Implications: DONOVAN (edexcel)

Philosophy of Religion 

DONOVAN: IMPLICATIONS

Basic Breakdown of the article:

• Intuition, the idea of knowing through inner conviction
• Further argument for intuition: H. P. Owen, Baille (quoted paragraph) , Farmer(quoted paragraph)
• Feeling certain but not being correct. 
• Martin Buber, I-It (impersonal) & I-You (personal, person to person)
• Bertrand Russell, (genuine I-You relationships)
• How God can be known
• Bliks - product of the environment 
• ‘Experience of is not in itself knowledge’ - gain of knowledge should not be confused with the content of the knowledge 
• The sense of knowing God, Verification principle -> truly knowing God

Key Concepts: 

•  Swinburne’s Principles of Credulity and Testimony
• Bliks / memes
• Ayer – no I / you relationship – no knowledge
• ‘God would seek to interact with his creatures’
• Hume’s objections to miracles equally appropriate to religious experience
• Cultural predisposition to have religious experience of the culture brought up in.
• Design argument – if god designed us it would logical to assume he would build in some way of recognising or experiencing him?
• St Teresa –
• Nicky Cruz
• Abraham / God’s command to sacrifice his son seems immoral
• The world being flat! WRONG! Peter Sutcliffe! WRONG!
• LP’s verification principle
• Examples of intuition

