Do Mystics See God?

[indigobusiness]

This is a bit long, but an interesting adjunct to the ongoing discussion.
---

Do Mystics See God? *
Evan Fales


Ex. 33:20: And said, Thou canst not see my face : for there shall no man see my face and live.

Gen. 32:30: And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat."

1. A Cautionary Tale

Theistic philosophers have perennially cited mystical experiences--experiences of God--as evidence for God's existence and for other truths about God. In recent years, the attractiveness of this line of thought has been reflected in its use by a significant number of philosophers.1 But both philosophers and mystics agree that not all mystical experiences can be relied upon; many are the stuff of delusion.2 So they have somehow to be checked out, their bona-fides revealed. But can they be? I will be arguing that (a) they must indeed be cross-checked to serve as good evidence; and that (b) they can't be--or not nearly well enough to permit pressing them into service as serious support for theism. The need for cross-checking, necessary in any case, is made acute by two facts: the extreme variability of mystical experiences and the doctrines they are recruited to support, and the fact that, especially in the face of this variability, mystical experiences are much more effectively explained naturalistically. Furthermore, our ability adequately to cross-check mystical experiences (hereafter, ME's), in a way that would reveal the hand of God, is crippled by the fact that theists offer no hypothesis concerning the causal mechanism by means of which God shows Himself to mystics.

snip

But if the intrinsic content of my experience can be caused in multiple ways (the presence of an actual cat-corpse being but one of these), then how shall I ascertain that my senses do not deceive? The short answer to this importunate and persistent problem, the problem of perception, is: I must cross-check. But we cannot explore the substance of this remark without making two antecedent observations. First, no amount of cross-checking can produce evidence that will satisfy the radical skeptic. I can decide to pinch myself to check that I'm not just dreaming of cats; but of course I might just be dreaming that I've pinched myself. Second: because of this, and because our brief is to examine whether putative experiences of God must be cross-checked to carry evidential weight, not to respond to radical skepticism, we shall have to frame our discussion with some care. One could, of course, accept a counsel of despair: neither ordinary sense experience nor mystical experience can form the basis of justified beliefs about external matters. In that event, mystical theistic beliefs are in no worse case, epistemically speaking, than ordinary perceptual beliefs. But that would be because neither set of beliefs could be in any worse shape, so far as justification goes. That sort of 'pox on both your houses' skepticism is however not a very interesting position, from the perspective of traditional debates about the warrant for theism. The interesting question is: if we suppose ordinary perceptual beliefs (and we may throw in scientific theory for good measure) to be warrantable by appeal to sense experience, then why shouldn't theistic beliefs be similarly warrantable by appeal to perceptual experience, whether sensory or mystical?

Here, in a nutshell, is what I shall argue: The problem of perception derives largely from the general truth that any effect--hence a perceptual experience--can be caused in more ways than one. Our strategy for removing this ambiguity is cross-checking. Ultimately, cross-checking involves just collecting more data, which is subject to the same ambiguity. Our implicit reasoning is that the total amount of ambiguity can nevertheless be in this way progressively reduced. The means by which science draws a bead on postulated "unobservable" entities (like electrons) is not in principle or in practice different in kind; it is just more systematic and careful than the humdrum of everyday perceptual judgments. In everyday contexts, cross-checking is informal, and it is so automatic, continuous, and pervasive that, except under duress (e.g., as we try to catch out a magician), it is scarcely noticed. I propose to show how cross-checking works; to argue that it is a mandatory feature of any recruitment of perceptual experience to epistemic ends; and to show that, therefore, it is a requirement that must be met in theistic appeals to mystical experience as evidence for theism. Finally, I shall argue that this requirement has not and probably cannot be met. So, I shall conclude, mystical experience provides hardly any useful support for theism.

snip

Why do we (most of us!) not credit such an "explanation"? First, of course, because a long history of experience teaches us that such gaps often are eventually filled by natural causes. But second, because the theistic explanation comes too cheaply: there are no constraints on when, how, and where God is likely to act, no attendant procedures for cross-checking or ferreting out the precise mode and locus of divine intervention, no positive suggestions about how the theistic account of theophysical interaction might be investigated, fleshed out, ramified--and virtually no concomitant predictive power. This theoretical poverty cripples cross-checking for divine influence.


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/evan_fales/mystical.html

[Stunster]

1. Very possibly

In what follows, SP = sense perception and RE = religious experience.

Now I want to consider the claim that the availability of such intersubjective tests is a necessary condition of the evidential value of a mode of experience, and the further claim that religious experience, for example, does not satisfy this condition. In support of the first claim it could be said that our conviction that sense perception puts us in effective cognitive contact with a surrounding world is intimately tied up with the fact that when we compare our perceptual beliefs with those of relevant others, they exhibit a massive commonality. And if we can have no such interpersonal confirmation how can we distinguish veridical perception from dreams and fancies? Though this claim hs considerable initial plausbility, I want to oppose it. But first, let me agree with the second claim, that religious experience (RE) does not satisfy the condition in question.....

