Are the subjective experience of the "inner witness of the Holy Spirit" and the subjective experience of an external world of equal epistemic value? [closed]

Question

In 1998, Dr William Lane Craig debated Professor Keith M. Parsons at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX. The topic of the debate was "Why I Am/Am Not a Christian." After the debate there was a lengthy exchange between the debaters led by the moderator. The debate concluded with a question and answer period allowing both Dr Craig and Professor Parsons the opportunity to respond.

Part of the exchange is recorded in this video. The transcript is available below:

Parsons: uh now you talk about discovering Christ within myself or this sort of thing. Well, once again, I just want to know. Um, suppose I get a feeling, okay, gez, I get a feeling, gez, Jesus died on the cross, what terrible suffering he must have had, he must have undergone, all this sort of thing, and he did it all for me, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Okay. How do I know that's just not a warm fuzzy feeling? How do I know that's not just some psychologically caused warm fuzzy feeling? How do I know that's the Holy Spirit acting in me? How do I tell the difference between the Holy Spirit acting and ... a warm fuzzy feeling? I don't know. Maybe Dr. Craig can help me.

Craig: um in a sense that question could be asked about any kind of apprehension that we have. For example, sense intuitions: How do I know that my perceptions of the external world are real? That I'm not just a brain in a vat being stimulated by electrodes to think that I see an external world. There's no way to get outside your sensory data in order to justify your sensory data, but in the absence of any defeater for those you simply accept them and that the world is real, and similarly I would say with respect to the witness of the Holy Spirit. For a person who's come to know God in a personal way it's not just kind of like a warm fuzzy feeling. It's not like that. It's more like the reality of a personal presence in your life that wasn't there before. For me it was like somebody turned on the light, where there was darkness before, and I just have no reason to think that this is delusory. It's almost ... I've called it a self-authenticating experience, that the person who has it knows. It's kind of like, I remember before I met my wife I would often ask married couples, I'd say "how do you know when you're in love?", you know, and they'd say "you just know that when it happens you just know that you're in love". Well it's kind of like that, I think, in knowing Christ. It's a personal presence and experience that's real, and you don't have any reason to doubt it. [...]

According to Craig, our perception of the external world relies on sensory data, and absent any contradictory evidence, we're justified in believing in its existence. Similarly, Craig contends that absent contradictory evidence, individuals are justified in trusting their personal experiences, including their inner sensory perception of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

Is William Lane Craig's argument sound? If we can rely on our sensory data to affirm the existence of an external world, shouldn't we similarly trust our sensory data when it suggests the presence of a Holy Spirit witnessing within?

Is there a symmetry breaker between these two types of experiences?

Answer 1

"Defeaters"?

Craig approaches this from the aspect of accepting something until he finds a "defeater", but this methodology seems unable to reject unfalsifiable beliefs. It's curious that he'd bring up "brain in a vat", because that in itself has no "defeater", so this seems to preclude him from arguing against someone who believes they're a brain in a vat and they're holding the position until they get a "defeater" (because any objection he raises to that would undermine his own argument). I'd honestly be curious how he'd respond to that.

I'd also be somewhat curious how he'd respond to people from other religions making a similar argument. Although I'd expect something like "they didn't feel what I felt" or "they actually felt the thing from my religion, not theirs", either of which someone from another religion could be equally justified in saying. Or a Christian might respond "the evidence for Christianity is better". But if you're suggesting that someone else should abandon their religion based on the external evidence (or based on some measure of what they felt) then that directly contradicts the idea of holding onto a belief until a "defeater" is found (and similarly contradicts the idea of spiritual experiences being the best evidence, for that matter). Some may maintain that people from other religions can be equally justified in their belief, but this wouldn't be a particularly satisfactory answer to me, as someone who wants to know what's actually true.

The "best" explanation?

In any case, my methodology is to try to find the "best" explanation based on explanatory power.

"Brain in a vat"?

I reject "brain in a vat" because it explains nothing, simply put. You could trivially replace it with "brain in a tube" or "brain in a vat inside a brain in a vat" or "code inside a computer" or "brain floating in the void" and you'd have basically the same amount of evidence for any of that, and this also fails to explain why I'm seeing reality in the way I am, instead of in any other way. "Brain in a vat" posits an entire secondary existence, which is entirely unnecessary when it comes to explanatory power.

