. It’s a decision to believe in and trust in God. Now believing and trusting are verbs, not nouns. I live by faith because I have chosen to do this even though I have no certain knowledge that it is the right thing to do. If I ever felt that, though there was a possibility that God exists, but really it’s very implausible, then I think I would feel duty bound by my respect for the truth to give up faith, but I don’t need to do that because of my certainty over the reality of my faith experiences.