......Thus RE does not satisfy the condition that is claimed to be necessary for being an experiential source of knowledge. That throws us back on the question as to whether this is a necessary condition, and, in particular whether the failure of RE to satisfy it is to its epistemic discredit. I want to suggest that the answer to both questions is NO. I shall approach this via the second question.

To determine whether the lack of this kind of test by other perceivers prevents RE from being a source of knowledge, let's consider what makes this kind of test possible for SP. Clearly, it is that we have discovered fairly firm regularities in the behavior of physical things, including human sense perception. Since there are stable regularities in the ways in which physical objects disclose themselves to our perception, we can be assured that if X exists at a cerain time and place and if S satisfies appropriate conditions, then S is sure to perceive X. But no such tight regularities are disocverable in God's appearances to our experience. We can say something about the way in which such matters as the distribution of attention and the moral and spiritual state of the subject are conducive to such appearances; but these most emphatically do not add up to the sort of lawlike connections we get with SP. Is it to the epistemic discredit of RE that it does not enable us to discover such regularities? Well, that all depends on what it would be reasonable to expect if RE does put us into effective cognitive contact with God. Given what we have learned about God and our relations to Him from RE, supplemented by whatever other sources there be, should we expect to be able discover such regularities if God really exists and is something like what He is typically supposed to be? Clearly not. There are several important points here, but the most important is that it is contrary to God's plans to give us that much control - cognitive and practical. Hence it is quite understandable, if God exists and is as RE leads us to suppose He is, that we should not be able to ascertain the kinds of regularities that would make possible the kinds of intersubjective tests exhibited by SP. Hence, the epistemic status of RE is in no way diminshed by its lack of such tests. On the contrary. Given what we have learned about God and His relations to us, if a source did deliver beliefs in such regularities, that would be an indication that it is not putting us into effective cognitive contact with the divine. Hence it is quite unwarranted to hold reports of RE subject to the kinds of tests appropriate to reports of SP. What is appropriate in each case is dictated by the nature of the reality in question and our relations thereto. To judge RE by whether it lives up to the standards of SP is to engage in a kind of "epistemic imperialism" or "epistemic chauvinism": arbitrarily judging one practice by the standards appropriate to another.

The naturalist may complain that I have been drawing my picture of the reality with which RE allegedly puts us in touch from RE itself, and this is circular. But there is no escape from that kind of circularity. We are in the same situation with respect to SP. How do we know what conditions are such that if someone who satisfies those conditions sees (doesn't see) a morel at the appropriate place, that confirms (disconfirms) my morel report? For that matter, how do we know whether the other observer in question reports seeing (not seeing) a morel there and then? Obviously we have to make use of what we have learned from SP. We don't know these things by rational intuition, nor does an angel tell us about them. When we are dealing with basic belief forming practices - those that constitute our basic access to a certain realm of reality - there is no alternative to using what we have learned by the exercise of that practice in setting up standards for evaluating particular beliefs so formed. The practice sets its own examinations. It is both examiner and examinee.

This brief discussion is just an example of the problems we encounter when a methodological naturalist tries to show that some other putative source of knowledge does not measure up to what s/he takes to be a necessary condition of epistemic efficacy. For a more extended presentation of these points see Ch. 5, sec. iii E., of my Perceiving God.

Full article here.

[indigobusiness]

2. I was hoping you'd respond with something like that.

Thanks for the link.

[supernova]

3. I think we can have such experiences

if you or of a mind to do so.

But we must be careful not to inject an "I *know* what God thinks" air about these moments.

I have them quite frequently, but I simply appreciate the feeling of cosmic intimacy that seems to eminiate from it. I make not decisions about it.

[indigobusiness]

5. What you describe is a legitimate interface with the sacred.

IMHO. But, at what depth of the experience is it considered seeing the face of God?

This article fascinates me in the way he breaks it down.

[supernova]

7. Well, I don't know

that there are "levels of God" I think an encounter with the sacred is just that. I hate to sound simplistic; but I don't think God is hiding from us in some cosmic maze that we simply must have exactly the right key for: the right prayer, the right dogma, the right church to which to belong.

I think GOd is keeping his or her promise to be there for us. So, yes, I guess I'm saying we see the face of God in those moments.

It's up to you what meaning you choose to attach to it.

[indigobusiness]

8. For me, God is hiding in plain sight. It is what it is...

it's up to us, and our choice, to make the effort to recognize what is right in front of us, within us, and all around us. The meaning is not something ascribed to it, the meaning is immutable, otherwise it would be antithetical. There's the rub.

