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Name: Matthew Cook

Student ID: 1000242908

TA: Rachel Bauder

The Argument from mystical experience, as Nagel relays it, is an inductive argument that

relies on an inference to the best explanation. It could be summarized as follows:

p1) People have mystic experiences during which they feel connected to a transcendent

and fundamental reality.

p2) The people who have these experiences claim they are caused by God.

p3) Inference to the best explanation: There is no other obvious cause of these

experiences other than the one provided by the people who have them.

c1) Therefore it is reasonable to believe that God is the cause of mystical experiences.

c2) Therefore it is reasonable to believe there is a God.

This form of the argument is a little fuller than the one Nagel presents--he implies (p2)

and (p3) without actually explicitly stating them.

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Nagels admits that people who have mystical experiences can be generally trusted to

accurately report those experiences. He sees no reason to doubt the vast number of people who

have these strikingly similar experiences. His objection is with the inference that follows from

the second premise: that the explanation given by the people who have these mystical

experience is the most reasonable explanation available.

Having a mystic experience, Nagel says, does not in turn qualify an individual to

diagnose the cause of that experience. He draws a parallel between an individual with a mystic

experience and a man with stomach pains. Both can be trusted to accurately report their

experience, but neither can be fully trusted regarding the cause of that experience. The man

with stomach pains may think they are caused by something he has eaten, but they may very

well have been caused by an ulcer he is unaware of or some other medical condition. In the

same way, Nagel suggests that the mystic's experience may be caused by something other than

what he claims it is caused by. In other words, the mystic may be quite wrong when he says that

God is the cause and object of his mysticism.

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Nagel's objection falls short of conclusively disproving the argument. Consider his

example of the man with stomach pains. Nagel claims that a man with stomach pains is not

qualified to give a diagnoses regarding their cause. But generally speaking, when a man claims

that what he's eaten has caused his stomach pains, he is correct. Consider the following

argument based on Nagel's example:

P1) A man has stomach pains.

P2) The man claims his stomach pains are a result of something he's eaten.

P3) There are no other obvious cause of his stomach pains.

C) Therefore it is reasonable to take his word concerning the cause of his stomach pains.

The only way to refute this argument is if we knew that there were other factors at work

that were at least equally likely to cause the man's stomach pains. For example, if we knew the

man's medical history and knew that he had an ulcer. But without any other information it

seems perfectly reasonable to assume that the man is correct when he says that his pains are

caused by some kind of food he has eaten. It also follows that, without any other information,

when a mystic claims his experience is from God, it is reasonable to believe him. While Nagel's

objection does cast some doubt on the argument, it fails to completely dismantle it. The

argument is still reasonable because in the absence of any other explanation for mystical

experiences, it is reasonable to accept the word of the people who have the experiences.

But there is a better way to defeat the argument from mystical experience. The argument

fails at both the second and third premises.

First, the second premise states that people who have mystical experiences claim that

God is the cause of them. While this is true in many cases, it is certainly not true in all of them.

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God is the cause of them. While this is true in many cases, it is certainly not true in all of them.

Nearly every religion has testimonies of people encountering a transcendent and fundamental

reality, including pantheistic ones like certain forms of Hinduism, and atheistic ones like Zen

Buddhism. Mystics in polytheistic traditions claim that their experiences are caused by certain

gods or spirits that do not fulfill the requirements of the definition of God we are working with.

Those in traditions like Zen Buddhism claim that it is not God they are connecting with, but the

impersonal ultimate ground of reality instead. So the second premise fails because there is no

unanimous agreement from the practitioners of mysticism as to the cause of it.

Secondly, even without the testimony of people outside of standard monotheistic

traditions, there are other reasonable causes of mystical experiences. Some of which may be

unknown to the mystics themselves. People have been using entheogens to generate these

experiences since prehistoric times. This alone shows that mystical experiences can be triggered

chemically--without the aid of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. This, in turn,

suggests the possibility that all mystical experiences could be caused by something that happens

chemically in the brain without supernatural aid. Even without entheogenic drugs, mystical

experiences can be triggered during dreams or time spend in sensory deprivation or during

moments when the brain is deprived of oxygen. Periods of great excitement and passion can

arouse these moments, as well.

The argument from mystical experience fails because there are too many reasonable

explanations for the occurrence of these experiences that do not require the involvement of God.

People have been having these experiences since long before there was even a conception of the

kind of deity the standard definition requires. It is quite reasonable to assume that the

experiences themselves are real because they are experienced by people all over the world from

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experiences themselves are real because they are experienced by people all over the world from

different traditions and throughout history. But for that very reason it is not reasonable to

assume that they are caused by the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God that only some

of the mystics claim they were connecting with. There are too many other possible causes of

these experiences to cite mysticism as a reasonable proof for the existence of God.