Analysis of Segment III: Discussion of Copleston’s Religious Argument

Abstract

AbstractSegment III of the debate is quite brief (Turns 71-91) and is dedicated to the argument from religious or mystical experience to God’s existence. Neither this argument nor the argument from moral experience are presented by Copleston as proofs but only as inferences to the best explanation. Although Copleston starts with a reasonably clear example of what he calls religious experience, Russell keeps substituting different kinds of experience which appear to be quite unlike that intended by Copleston. The debate is never really engaged in the original terms and slowly shifts towards the moral argument.