Philosophy of Religion

How does Richard Swinburne define religious experience?

An experience that seems (epistemically) to the subject to be of God or a supernatual being.

What is distinctive about religious experience according to William Alston?

It can be modelled as a kind of perception of God, analogous to sense perception.

What are the four marks of mystical experience?

1. Ineffability

2. Noetic quality

3. Transcience

4. Passivity

What is ineffability?

The experience cannot be adequately put into words.

What is the noetic quality?

The experience gives insight into deep truths - it feels like knowledge.

What does James claim about the authority of mystical experience?

It is authoritative for the subject - they are justified in believing it.

Why does James think mystical experience is like perception?

It presents reality as directly as sense experience does.

What is the Principle of Credulity? (Swinburne)

If it seems that X is present, then probably X is present.

Why is this principle important? (Swinburne)

It treats religious experience like sense perception - as prima facie evidence.

What are ‘special considerations’ that can defeat the principle?

1. Unreliable subject

2. Unfriendly conditions

3. X was absent

4. Wrong cause

How does William Rowe present the argument?

As inductive evidence - religious experience count as probabilistic support for God.

What does Kai-man Kwan argue?

Religious experience can provide prima facie justification, but is debated.

What is Alston’s main claim?

Religious experience is a doxastic practice, like perception, and can justify belief.

What is a ‘doxastic practice’?

A socially established way of forming beliefs (e.g. sense perception, memory)

Why does this matter?

If perception is trusted, religious perception should be too (unless defeated).

What is the incompatibility objection? (Michael Martin)

Different religions report contradictory experiences of God.

Example of incompatibility.

Western: personal god
Eastern: impersonal Absolute

What is the recognition problem? (Martin)

How can you identify something as God from an experience?

What is the excessive credulity objection? (Martin)

If we trust all experiences, we must believe in fairies, demons, etc.

What does Nick Zangwill argue?

Religious experiences do not exist as genuine perceptions.

What is the causal requirement according to Zangwill?

To perceive X, X must cause the experience in the right way.

Why can’t God meet this requirement?

God is not spatio-temporal, so cannot cause experiences properly.

How does Swinburne respond?

God sustains all causal processes → so He can still be a cause.

What does Jerome Gellman emphasise?

The variety of religious experiences and their philosophical importance.

What does Gwen Griffith-Dickson highlight?

The interpretative nature of religious experience (shaped by culture).

What is the teleological argument?

A teleological argument starts from some apparently special feature of the universe - such as order, adaptation, or fine-tuning - and infers a designer with the knowledge, purpose, or intention needed to produce it.

How is the teleological argument different from a cosmological argument?

A teleological argument starts from special design-like properties of the world. A cosmological argument starts from highly general features such as existence, motion, or change.

What does telos mean?

End goal or purpose.

What is the classic analogical teleological argument? (Paley)

It argues by analogy: just as watches have designers because their parts are arranged for a purpose, so too the universe has a designer.

Why is Paley important here even though fine-tuning is different?

Because the fine-tuning argument is a modern successor to Paley: both argue from apparent purposive order, but fine-tuning often works as an inference to the best explanation rather than a simple analogy.

What is Hume’s first objection to design arguments?

The analogy between the universe and a human artefact is too remote. We know houses have builders because we’ve observed that kind of cause-effect relation, but the universe is not similar enough to a house to justify the same inference.

What is Hume’s ‘alternative analogies’ objection?

Even if the universe is analogous to something, it may resemble an organism more than a machine, so its cause might be more like vegetation then intelligent design.

What is Hume’s objection that order in mind needs explanation too?

If you explain order in nature by appealing to a divine mind, the order in that mind itself may require explanation → anticipates the ‘who designed god?’ objection

What is Hume’s objection about the nature of the designer?

Even if design were established, it would not establish the God of classical theism. It might imply mutiple gods, a limited designer, or a morally imperfect one.

Why doesn’t Hume completely defeat the fine-tuning argument?

Because Hume mainly attacks analogical design arguments. Modern fine-tuning arguments are often presented as inferences to the best explanation or probabilistic confirmation arguments, not simple artifact analogies.

What is the core claim of the fine-tuning argument?

The basic constants, laws, and intial conditions fo the universe fall within an extremely narrow range that permits embodied conscious life.

example of fine-tuning.

strength of Big Bang expansion, gravity

Why is fine-tuning taken seriously philosophically?

Because the number of apparently independent life-permitting conditions makes the coincidence seem too striking to dismiss as trivial luck. Collins argues that even if some individual estimates are rough, many independent fine-tuning cases still produce strong cumulative evidence.

What are the three main explanations of fine-tuning?

1. Atheistic single-universe hypothesis: there is one universe, and its life-permitting structure is brute fact

2. Atheistic many-universes hypothesis: there are many universes with varying parameters; ours is one of the life-permitting ones

3. Theism: an all-powerful, intelligent, good God created the universe

What is Collin’s Prime Principle of Confirmation?

