Re-Identifying God in Experience Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Rel

Re-Identifying divinity fudge in Experience cabbage If an supposed experience of God can constitute establish for Gods existence, indeed it moldiness be thinkable for God to be a perceptual particular, that is, a substantive, stick out object of perception. Furthermore, if several much(prenominal) experiences are to be cumulative evidence for Gods existence, then it moldiness be possible to reidentify God from experience to experience. I attend both a conceptual and an epistemological argument against these possibilities that is derived from the work of Richard Gale. I argue that neither of these arguments is successful. For God to be a perceptual particular, he moldiness have an inner life for God to be reidentified across experiences, he need not exist in dimensions analogous to the spatiotemporal. If an alleged experience of God is to provide evidence for Gods existence, it must be possible for God to be a perceptual particular a substantive, enduring object of perception . If several such experiences are to be cumulative evidence for Gods existence, it must be possible to re-identify God from experience to experience. I penury to examine arguments against each of these possibilities. These arguments are, respectively, a conceptual and an epistemological argument insert in the writings of Richard Gale.(1)On Gales conceptual argument, for us to have a coherent concept of an object, O, as a perceptual particular (1) We must know what it means for O to exist when not perceived. (2) O must be able to be the common object of different experiences, and (3) We must be able to understand the distinction between numerical and soft identity with regard to O.We need these requirements to distinguish perceptual from phenomenal p... ...1) Richard Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge University Press), pp. 326-343, and Richard Gale, Why Alstons Mystical Doxastic Practice is Subjective, philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994), 869-875 .(2) Why Alstons, p. 872. (3) P. F. Strawson, Individuals, An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London Methuen, 1964), p. 37.(4) Individuals, p. 81.(5) Individuals, p. 77.(6) Gareth Evans, Things Without the Mind - A Commentary upon Chapter Two of Strawsons Individuals, in Zak Van Straaten, ed., Philosophical Subjects, Essays Presented to P.F. Strawson (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 76-116. (7) See Jonathan Bennett, Kants uninflected (Cambridge 1966), p. 37(8) See Evans, Things Without the Mind, pp. 81-82.(9) See Merold Westphal, God, Guilt, and Death (Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1984).