Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief
- ISBN-10
- 0801433207
- ISBN-13
- 9780801433207
- Category
- Experience (Religion)
- Pages
- 211
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1997
- Publisher
- Cornell University Press
- Author
- Jerome I. Gellman
Description
Jerome I. Gellman observes that the mystic experience of God's presence, a sense of having direct contact with the divine, often compels belief in God's existence. On the basis of widely accepted principles connecting appearance with reality, Gellman contends, the claims people make of having experienced God show that belief in God is strongly rational, meaning that such claims are sufficient in number and variety to support a line of reasoning making it rational to believe that God exists and irrational to deny God's existence. Gellman considers challenges to his thinking based on epistemological grounds and challenges growing out of the diversity of religious experiences across the range of world religions. He thoroughly evaluates reductionist explanations of apparent experiences of God and finds them incapable of invalidating his view. Finally, he directs his attention to the two most compelling arguments against the existence of God: the charge that the idea of a perfect being is logically incoherent, and the threat to theism based on the existence of evil, in both its logical and probabilistic forms. Until and unless stronger objections come along, he concludes, personal experiences of God constitute sufficient evidence of God's existence.
Get the book
Similar books
-
The Rationality of Theism
By Godehard Brüntrup, R.K. TacelliIn May 1998, a distinguished group of philosophers met in Munich to discuss the rationality of theism. This volume is a collection of the papers read at that conference.
-
Rationality and Religious Theism
By Joshua L. GoldingThroughout the ages one of the central topics in philosophy of religion has been the rationality of theistic belief. Philosophers and theologians have debated whether it is rational to believe...
-
Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology
By Mark S. McLeodRationality and Theistic Belief offers a strong dissenting voice on the work of both Plantinga and Alston.
-
Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion
By William J. Wainwright, Robert AudiThis book is unified by three broad concerns: the rationality of belief in God, the relation between religion and morality, and the explication of the concept of God. The essays...
-
The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith
By Thomas D. SenorPhilosophers of religion, meta-physicians, epistemologists, and theologians will find in this volume some of the most important work available in the theory of knowledge and the epistemic status of religious belief.
-
Rationality and Religious Belief
By Cornelius F. DelaneyThe original essays in this volume call into question the simplistic strategy of characterizing religion by some abstract set of propositions and then judging it by means of an independently...
-
Mystical Experience of God: A Philosophical Inquiry
By Jerome GellmanOffering important new perspectives on the evidential value of experiences of God, and the concept of God more broadly, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including those with an interest in philosophy of religion, religious ...
-
God and the Brain: The Rationality of Belief
By Kelly James ClarkPascal Boyer, for example, rejects the claim that there is a single module that produces religious beliefs: “The first thing to understand about religion is that it does not activate one particular capacity in the mind, a 'religious ...
-
Rationality and Religious Commitment
By Robert AudiThere need be no strict inconsistency between a noncognitivist ethic and a religious commitment. Perhaps even a certain kind of classical religious commitment need not be taken to require cognitivism in ethics. I will not try to show ...
-
The Epistemology of Religious Experience
By Keith E. YandellArguing against the notion that religious experience is ineffable, while advocating the view that it can provide evidence of God's existence, this text contends that social science and nonreligious explanations of religious belief and ...