[KittyWampus]

4. Yes, But It Is Not Their Ego Or Personality That Sees God

In fact, God becomes more evident the more we're able to still the ripples of our little self Mind.

God = Underlying Reality or the electricity flowing through the circuitry.

[indigobusiness]

6. Yep, that's sort of what I was thinking. With the death of ego.

all that remains is the face of God...(much as I don't like putting it in these terms).

Must get over my badself.--my new mantra

[aneerkoinos]

9. Love thy badself!!!

By condemning some aspects of your being you are just causing a division and end up creating the Jungian Shadow, the subconsciouss projection of "bad" elements in your psyche taking an uncontrollable life of it's own. "Do not judge lest you be judged", as the man said.

The Way is the one that all wise teachings recommend, constant non-evaluating observation, just pure oobservation, of one's action's and the mechanisms and motivations driving them.

What Socrates taught: gnothi seauton, know thyself!

[indigobusiness]

11. I DO love my badself...I celebrate my badself...

I dance with my badself til dawn...even though it steps on my toes.

To fully know oneself, to be fully realized, to achieve Buddha-mind/Christ-consciousness...one must step outside of ego. Leave the shadow behind.

Recognizing badself is not judging, it is merely inventory. Madness has been defined as the repetition of destructive acts, in expectation of different outcomes.

Alice tried another question. "What sort of people live about here?"
"In THAT direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: And in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

You seem to agree with:

Men are so necessarily made, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness--Pascal

I lean more toward:

Hell is oneself--Eliot

http://www.egodeath.com/

[Old Mouse]

14. True dat

You must get over your bad-self and love your bad-self

and everything else your bad-self

[elshiva]

20. "I dance with my badself til dawn."

May I use that in my masturbation campaign. Get down with it, hon!
Of course, you can see God. Can I use that for the campaign, too?

[indigobusiness]

12. Omniformis Omnis intellectus est

Sweet lie!-Was I there truly? . . .
Let’s believe it . . .
No, take it all for lies
I have but smelt this life, a wiff of it-
. . . And shall I claim;
Confuse my own phantastikon,
Or say the filmy shell that circumscribes me
Contains the actual sun;
confuse the thing I see
With actual gods behind me?
Are they gods behind me?
How many worlds we have! If Botticelli
Brings her ashore on that great cockle-shell-
His Venus (Simonetta?),
And Spring and Aufidus fill the air
With their clear outlined blossoms?
World enough.

-Ezra Pound

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. yes ........in ALL of His creation

[Hidden Stillness]

13. You Will Never Get There

This thread has already gone in several directions, so I'm not really sure what kind of answer is being asked for; the question as to whether you were delusional is difficult to answer here. Another approach that mystics take is to wonder whether or not God would show Itself that way, and what does it mean.

Would this be the true end of things, to be narrowed down to what would have to be, on some order, a finite on the outside of you? This would mean that God is some things and not others, which would make God just another objcet in the world, obviously false. When you think about it, you realize that the closer you get to something, it does not get narrowed down, but instead expanded, and more complex. Mystics (Jacob Boehme, etc.) refer to God as an Abyss, endless and unfathomable; God is All, infinite and eternal, and so you would never get to the end of it and never even "encounter" it that way--that is only your opinion. It would be more like the horizon, and trying to reach it: no matter how much ground you cover and how far you get, you never come closer to the horizon; you will never get there. I believe God is like that.

This is not even true of ordinary things of the world. Imagine if you said to somebody, "I want to know every single fact about you"--this would be impossible, mind-boggling, and new facts would be developing about the person every second anyway. You can't get to the end.

I don't think this is the purpose, to know "the" Face of God; I believe it was by its nature supposed to be limited (and that you were supposed to be aware that this is not All, that God goes beyond, and that I cannot encompass All), because it was your culmination, and was all the meaning that related to you. You can only dwell in those parts of God's presence that are your own deepest existence. It is not abstract.

God is both immanent and transcendant, as they put it. Any "Face" you might meet up with would be only, it seems to me, (assuming it was a true ethereal sign), only a further clue to help you along or to answer a question. No individual sign could be the total God. I don't know if that was the kind of answer you were asking for.

[Old Mouse]

15. Well thought out

The problem is the physical limitations of our own minds.

Infinity to us is a concept that cannot be truly imagined with a finite mind. It's impossible. To fully understand that which goes on forever would take forever. We accept a representation of the concept and quickly shove the entire idea into long term memory to avoid insanity.

[Lexingtonian]

16. I'll dissent a bit from that

Mystics (Jacob Boehme, etc.) refer to God as an Abyss, endless and unfathomable; God is All, infinite and eternal, and so you would never get to the end of it and never even "encounter" it that way--that is only your opinion. It would be more like the horizon, and trying to reach it: no matter how much ground you cover and how far you get, you never come closer to the horizon; you will never get there. I believe God is like that.

