Religious Experience, Justification, and History [Paperback]

Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate.Religious Experience, Justification, and History argues against the use of religious experience to justify religious belief rationally. In this book, Matthew Bagger claims that experience of all sorts implicitly requires a commitment to an explanation of the cause of the experience. Extraordinary religious experiences require a commitment to a supernatural cause. Anyone invoking supernatural causes in the present day needs to offer good reasons in their defense. Through a study of Teresa of Avila, Bagger demonstrates that the respectability of supernatural explanations has changed over time.Religious Experience, Justification, and History argues against the use of religious experience to justify religious belief rationally. In this book, Matthew Bagger claims that experience of all sorts implicitly requires a commitment to an explanation of the cause of the experience. Extraordinary religious experiences require a commitment to a supernatural cause. Anyone invoking supernatural causes in the present day needs to offer good reasons in their defense. Through a study of Teresa of Avila, Bagger demonstrates that the respectability of supernatural explanations has changed over time.Recently, many philosophers of religion have sought to defend the rationality of religious belief by shifting the burden of proof onto the critic of religious belief. Some have appealed to extraordinary religious experience in making their case. Religious Experience, Justification, and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate. Through a study of William James, it contests the accounts of religious experience offered in recent works. Through reflection on the history of philosophy, it also unravels the philosophical use of the term justification. Matthew Bagger argues that the commitment to supernatural explanations implicit in l'