Mystical Perception: St Teresa, William Alston, and the Broadminded Atheist

Abstract According to Richard Swinburne’s well-known Principle of Credulity, ‘How things seem to be is good grounds for a belief about how things are. From this it would follow that, in the absence of special considerations, all religious experiences ought to be taken by their subjects as genuine, and hence as substantial grounds for belief in the existence of their apparent object.’1 Naturally, Swinburne subjects his principle to several refinements in the course of carefully considering objections against it, but its fundamental simplicity is a very important aspect of its appeal. A more recent, fundamentally more complex attempt to establish a result very much like Swinburne’s application of his principle to religious experience is what I want to consider here.