What (if anything) can justify the objective truth of an alleged immediate experience of God?

Théogène Havugimana

pp. 177-187

in: Enik Sepsi, Aniko Daróczi (eds), The immediacy of mystical experience in the European tradition, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Any claim about a possible immediate experience of God raises the question of the conditions of the possibility of experience in general (epistemologically speaking) and, especially, that of an immediate experience of God. The central issue is whether the former (general) and latter (specific) conditions are congruent or not. From within Kant's theory of intuitions in his Critique of pure Reason, experience is always mediated and he argues that "[W]ithout sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought" (CpR B 75). Thus, if experience of God is to be immediately achieved, such an achievement would require the possibility of an intellectual intuition which, for Kant, is in principle impossible for humans. In other words, the conditions for the possibility of immediate experience of God—if it can be achieved at all—must be searched for within a different framework, which Kant opens in his practical metaphysics based on "the fundamental law of pure practical reason" (CprR 5:31).

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel