Does perception track deific properties? A case for deific perception
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion August 1, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s11153-026-10026-4 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that visual experience can represent deific properties, and that the phenomenal contrast between ordinary and transcendent perception is best explained by such properties constituting visual phenomenology. Proposes that deific perception is compatible with cognitive penetration and may provide prima facie justification for some theistic beliefs. |
Abstract
Abstract Can visual experience represent deific properties? I argue that it can. Some perceptual experiences, I argue, could represent properties like being a creation of God or being a manifestation of divine beauty . To defend this thesis, I use Susanna Siegel’s method of phenomenal contrast. I compare an ordinary perception of an object with a perception of the same object during a similar experience in which it appears imbued with transcendent significance. These experiences differ phenomenologically. The best explanation of this difference, I argue, is that in the second experience a deific property partly constitutes the visual phenomenology. I consider several rival explanations—shifts in attention, post-attentive gestalt properties, inference from lower-level features, cognitive phenomenology, emotional accompaniment, background mood—and argue that none adequately accounts for the contrast. I also argue that genuine cognitive penetration is compatible with, rather than opposed to, deific perception. If deific perception is real, it has significant epistemic consequences: perceptual experience may furnish defeasible, prima facie justification for some theistic beliefs, connecting the high-level-content debate in philosophy of perception with long-standing questions about the evidential force of religious experience.