When comparing two competing hypotheses, an observation counts as evidence for the hypothesis under which that observation is more probable.

Why is the Prime Principle important?

It makes the argument comparative rather than absolute. Collins is not saying theism is automatically true, only that fine-tuning is evidence favouring theism over a brute-chance single-universe view.

What Collin’s conclusion not claim?

It does not claim that theism is proven, intrinsically likely, or all-things-considered true. It only claims that fine-tuning is evidence in theism’s favor over a particular rival.

Why does Collins think fine-tuning is not improbable under theism?

Because if God is all-good, it is not suprising that God would create a world capable of sustaining intelligent conscious beings.

How does the lecture strengthen this?

It suggests that if God creates the best possible world, a world permitting life is highly likely.

Why does Collins think fine-tuning is very improbable under the atheistic single-universe hypothesis?

Because on a brute-chance single-universe view, the constants and initial conditions had to land in an extremely narrow life-permitting range by chance alone.

How does Collins illustrate this improbability?

With analogies like a dart hitting a tiny bull’s eye or dials having to be set exactly right for life.

How does Collins try to justify the probability claim more rigorously?

By appealing to the principle of indifference: where there is no reason to privilege one value other another, equal possible ranges should be assigned equal probability.

How does the principle of indifference support fine-tuning?

If the life-permitting range is tiny relative to the total relevant range of possible values, then it is highly improbable that the constants would fall in that range by chance.

How does Plantinga approach fine-tuning?

Plantinga treats fine-tuning as one significant way in which theism can fit the world better than naturalism. He is generally sympathetic to the claim that fine-tuning provides genuine support for theism, though not necessarily a knockdown proof.

How does Swinburne approach fine-tuning?

Swinburne argues probabilistically and places major weight on simplicity. He thinks theism is a theoretically simple explanation and that simpler explanations are rationally preferable, other things equal.

What is Swinburne’s critique of multiverse explanations?

Postulating an enormous plurality of universes as a brute fact just to explain one fine-tuned universe is theoretically extravagant.

How is Rowe useful for exams on fine-tuning?

Rowe is good for presenting the argument as one contemporary form of teleological reasoning and for emphasising that the key question is whether fine-tuning makes theism more probable than its alternatives.

What is the ‘more fundamental law’ objection? (Collins)

Maybe the constants had to have their values because a deeper physical law necessitates them, so there is no improbable coincidence to explain.

What is the constants are logically necessary rather than contingent?

Collins replies that this too merely relocates the issue: why is it logically necessary that the life-permitting laws are the ones that hold?

What is the ‘other forms of life’ objection? (Collins)

Perhaps life very different from ours could still arise under different constants, so the argument is too anthropocentric.

What is the weak anthropic principle objection discussed by Collins and Manson?

We should not be surprised to observe a life-permitting universe, because if it were not life-permitting, we would not be here to observe it.

What is Collin’s reponse to the anthropic objection?

He restates the argument in terms of our existence. Our existence as embodied intelligent beings is still highly improbable on the atheistic single-universe hypothesis, but not improbable on theism.

What Analogy does Collins use here?

John Leslie’s firing-squad analogy: if many shooters fire and miss you, “I wouldn’t be here if they’d hit me” does not explain the event. You still reasonably suspect intention rather than chance.

What is the ‘who designed God?’ objection?

If the universe’s complexity requires explanation, then God’s complexity should too. Appealing to God only moves the problem up one level.

What is Collin’s first reply?

The fine-tuning argument only needs theism to make fine-tuning more probable than brute chance. It does not rely on the principle that all complexity must have a designer.

What is Collin’s second reply?

Classical theism portrays God as a being of profound ontological simplicity, so the assumption that God is just another complex artifact is misguided.

What is the best criticism of this reply?

Even if the theist claims God is simple, the coherence of that claim is contestable. The debate then shifts from ‘who designed God?’ to ‘Is the concept of a simple divine mind coherent?’

What are the atheistic many-universes hypothesis?

There are very many, perhaps infinitely many, universes with different values of the constants; inevitably some will be life-permitting, and we observe one of those because observers can only arise there.

What is Collin’s 2005 question about many-worlds?

Whether the many-worlds hypothesis is really an adequate alternative explanation of cosmic fine-tuning, or whether it is inferior to design.

Why does Collins say the multiverse can seem ad hoc?

Because it can look like it is being introduced solely to avoid the design inference rather than because we have strong independent reasons to believe it.

What is the ‘not explanatory’ objection to multiverse views?

Even if many universes exist, our universe is still fine-tuned. Merely embedding it in a large ensemble does not explain why this universe has the life-permitting structure it does.

How does simplicity enter the multiverse debate?

Swinburne and Collins argue that, all else equal, we should prefer simpler explanations. A single divine explanation may be simpler than positing an enormous brute plurality of universes.

What is the challenge to the simplicity defense of theism?

Humea

Does fine-tuning prove God exists?

No. At most it provides evidence favouring theism over some rivals. Collins explicitly limits the conclusion in this way.