Is the Critical Trust Approach to Religious Experience Incompatible with Religious Particularism?
Kai Man Kwan, The Society Of Christian Philosophers
Faith and Philosophy 2003 DOI: 10.5840/faithphil200320229 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 3 |
| Key points | Argues that the Critical Trust Approach to religious experience is compatible with a particularist response to religious pluralism, contrary to claims by Hick and Martin, and that such particularism is not necessarily inferior to atheistic or pluralist alternatives. |
Abstract
In contemporary philosophy of religion, many philosophers, e.g., William Alston, argue that we should treat religious experiences as prima facie reliable unless we have reasons to doubt them.I call this a Critical Trust Approach to religious experience.John Hick and Michael Martin have argued that this approach is incompatible with a particularist solution to the problem of religious pluralism.I argue that this is a misunderstanding of the Critical Trust Approach.I further explore how a religious particularist who accepts this approach can deal with conflicts between presumptive data, and argue that the particularist approach to religious experience is not necessarily inferior to atheistic and pluralist approaches.