Philosophia Christi

Volume 10, Issue 1, 2008

Intersubjective Evidence and Religious Experience

This paper critically examines the claim that supposed religious experiences of God are not based on “intersubjective evidence.” I examine how “intersubjective evidence” has been construed in the literature, and argue that those specifications do not succeed in marking off a way in which supposed experiences of God are not based on “intersubjective evidence.” I then specify a sense of “intersubjective evidence” that I think successfully shows how such experiences are not based on intersubjective evidence. I also show that “intersubjective evidence” does not mean the same thing as “public” but that God can be an object of “public” knowledge.