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EXPERIENCING GODKEVIN CORCORANDepartment of Philosophy, Calvin College,Grand Rapids. M149546, USASome philosophers claim that it is not possible for God, if Godexists, to figure in the phenomenological content of experience. W.T. Stace was one such philosopher committed to thisclaim, but he offered nothing in the way of an argument for it.William Forgie, however, has argued that on the assumptionof two putatively plausible theses about the phenomenologyof experience, phenomenologically theistic experience isimpossible. In this paper I suggest how a broadly Anselmiantheist I committed to those theses might still argue for the possibility of phenomenologically theistic experience. After providing an initial argument for the possibility of such experience, I entertain four possible objections against it. I showhow three of those objections fail of their aim and how theargument can be reformulated to meet the fourth. I concludethat a broadly Anselmian theist who accepts the theses inquestion has good prima facie reasons for believing that phenomenologically theistic experience is possible.I. PHENOMENOLOGICALCONTENT AND TWO PUTATIVELYPLAUSIBLETHESES CONCERNING THE PHENOMENOLOGYOFEXPERIENCEThe subject of this paper is the possibility of phenomenologically theistic experience (hereafter, PTE), the claim that Godcan figure in the phenomenological content of experience.But what is meant by phenomenological content of experi-Sophia Vo138 No 2 1999, September-October.116

ence? As a first approximation we might distinguish how anexperience represents the world from the actual object orobjects represented. For example, an experience may represent the world, or some aspect of the world, as red and round.The reddishness and roundishness might thus at least partlyconstitute the phenomenological content of an experience ofan apple, say. By phenomenological content, then, one mightjust mean the sensuous or imagistic representational elementsof experience.2But one might cast the phenomenological net wider. Onemight hold that upon one's being appeared to redly androundly in the case of perceiving a red apple there might alsobe, in addition to the reddishness and roundishness that arephenomenologically presented, affective phenomenologicalaspects of the experience. For example, one might desire theapple or perhaps be repulsed by it. Moreover, one mightinclude, in addition to the sensuous and affective phenomenological aspects of experience, the doxastic elements thatfigure among the phenomenological content of many experiences. For example, when I perceive an apple, in addition tothe affective and sensous elements, there might also be theimpulsion with respect to a certain proposition (that I see anapple) to believe that that proposition is true, that the worldis the way the proposition represents it.3 So one might includein the phenomenological content of experience not just thesensuous or imagistic representational elements, but also theaffective and doxastic.By phenomenological content I mean to include all ofthe the 'what it's like' features that are presented to consciousness in the having of an experience, the sensuous, affective and doxastic. Many who deny that PTE is possible, onthe other hand, seem to restrict what is to be counted amongphenomenological content to the sensous and imagistic represenational elements of experience. But their argumentsagainst the possibility of PTE do not depend on this claim.4117

On what sorts of claims then do such arguments depend?One very compelling argument against the possibility of PTEdepends partly on the following thesisP: An experience E is phenomenologically of x (where xis an individual) if and only if the content of E includesthe manifestation of F, where F is a property x alone possibly possesses.William Forgie assumes P (or some variant of it) inobjecting to the possibility of PTE. s We will examine Forgie'sobjection in due course. In any event, P is to be understood asan internal requirement on the phenomenological content ofexperience. For example, if an experience is said to be phenomenologically of Richard Nixon, then among the phenomenological content of that putative experience of Nixon mustbe the manifestation of some property that Nixon alone possibly possesses. If the manifestation of a uniquely identifyingproperty is not among the phenomenological content of someexperience, then that experience is not phenomenologically ofsome particular individual as opposed to some individual orother, each of whom might equally 'fit' the content of theexperience. Thus an experience E is phenomenologically of xif and only if E includes the manifestation of F and it is impossible for F to be exemplified by some y numerically distinctfrom x. 6Our concern here shall be with the phenomenology ofveridical experience. I will follow Forgie and others here andmean that an experience is veridical if and only if that experience is of an actually existing, mind-independent object andis not a hallucinatory or otherwise illusory experience.Moreover, I will assume that the actual objects of veridicalperceptual experiences possess properties, and thus causalpowers, in virtue of which they are responsible for the phenomenological content of those experiences.7 On this construal of veridical, the following are both possible:118

