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  • Philosophy of Religion
    • The Anthology >
      • Mackie >
        • Mackie 1
        • Mackie 2
        • Mackie 3
        • Mackie summary
      • Flew & Hare >
        • Flew
        • Hare
        • Flew & Hare summary
      • Mitchell & Flew >
        • Mitchell
        • Flew conclusion
        • Mitchell & Flew summary
      • Copleston & Russell >
        • Argument from Contingency
        • Religious Experience
        • Copleston & Russell summary
    • Nature & Influence of Religious Experience >
      • Nature of Religious Experience >
        • Definitions of God
        • Theism & Monism
        • P.I.N.T.
        • Types of Religious Experience
        • Revelation
        • Naturalistic Interpretations
        • Objectivism vs Subjectivism
        • Scholar: James
        • Scholar: Otto
      • Influence of Religious Experience >
        • Inductive Reasoning
        • Appearance & Reality
        • Credulity & Testimony
        • Strengths & Weaknesses
        • Scholar: Swinburne
        • Scholar: Hick
        • Scholar: Dawkins
        • Scholar: Persinger
    • Philosophical Issues & Questions >
      • Cosmological Argument >
        • Deductive vs Inductive
        • A Posteriori Arguments
        • Interpreting Experience
        • Motion, Cause & Contingency
        • Kalam Argument
        • Sufficient Reason
        • Probability Not Proof
        • Brute Fact
        • Infinite Regress
        • Necessary Existence
        • Philosophical Language & Thought
        • Issues: Big Bang Theory
        • Scholar: Aquinas
        • Scholar: Hume
        • Scholar: Kant
      • Design Argument >
        • Inductive Reasoning
        • A Posteriori Arguments
        • Interpreting Experience
        • Cumulative Experience
        • Order & Regularity
        • Analogy
        • Anthropic Principle
        • Probability Not Proof
        • Challenges to Design
        • Alternatives to Design
        • Philosophical Language & Thought
        • Issues in Design Today
        • Scholar: Paley
        • Scholar: Hume
      • Ontological Argument >
        • Deductive vs Inductive
        • Probability Not Proof
        • A Priori Arguments
        • Analytic Propositions
        • Necessary Existence
        • Challenges to the Argument
        • Philosophical Language
        • Philosophical Issues
        • Scholar: Anselm
        • Scholar: Russell
    • Problem of Evil & Suffering >
      • Problems with Evil >
        • Nature of the Problem
        • Scholar: Hume
        • Scholar: Mackie
      • Solutions to the Problem of Evil >
        • Creation is Good
        • Creation is Mixed
        • Freewill Defence
        • Process Theodicy
        • Strengths & Weaknesses
        • Scholar: Augustine
        • Scholar: Irenaeus
  • Contact
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INDUCTIVE REASONING
The exam expects you to reflect on the structure of the argument from religious experience and whether it is a sound or a valid argument - do the conclusions follow logically from the premises?
The idea of inductive reasoning is also an important feature of the Design Argument and the Cosmological Argument.

Inductive reasoning

The argument from religious experience is a type of thinking known as INDUCTIVE REASONING. Inductive reasoning starts with specific experiences and draws general conclusions from them.

Inductive reasoning focuses on how the conclusions of the argument are reached - it's validity. If reasoning is inductive, then its conclusions are valid if they really do apply to the real world.
Put another way, inductive reasoning is the idea that past experiences tell you what to expect in the future. This is sometimes called the principle of induction​.
​Inductive reasoning is based on experience - things you see and hear and perceive with the 5 senses. In other words, it is evidence-based. This means that inductive reasoning deals in probabilities but not certainties.

Science is an example of a procedure based on inductive reasoning. Scientists observe physical evidence and formulate theories based on these observations. Some theories don't last very long and get disproved but other theories (like the theory of gravity or evolution) have lasted a long time and survived a lot of criticism. However, scientific theories could be challenged and overturned if contradictory evidence turned up. That's how it is with inductive reasoning.
So is religious experience like a scientific theory? Is it a valid piece of inductive reasoning?
One flaw with inductive reasoning is the Problem of Induction, expressed by David Hume. This is the problem that an inductive conclusion can always be overturned by a later experience.

A famous example is the experience of swans being white. Inductive reasoning tells us, based on seeing only white swans, that all swans are white. However, if we one day see a black swan, the inductive conclusion is shown to be incorrect.

This suggests that, no matter how much evidence for religious experience you could collect, the next evidence could utterly disprove it.
Because the argument from religious experience is an example of inductive reasoning, it can only show that God is "probable" or "likely". It's always possible that something else is responsible for mystical or numinous experiences. Fresh evidence could turn up making it look much more likely that these experiences are objectively real (strengthening the argument) or much more likely that they are imaginary (weakening it).

Some critics would go further and say you cannot use inductive reasoning to draw any sort of conclusions about God. Inductive reasoning uses physical experiences to draw general conclusions about the physical world. However God (if he exists) is metaphysical - he is outside of this world and not physical at all. You cannot use physical evidence to draw metaphysical conclusions.

​Is this a problem?
YES
Religious belief is supposed to be about certainty, not probability. Jesus talked about faith moving mountains. The great saints and religious reformers didn't think that God "probably existed": they knew God existed. They staked their life on God and believed in him with total conviction. The inductive argument is irrelevant for religious faith.

Inductive reasoning is based on generalising from the things you experience in this world to wider conclusions about the world we live in. But induction doesn't tell us about things that are beyond or outside of this world - things that are metaphysical rather than physical. Drawing metaphysical conclusions from physical evidence goes beyond what induction can ever tell us.
NO
The inductive argument leaves room for doubt, which is important for reasonable faith. Only fanatics and bigots believe with total certainty. Reasonable people have doubts about things. The inductive argument reassures believers that their faith is reasonable but it leaves a place for questioning and mystery in life.

The problem of induction isn't just a problem for religious experiences - it's a problem for science too. All scientific research is inductive reasoning and some of it draws metaphysical conclusions (such as speculating about the Big Bang or multiple universes). Hume himself admits that we should trust induction even if, philosophically, it offers us no certainty. It would be irrational to trust induction with science but not with anything else.
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