Precis of Perceiving God
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research December 1, 1994 DOI: 10.2307/2108417 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Argues that experiential awareness of God can provide epistemic justification for "M-beliefs" — beliefs that God is acting toward the subject or has perceivable properties like goodness or power — by treating such experiences as a mode of perception the author calls "mystical perception," grounded in the Theory of Appearing. |
Abstract
The central thesis of the book is that experiential awareness of God-the of God, as I call it-can provide epistemic justification for certain kinds of beliefs about God. I call such beliefs 'M-beliefs' ('M' for manifestation), beliefs to the effect that God is doing something vis-a-vis the subject-strengthening, guiding, communicating a message, etc-or to the effect that God has some (allegedly) perceivable property-goodness, power, lovingness, etc. In Chapter I, I explain how I am thinking of the (putative) experience of God that I claim to provide such justification for M-beliefs. The focus is on what are taken to be direct, non-sensory of God (mystical experiences in a broad sense of that term in which it is not restricted to in which all distinctions are blotted out). I take mystical to involve a presentation, givenness, or appearance of something to the subject, identified by the subject as God. It is this presentational character of the that leads me to subsume them under a generic concept of perception, with this species termed mystical perception. According to the Theory of Appearing, which I favor as a generic account of perception, perception just is the awareness of something's to one as such-andsuch, where this appearing is a basic, unanalyzable relationship, not reducible to conceptualizing an object as such-and-such, or to judging or believing the object to be such-and-such. It follows that (putative) direct experiential awareness of God is a mode of perception, though if it is to be veridical God must exist and be properly related to the subject. There is an extensive discussion of different kinds of concepts of what something appears to one as: phenomenal, comparative, doxastic, and epistemic. In specifying ways in which God appears to one's experience comparative concepts bulk large, as they do in perception generally. Such concepts get at a way of in terms of what kind of object would (normally, typically...) be expected to appear in that way. The doctrine of spiritual sensations in