(A) two veridical perceptual experiences of the sameobject differ in phenomenological content, and(B) veridicalperceptual experiencesof numericallydistinctobjects share the same phenomenologicalcontent(A) poses no special problems for the possibility of PTE.Assuming P, two veridical experiences of God may differ asmuch as you like in phenomenological content so long as thecontent of each includes the manifestation of a uniquelyinstantiable property of God's. (B) on the other hand entailsthe possibility of an experience being phenomenologically ofGod even if the manifestation of no uniquely instantiableproperty of God's is included in the phenomenological content of the experience. B is ruled out by P. In fact, WilliamForgie goes further than P and stipulates thatP: If an experience is phenomenologically of x (where x isan individual) and is also veridical, then the phenomenological content of that experience of x must metaphysically determine the actual object of that experienceIt is the conjunction of P and P, Forgie believes, that renders PTE impossible,s P requires that in the case of a veridical perceptual experience phenomenologically of an individual, say Richard Nixon, it be metaphysically impossible for anumerically distinct individual, say Ed Sullivan, to cause anexperience phenomenologically indistinguishable from thatof Nixon. Thus when an experience E includes the manifestation of F among its phenomenological content (where F is aproperty x alone possibly possesses) and E is veridical, and itis impossible for a numerically distinct object y to cause anexperience phenomenologically indistinguishable from x,then P and P are jointly satisfied.The claim then is this. If an experience is veridical and isphenomenologically of something having property F (and phenomenologically of nothing else), where property F is a property capable of being instantiated by more than one possible119

individual, then nothing in the content of that experience willguarantee that its actual object is any particular one of themany possible individuals capable of exemplifying that property. On the other hand, if an experience is veridical and its phenomenological content includes the manifestation of someproperty uniquely possessed by a particular individual suchthat the actual object of that experience must be the individualwho alone can have the uniquely instanfiable property in question, then that experience is phenomenologically of the uniqueindividual possessing that property. Forgie does not believe thatany experience of God could be such that it is not possible thatan experience of something else be phenomenologically indistinguishable from that experience of God. 9 So he claims thatphenomenologically theistic experience is impossible. We shallconsider Forgie's argument for this claim shortly.I have argued elsewhere against both P and P and againstthe claim based on them that PTE is impossible. 1 In fact, Pand P strike me as monumentally implausible. Still, I believea broadly Anselmian theist committed to those theses canmotivate a plausible argument for the possibility of PTE.Substituting 'God' for 'some specific individual' and 'it,'in P, the Anselmian might offer the following argument forthe possibility of PTE, using P and P as premises.II. AN ARGUMENT FOR THE POSSIBILITYOF P T E(i)If an experience is phenomenologically of x (wherex is an individual) and is also veridical, then the phenomenological content of that experience of x mustmetaphysically determine the actual object of thatexperience(ii) An experience E is phenomenologically of God ifand only if the content of E includes the manifestation of F, where F is a property God alone possiblypossesses.(iii) God alone possibly possesses omnipotence.120

Therefore,(iv) If some experience is veridical and is phenomenologically of something manifesting omnipotence, then the object of that experience must beGod.Therefore,(v)According to (i), if some experience is veridical andis phenomenologically of something manfestingomnipotence, then such an experience is phenomenologically of God.This argument is valid. But what are we to make ofpremise (iii) and, therefore, the claim in (iv) that the object ofsuch an experience must be God? The Anselmian has reasonsfor believing both that (a) God is a necessary being, and thusexists at all possible worlds, and (b) God possesses omnipotence essentially.11 Arguments for (a) can be found inAnselm's own writings or, more recently, in the works ofAlvin Plantinga) 2 That God possesses omnipotence essentially follows both from the concept of God as that of a maximally perfect being, and from the plausible belief that poweris a perfection. Therefore, at whatever worlds God exists(which is all possible worlds if God is a necessary being), Godwill possess all perfection-making properties and do so maximally. 13There is good reason also to believe that the only objectthat possibly possesses omnipotence is God, since it is plausible to suppose that there cannot simultaneously be twoomnipotent beings. Since on our Anselmian reading God is anessentially omnipotent and necessarily existent being, theobject of such an experience under consideration would haveto be God, could not possibly not be God. Given (a) and (b),and on the basis of P and P, it is rational for the Anselmian tobelieve that PTE is possible.121