The best explanation, by far, is that the reality I'm seeing is the reality that actually exists. ... with caveats for flaws in perception or thought, which is explained perfectly well by my consciousness being a result of a physical brain and perceiving reality through my senses, any of which can be flawed in various ways that have been extensively demonstrated in this reality in the species I'm a member of.

Love?

And Craig also says "you just know that you're in love", which is an absolutely terrible response (speaking as someone who used to struggled a lot with the question of what love is, because people only ever told me the above, which told me nothing). Don't ever give that as an answer to anyone asking what love is.

A much better answer is that signs of love are thinking of someone regularly, feeling safe with them, wanting to spend time with them, feeling compassionate towards them, etc. You can also point out that love is brain chemicals and it's fairly poorly defined, and that really the more important question is whether you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.

Also, love is a brain state, so unless Craig wants to say that God exists purely in his mind, you've already got a massive difference here.

I also wouldn't say it's impossible to love someone or something that doesn't actually objectively exist. Love is fairly unreliable as an indicator of truth about the external world. Love is purely a summary of the feelings inside your head. If you love someone or something, you'd typically first have concluded that it exists through other means. Yes, yes, I realise this was just an analogy to the Holy Spirit, but that's a general comment on the lack of reliability of "feelings" as indicators of truth about the external world.

So... the Holy Spirit?

So how does the "inner witness of the Holy Spirit" fare under this "best explanation" methodology? Well, not great (in my opinion, at least).

Perhaps one of the biggest issues with this is the existence of people who used to believe that they feel the Holy Spirit, but who have since concluded that this was "just feelings", and that God doesn't actually exist. Some such people have evoked similar feelings in other means. This throws a giant wrench into someone's claim that what they're feeling is indeed the Holy Spirit, because there are other people who thought the felt that too, but have since concluded that they're wrong.

Now you get into the question of determining when these experiences indicate truth and when they don't. Do they always indicate truth but those other people didn't have "real" experiences"? How do you know your experience is "real"? How do you know any of the experiences are "real"? Many a theist will probably respond "I just have faith", and then we can consider how we determine when "faith" indicates truth. Did those other people have "real" faith? Do you have "real" faith? Etc.

The other massive issue with this is the highly questionable link to the external world. The issue is how you get from "I feel some feelings" to "an all-powerful all-loving all-knowing eternal being exists outside of space and time and created everything and sent their one and only son as a sacrifice to die for our sins so we don't get tortured for all eternity in this place that also exists and he inspired some people a few thousand years ago to write about this and so on and so on and so on" (this will of course depend on a theist's particular beliefs). I'll trivially grant that Craig feels some feelings, some really amazing feelings, even, some feelings his never felt before (which is also how I've heard love described, as well as drug trips, natural perspective shifts, and life on medication with some mental condition, but I digress). But that just doesn't seem to logically lead to what he wants it to lead to. Especially given theological problems with evil, suffering, hell, hiddenness and scriptural inconsistencies and inaccuracies, for example.

The "best" explanation, to me, is that those are, indeed, "just feelings".

Answer 2

Both subjective experiences from the OP’s question are not of equal epistemic value.

• The subjective experience of an external world is shared by nearly all people. All people live and act successfully in their daily life on the basis of this hypothesis.

  Many experiences with the external world can be reproduced. They can be checked against corresponding scientific theories. The predictions of these theories can also be falsified.

• The above criteria are not satisfied by the “inner witness of the Holy Spirit”. Notably, this kind of experience cannot be falsified. Each interpretation can be immunized against refutation.

  History shows that one cannot reach agreement about the interpretation of the claimed experience.

Answer 3

Is there a symmetry breaker between these two types of experiences?

Yes, repeatability by others.

If we take a basic perceptual experience, we have it reinforced through our lifetimes that our perceptual experience is working by confirming, over and over and over again, that other people see the same stuff we see. And importantly, people who are hallucinating can confirm, over and over again, that other people don't see the stuff that they see.

