Analogy arguments from religious experience attempt to establish a direct
analogy between sense perception and certain kinds of religious experience construed in
terms of a perceptual model. C. B. Martin challenges traditional analogy arguments
from religious experience by contending that there is a disanalogy between both kinds of
experience due to the fact that there is a society of testing and checkup procedures
available to sense perception that is not available to religious experience.
William P. Alston presents his own analogy argument from religious experience
in Perceiving God. Alston establishes an analogy between sense perception and
religious experience by arguing that certain kinds of religious experience can be
construed in terms of a perceptual model. In doing so, Alston maintains that sense
perception and certain kinds of religious experience that count as perception?mystical
perception?produce justified beliefs in very similar ways. Thus, Alston defuses
Martin's objection by arguing that both kinds of perception have testing and checkup
procedures available to them, procedures which are necessary to defeat the prima facie
justification of perceptual beliefs. However, I argue that because there are apparently inconsistent core beliefs in
the practice of forming beliefs on the basis of Christian mystical perception, the analogy
between sense perception and mystical perception is threatened. In order for Alston's
analogy argument to be successful, he must address this problem.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-7211 |
| Date | 2009 August 1900 |
| Creators | Williams, William Coleman |
| Contributors | McCann, Hugh J. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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