Abstract
AbstractThe secondary literature on religious epistemology has focused extensively on whether religious experience can provide evidence for God’s existence. In this article, I suppose that religious experience can do this, but I consider whether it can provide adequate evidence for justified belief in God. I argue that it can. This requires a couple of moves. First, I consider the threshold problem for evidentialism and explain pragmatic encroachment (PE) as a solution to it. Second, I argue that religious experience can justify belief in God if one adopts PE, but this poses a dilemma for the defender of the veridicality of religious experience. If PE is true, then whether S has a justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience depends on how high the stakes are for having an experience with God. This requires one to determine whether the stakes are high or low for experiencing God, which puts the experient of God in an awkward position. If the stakes are not high, then justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience will be easier to come by, but this requires conceding that experiencing God is not that important. If the stakes are high, then the experient can maintain the importance of experience with God but must concede that justified belief in God on the basis of experience with God is less likely to happen, perhaps impossible.
Highlights
The secondary literature on religious epistemology has focused extensively on whether religious experience can provide evidence for God’s existence
If pragmatic encroachment (PE) is true, whether S has a justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience depends on how high the stakes are for having an experience with God
If the stakes are not high, justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience will be easier to come by, but this requires conceding that experiencing God is not that important
Summary
The secondary literature on religious epistemology has focused extensively on whether religious experience can provide evidence for God’s existence. On PE, we might require evidence rendering it more probable than not that we have experienced God. As such, whether PE allows for justified belief in God depends (1) on how high the stakes are for experiencing God and (2) whether religious experience can put us in a sufficiently strong epistemic position to meet the demands of the evidential threshold, given those stakes.
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