ANÁLISIS Y DISCUSIÓN

Thus "Ontological reference is something to be earned.

We shall see however that we do not need to deny that we need criteria of objectivity, or that "ontological reference is something to be earned" in order to reject Martin's critique of religious experience.

Objections to Martin's Position

Against Martin's position may be levelled two inter-related types of objection. In the first place, we can challenge his view that religious experience is direct in the sense of being logically

immune from criticism by the application of any standards of objectivity. And secondly we may challenge what seems to be the underlying assumption behind this view, which is that if certain types of tests and checking procedures are not being applied, then no (valid) tests or checking procedures are being applied. We need to ask whether there are not perfectly valid tests and checks being applied by the reporters of

religious experiences (and by those who would accept the cognitive validity of their claims) which Martin overlooks on account of somewhat arbitrary preconceptions as to the types of tests and checking

procedures which can be relevant.

In What Sense is Religious Experience "Direct"?

Much of Martin's argument, as we have seen, starts from the fact that many religious people have often claimed that their experience of God or of the Divine Reality is in some way direct. Martin interprets this claim to have had "direct" experience of God

as meaning that the experience is logically immune from criticism, and this interpretation generates the logical objections to religious experience which we have outlined above.

Now it is true that many religious people, and even some philosophers, have encouraged this interpretation by holding that genuine religious knowledge comes from unmediated encounters with God, in which thought and reason play no part and in which they could in principle play no part. As regards the views of such people, we must accept that Martin’s objections to direct experience apply with the greatest force. Martin is right to say that those who refuse to submit their personal experience to criticism by (appropriate) standards of objectivity have no right to make assertions about anything other than their own states of mind.

However, it is far from clear that the great majority of those who claim, and have claimed, to have knowledge of God on the basis of religious experience would want thereby, or at the same time to claim, logical immunity from criticism. They may be thoroughly convinced that their experiences are cognitively valid but still not claim that they are direct in the sense of being logically immune from criticism. And this may be so, even if such people persist in using the phrase

"direct experience".

Logical .immunity from criticism is not the only, nor even the most obviously implied meaning of the phrase "direct experience". Martin assumes that if an experience is described as direct, then the knowledge of what is experienced is absolutely unmediated by any

consideration outside the single experience itself. But it is possible to have "direct experiences" which are not unmediated. For example, if I encountered a material object which I had not previously seen

somebody whom I did not previously know, then I could quite correctly describe my new knowledge as being the product of a direct encounter. I might be quite certain that my experience in either case was

cognitively valid, having no particular reason to think otherwise, but that would not mean that the interpretation of the experience as

cognitive would be unmediated by criteria of objectivity, even though these criteria might be unconsciously assumed rather than explicitly stated. The fact that religious people sometimes speak of their experiences as direct does not mean that they employ no criteria of objectivity.

However, it might be objected at this point that some religious people describe their experience of God, not merely as "direct" but also as "self-authenticating". If one can have a d'ireot experience which isn't logically immune from criticism, surely one can't have a setf-authent'ioat'Cng one which isn't? Weil, when some people speak of their experiences as being seIf-authenticating, they probably do intend to claim that they are logically immune from criticism. And against such people we must say, once again, that Martin's objections apply. However this interpretation of "self-authenticating" is by no means the only possible one, for there is a way in which religious experiences might be self-authenticating which does not render them logically

immune from criticism. Martin, throughout his discussion always assumes that a sharp distinction is to be drawn between a religious experience, (which he always takes as an immediate, unreflected-upon, mental perception) and the reflective process by which we come to an understanding of the nature of the object of experience. But it is in fact at least equally realistic (and I contend, considerably more realistic), to regard this reflective process as part of the total experience itself. The immediate unreflected-upon "awareness" is

after all an abstraction from what might be called the total religious experience, and if we include within this total religious experience the process of appraisal of the more immediately "felt" elements of that experience, such an experience might well be called self-

authenticating but not because it had somehow managed to make itself immune from criticism; it would rather be self-authenticating because it had taken that criticism into itself, faced it, and survived it. The self-authenticating and direct nature of such an experience would

then have been established precisely as a result of the mediation. It is no doubt the claims of those theologians and religious believers who have wanted to dispense with reason and reflection in religious matters entirely, that have misled Martin into a view of "direct" and "seIf-authenticating" experience which is too narrow. The fact that they have misled Martin, however, does not mean that they need to mislead us.

Relevant Tests and Checking Procedures

That there should be relevant tests and checking procedures for 19

evaluating particular subjective experiences is not something which we have found cause to deny. But when Martin claims that "other things are relevant" (besides the subjective experience of a particular

individual) to any attempt to distinguish between cognitive and non- cognitive experiences, it is fairly clear that his other relevant things are really the sort of things which are relevant to deciding whether somebody has had a genuine cognitive experience of a material

19. Evaluating, that is, in the sense of trying to determine their