Corporate Religious Experience Proves the Existence of God

A religious experience, is when a person or people believe they have have experienced a sacred or spiritual presence, this may be from a near death experience or through prayer. A corporate religious experience is when an experience happens in a public place to a group of people, one example of this would be the Toronto Blessing 1994, whereby many people who visited a Pentecostal church and experienced the same religious take over, from speaking in tongues, to laughing hysterically, to barking like dogs. Although some religious experiences insinuate that God could exist, they very rarely show God’s existence as a whole as it is difficult to believe something only a select few have experienced.

Individual religious experiences are difficult to have any authority for people, other than that of the person experiencing it, whereas corporate religious experiences are more numerically valid, they show a stronger indication of of something happening which has more authority than just one person, it is widespread amongst a large group. After witnessing, or hearing about, a corporate religious experience, people will indefinitely believe that there was some form of religious experience, as it is difficult to believe that multiple people would all make up the same story or experience, in this case, the possibility of this happening is rare if not improbable, however when circumstances like such arise they prove the existence of God as it shows God’s power and strength over people, and shows that religious experiences are not made up.

However, for corporate religious experiences such as the Toronto Blessing, feelings and prayer can heighten the experience and turn it into something it is not. It is known that prior to the Toronto Blessing, there was a considerable amount of prayer, hymns and preaching which can contribute and build up the atmosphere and enhance what truly happened. Russell said that ‘people drink too much and see snaked whilst others fast too much and see God’. It can be argued that as the whole situation was emphasised it became fictitious and in fact proved very little about God’s existence.

On the other hand, Swinburne put forward his defence as to why religious experience proves the existence of God, more importantly, Swinburne uses two principles to support the arguments for religious experience. The first, is the Principle of Credulity, if someone appears to be present, it makes logical sense to say that they are, this means that people should use their reason to work out was is logically possible. The other is the Principle of Testimony, which is the belief that it makes sense to believe what people say, since the majority of people do not