As I recall, Boehme and Dionysus the Areopagite use the Abyss as a description of the experience of impersonal and incommunicative Presence of God when/where they seek Him out. The better metaphor I think you are looking for is the Ocean Of The Divine- into which the mystic 'drowns' and which s/he can never hope (and never does hope) to encompass, really only hopes to be perfused with and immersed in completely.

Evelyn Underhill says there is another approach to the Presence. That is the conceptualization called The Spiritual Marriage, and it is intensely personal/passionate and starts with a conception of God as an ideal human being.

The two converge in the form of the Mystic Marriage, I think, though I haven't seen that spelled out anywhere- though Underhill uses the term 'imageless vision' to get at some core experience in it.

I don't think this is the purpose, to know "the" Face of God; I believe it was by its nature supposed to be limited (and that you were supposed to be aware that this is not All, that God goes beyond, and that I cannot encompass All), because it was your culmination, and was all the meaning that related to you. You can only dwell in those parts of God's presence that are your own deepest existence. It is not abstract.

I think the Face Of God is a suggestion- it is the mystical sense of the intimate, personal, Presence of God, with which a kind of communication takes place. It is God voluntarily limiting Himself, concealing very much of Himself, in order to achieve contact. It contrasts with the overwhelming form that the mystic experiences occasionally, in which the mystic is exposed to more than her/his senses and mental preparations (if any) can bear.

God is both immanent and transcendant, as they put it. Any "Face" you might meet up with would be only, it seems to me, (assuming it was a true ethereal sign), only a further clue to help you along or to answer a question. No individual sign could be the total God. I don't know if that was the kind of answer you were asking for.

Thorvald Boman ('Hebrew Thought Compared to Greek') proposes a third concept- 'transparence' in English translation- to add to immanence and transcendence. Martin Buber proposes an equivalent, that of God as an Ultimate Person. Which are all the same thing as the essential mystic theory- that every human being/consciousness is a channel from the realm of God/Spirit through/into the person of the mystic into the human material World, with some channels more and others less obstructed, along which Spirit flows at times. For some -so far very few-, the channel is cleared so extensively by their efforts at selfpurification that a constant sense of Presence is achieved.

The OP was involved with the question whether mystical experience constituted proof of the existence of (a theistic kind of) God. As far as I know, the mystics' answer to that is (1) God is like a far off mythical place from which nothing concrete can be brought back: the mystic can only attest to having been there, can only be a witness, and her/his proof lies in what skills and understandings resulted from the experience. Those who have Been There need no convincing, those who have never been there cannot be persuaded of what it is really like. It is also (2) that the best of the Christian mystics have always been in trouble with the Church, because they believe that direct experience of the Divine is possible in all places at all times to potentially anyone. That notion cannot be reconciled with theism or any other theory or theology that asserts a strict separation and distinction of Man and God and a conditional relationship (e.g. Sin/Salvation, or Offense/Sacrifice).

Well, the point of the OP was to refute a Christian Right argument for the 'existence' of their kind of God. Whether or not mysticism is objectively true, it can't and doesn't actually provide evidence in support of the theists' God of the Christian Right.

[John Dark]

17. You're right, Lexingtonian

> Whether or not mysticism is objectively true, it can't and doesn't actually provide evidence in support of the theists' God of the Christian Right.

This is the very crux of the entire issue, Lexingtonian. You have nailed it. The godhead one encounters as a mystic opens the door out of the closed little spaces where fundamentalism and right-wingery can grow. Spiritual liberation direct from the source means you don't need the Church any more as a middleman. It undermines authoritarian structures and frees the individual.

[Lexingtonian]

18. I agree....

http://www.ccel.org/u/underhill/mysticism/mysticism1.0-MYSTICIS-6.html

The business of the Church is to appeal to the whole man, as she finds him living in the world of sense. <....> But she cannot--and her great teachers have always known that she cannot--extract finality from a method which does not really seek after ultimate things. This method may and does teach men goodness, gives them happiness and health. It can even induce in them a certain exaltation in which they become aware, at any rate for a moment, of the existence of the supernatural world--a stupendous accomplishment. But it will not of itself make them citizens of that world: give to them the freedom of Reality.
     "The work of the Church in the world," says Patmore, "is not to teach the mysteries of life, so much as to persuade the soul to that arduous degree of purity at which God Himself becomes her teacher. The work of the Church ends when the knowledge of God begins."

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

19. yes, when they aren't there

go sweep out the chambers of your heart
make it ready, make it ready
to be the dwelling
of the Beloved
when you depart
Love will enter
in you, void of yourself
God will display God's beauties

(words to a Dance of Universal Peace)