Diversity of Religious Experience and Justification of Theism: the Challenge of Voodoo Epistemology

Abstract

The paper discusses the epistemological model proposed by the Dutch philosopher of religion Hans Van Eyghen in his book “The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs”. Van Eyghen is following R. Swinburne and W. Alston who sought to justify theistic beliefs through the pre sumed experience of perceiving God. Similarly, van Eyghen tries to show that spirit-experiences are sufficient to justify spirit beliefs in the absence of defeaters. However, conclusive defeaters for spirit-experiences are impossible to obtain by empirical or scientific methods because there is always the possibility that spirits are meddling in human consciousness in a supernatural way. Therefore, we have to admit that argument from religious experience provides justification not only for theism, but also for various bizarre beliefs in ghosts, elves, and fairies, which sharply aggravates the problem of religious diversity. This can be avoided by postulating the causal closure of the world and the supervenience of consciousness on the physical properties of the brain. Given these conditions it is only an almighty and omniscient God, Creator of all things, who can produce religious experience of the justificatory force. In the causally closed world, only such a God can act by means of prearranged natural processes initiated by Him when creating the universe. Low-rank spirits can-not influence the initial conditions of the universe, and the creating deities of polytheism do not have full control over all causal connections to communicate true religious experiences to epistemic agents in a non-accidental way. Therefore, in the causally closed world, in which the mental is supervenient on the physical, it is only theism out of all religious belief systems – all else being equal – that can raise a claim for justification.