DONOVAN: MAIN POINTS	WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT:	SOME IMPLICATIONS
Intuition, the idea of knowing through inner conviction	inner conviction: one type of religious experience  knowing that we are right, without evidence to support our case, the religious believer cannot expect us to believe them, without offering additional arguments. Leads to fundamentalism.  Introduction to the idea of being able to know, and if intuition is in itself sufficient enough to know God by experience.  St Theresa Avila: she had a miraculous or religious experience but it cannot be proved on an empirical level.  Rudolph Otto: mysterium, tremendem et fascinans, numinous, in the presence of swear and wonder. Swinburne: principles of credulity and testimony, sane people.	just knowing could also lead to ideas of fanaticism and extremist groups, if we simply trusted the words of others.  Branch Davidians and the Waco siege which ended in tragic loss of life because they refused to have their beliefs challenged.  [example] Carl Jung said of it: ‘Religious experience is absolute…it cannot be disputed. Bertrand Russell: people have been hurt because they believed that they just knew, eg. feelings of love.
Further argument for intuition: H. P. Owen, Baille, Farmer	religious experiences -> are a source of religious knowledge -> intuition Direct intuitive awareness. His reality cannot be only based on reality and logical arguments.  H. P. Owen: ‘intuition is necessary for our grasp of the material world’ intuitive awareness of other people is similar to our intuitive knowledge of God: human reveal their inner nature through their actions, God does so in the created order.  there are special moments when someone’s inner self stands out - God does so through his revelations like people, God’s signs in nature and within our experience we learn about him people are spiritual and physical, like God who created both material and spiritual realities.  Consistent with the bible teachings, of bible God is very personal. Christian interpretations of religion.  Baille: all experiences are ‘the expressions of this primary awareness’  Farmer: ‘faith is not just belief without evidence; it an intuitive response to God’ revelation is an encounter with God but not a source of truth from God, and therefore do we really know God, if we do not gain knowledge about him,	James: feelings of intuitions, his four fruits: 1. leaves the individual with a feeling of higher knowledge - beyond trivial meaning 2. elation, person is on a high 3. place of self-surrender or a benevolent friendly power 4. Person’s priorities and emphases in life change, more morally aware. religious experiences can be meaningful regardless of whether they can verified or not —> Ayer Meaningful to the individual.  Donovan allows for religious subjective interpretation -> this means that he would allow for Wittgenstein’s language games, and thus other philosophical theories would still be accepted.
Feeling certain but not being correct.	But does feeling certain about something make the notion correct? psychological certainty (feeling right) is different to being rational certainty (being right) intuition can be wrong, we may feel as though we know what is right intuitively but we can’t, without a watch we may intuitively feel it is so and so time, but this doesn’t make it an accurate representation. memory of ‘intuitive feeling’ may be letting you down. We are intuitively right sometimes, this causes us to believe that we always be right. We cannot intuitively know God, if we have not felt an intuitive feeling for God previously.  Sigmund Freud: wish fulfilment -> religious illusion to help it cope with the outside world. Bertrand Russell: ‘one of the most notable examples of intuition is the knowledge people believe themselves to possess of those with whom they are in love.’  Hick: idea of bliks, they have to feel right -> talking of religious language (insert philosopher) Swinburne: principle of testimony and credulity, we should trust their intuition.  This means that, the illusion of feeling certain is just the individual wanting to feel as though they have a place of belonging.	However, he does not believe we should simply agree with what the bible says: it is not self-evidently true must be tested against other things we know to be true.  a mistaken certainty could result in religious experiences being abused - westboro baptist church, their word is the word of God.
Martin Buber, I-It (impersonal) & I-You (personal, person to person)	exceeds God as an object -> lifting him to a personal level.  Anthropomorphism. Martin Buber: I-it and I-You -> explaining the relationship, weakens it. Instead, personal encounters cannot be put into words: William James: ineffability, noetic, transcience, passivity. (relationships like people are just the same) I-it (world of reasoning) is necessary and is important, but it does not make someone human without the I-You. Someone must have I-It to be a proper person. Complete analysis of I-You breaks down the relationship.  Bible: Personal God, theology: great difference about arguing about and knowing him personally.  Cumulative arguments: have the chance of increasing this, as it is our experiences that add to the arguments from traditional philosophy: Swinburne.	agnosticism may be accepted by Donovan.  contradicts Ayer, if it is possible to have a relationship with God then I-It and I-You relationships should be accepted regardless.  implications for humans: kant’s summum bonum, if religious experiences did point to an existence of God then it may mean that there is an after life. Tillich for ultimate concern, -> on how we act and how we were made.
Three main points of criticism against Buber’s theory.	The sense that an encounter is taking place may be mistaken impression of certainty may be wrong, Russell: love can also be mistaken, when do we truly know that a personal encounter and relationship has happened, and how do we verify this? misinterpreted representations are common, can be seen in reality and on channels. But this by itself is still not a strong criticism, and a believer is still going to be convinced that they are correct: Anthony Flew Having ‘experience of’ presupposes having knowledge about. Bible points towards total involvement within a relationship, supporting I-You relationships. It is not fair on individuals if scientific reasoning must be forced upon in order for the content to be analysed and explained. Scientific knowledge and reasoning is still important -> as Adam had to be sure that she exists in order to have a relationship. Factual relationship must exist with personal knowledge. It is important but not genuine enough, as it is tradition. God cannot be investigated whilst people can be.  ‘Experience of’ is not in itself knowledge.  Individual says they experienced God and are therefore more knowledgable.  Wrong statement, there are situation were a lack of first hand experience makes no difference. Is it really better than second hand knowledge. eg. two doctors, one has been pregnant (has first hand knowledge, she isn't better because of the additional experience but the impressions, memories and info. The knowledge about pregnancy gives her an advantage, through furthering her knowledge after having the experience. doesn’t say that awareness of God is an illusion, but that it cannot show that we have a good reason to believe in God.	But to reject the proposal means rejecting the great theories from the thinkers.  mystical experiences have not been proved to not be true, therefore as C. S. Lewis postulated there is a sea of possibilities.  It does not mean that Donovan is rejecting religious experiences, he only says that these sensory feelings may not be sourced from a divine being.
The Sense of Knowing God.	talk of encountering God, keeps the religion real, the sense of knowing God makes it important.  even if philosophical arguments are brutal to the sensory thoughts and images it does not stop experiences and divine encounters from remaining important to the religion.  it is wrong to say that philosophers and critics have ‘hardened their hearts’ especially since a great many are also religious, Descartes may have been a skeptic but he also reasoned with the idea of a existing God.  it is not that we cannot feel and sense God, the problem arises from saying that there is knowledge from God and treating it as self-certifying.  A sense of knowing God is not enough to amount to be a sufficient sign of knowledge.  William James: was unable to state that what people felt did not happen.	religious people need to become more critical, as if they are certain they are right, they are still not able to persuade others.  morality, what we may feel to be right may not be right. implications on moral decisions.