If you see a cup on the table, you can ask me if I see the cup. I say yes. You can ask a Hindu if he sees the cup. He says yes. You can ask a Muslim if he sees the cup. He says yes. And so on. People who aren't visually hallucinating can confirm with people of all religions (and no religions) that their visual experience is, at least, shared with the people around them.

But if you have an inner experience telling you, say, "My particular branch of Chrsitianity is true", you can ask all those other religious people if they're experiecing the same thing, and they all say no.

Some people get convinced in their lifetime that these experiences ARE as reliable as sensory experiences, because they surround themselves with people who believe the same. A lot of people lose their faith over time when they become exposed to the world of people who don't have the same experience.

If you see stuff other people aren't seeing, you might be hallucinating. Perhaps the same is true for these experiences.

Answer 4

Not equal.

Our "subjective" assessment of reality using our sense are known to be somewhat accurate. What our experience of reality has going for it...

• Consistent unanimous sharing of the laws of physics, and the operation of chemistry and biology. Gravity works the same for everyone and everything.

• Considerable confirmation by data collecting devices and measurement instruments.

• Reproducability. That which can be experienced once in the real world, can generally be experienced a second time, and experienced by others as confirmation.

• Examinability. Evidence that can be held up as justification, seen by others, examined, reviewed, considered by others.

What these put together is a consistent, persistent, reliable framework and understanding of how reality works, and what one can expect from reality.

Cohesiveness. It all builds on and inter-relates the pieces. They fit together the way a jigsaw fits together.

That's what our "subjective" experience of physical reality has going for it.

Comparing that, to an individual experience, "felt" internally, without witness, without impact on the real world, without traces that can be examined and revieed. One cannot even review and re-experience one's own experiences. Have only "memory of" to go on.

Considering the existence of hallucinations due to any of, infection, fevere, extreme hunger, stress, sleep deprivation, toxic reaction, reaction to medication, narcotics... individual experiences are not very high up on the scale of reliability.

If an experience cannot be supported, and is of supernatural character...it is difficult to consider it credible.

Craig doesn't seem like a good logician. He load's his arguments.

Answer 5

There is a category error here:

• One side of the argument: I exist, and...

  • ...either objective reality is mostly as my senses represent it (Of course it is not the same! Plato's Cave is still valid. We know perfectly well that "actual" reality, as best we can tell from quantum physics, is not what we intuitively think, at all.) This is a super simple option - straight forward, not conflicting with Occams Razor, not trying to force anything on anyone, not putting myself into the center of the universe, etc. etc.
  • ...or I am a brain-in-a-vat. This changes nothing! Someone must have built the vat (or simulator or whatever it may be) and put "me" in it, whatever I am. So even when riding the escalator one level up, we still have a level where objective reality exists. Heck, even if that level is a simulation, and my simulators are themselves simulations, then eventually we will end up in some kind of physical reality. And Occams Razor will easily cut all of this short, very quickly.

• When asking whether a "warm fuzzy feeling" inside myself is reason to assume that something is real, then...

  • ... either it is just a warm fuzzy feeling. We know that our brain is not perfect. It is coming up with fuzzy stuff all the time (e.g. while dreaming, or when rummaging about the past or the future, or hearing good music, or viewing inspiring art). Or, as in OP, based on chemical reactions within the brain (i.e., falling in love suddenly, which we know is at least partly a sensor-based reaction, i.e. involuntarily influenced by smell and such). And we can explain all of that quite simply with relatively straightforward arguments (with no claim to objective truth, just Occam's Razor again) and find ways to explain it in purely natural terms.
  • ... or it is a conviction about a possibly fantastical figure having supposedly lived 2000 years ago, based on stories clearly transported (if not created) by humans, and clearly modified many times through translations and so on.

Again, the two aspects are completely different. On the one hand, the simple, straightforward, Occam's Razor-compatible solution is the one given by the one participant in that dialog. On the other hand, the arguably weirder, more convoluted, not Occam's Razor-compatible solution is given by the other person.

If you are already a believer, you will of course go with the second option. If you are not, then there is very likely nothing in there that will convince you.