Human Destinies: Philosophical Essays in Memory of Gerald Hanratty

Chapter Fifteen: The Experiential Argument for the Existence of God in Gabriel Marcel and Alvin Plantinga

f i f t e e n the experiential argument for the existence of God in Gabriel marcel and alvin Plantinga Brendan Sweetman in these brief reflections, i wish to explore and extend Gabriel marcel ’s approach to the question of the existence of God. i believe that marcel’s work offers many profound insights on the subject that have not received sufficient attention or appreciation. indeed, within contemporary philosophy of religion his approach can be accurately described as unique. as with many of marcel’s major themes, his ideas on the existence of God require a certain amount of excavation and reconstruction . this is in part due to his philosophical style, which is sometimes cursory, inchoate, and suggestive; as a result, his ideas are often loosely organized and developed on particular topics, over a range of his works. as Gerald Hanratty accurately notes: “more than most philosophers, it is true of Gabriel marcel that the form and the content of his thought are inseparable.”1 He frequently fails to develop his ideas in logical fashion or with the necessary detail to allow his readers to fully tease out his train of thought. many of his ideas are 366 the experiential argument for the existence of God 367 best approached by bringing to the subject under discussion an overall familiarity with his work. indeed, marcel frequently assumes knowledge of his previous work and regularly quotes from earlier expositions . this is particularly the case with regard to the question of God’s existence. nevertheless i believe he has made a profound contribution to the question of what is involved in an affirmation of God. in this essay, i will begin by briefly recalling some of the key themes in his work that are relevant to the topic; then i will seek to elaborate upon his own position; and last, i will compare and contrast his standpoint with that of alvin Plantinga from the anglo-american philosophical tradition. this comparison will help us not only to further explicate and understand marcel’s view but also to appreciate the profundity of both marcel’s and Plantinga’s positions. at the same time, it will suggest why marcel’s approach may be more fruitful than Plantinga’s for an analysis of religious experience and its connection to the existence of God. this would not be an insignificant conclusion, given the very favorable reception granted to, and the large influence of, Plantinga’s view in contemporary philosophy of religion. i marcel is well known for drawing a general distinction in his work between reflection and experience. this is a distinction found in many contemporary european philosophers, including Bergson, merleauPonty , Heidegger, and Buber. However, as i have argued elsewhere, marcel develops his view very differently from these other philosophers ;2 in particular, he wishes strongly to avoid an analysis of reflection and experience, and their relationship, that may lead to epistemological or moral relativism (a problem the other philosophers mentioned sometimes have difficulty avoiding). He develops his own unique view of the relationship between reflection and experience; the central concepts in his analysis are primary and secondary reflection, and problem and mystery. One of his main points is that the realm of conceptual knowledge, which includes both philosophy and science, is inadequate to capture the fundamental experiences of human beings 368 Brendan Sweetman in their world.3 these experiences take place at the level of what he calls being-in-a-situation and include the experience of our own embodiment , the relationship of mind to body, and the “concrete approaches ” to being that are revealed in our intersubjective relations with others: faith, fidelity, hope, and love. marcel argues that as human beings we first experience the world in intersubjective relationships; later, we reflect on our experiences by means of various acts of abstraction and analytic reasoning. this kind of reasoning can be part of ordinary everyday thinking, or it may be the more systematic, detailed work that takes place in academic disciplines , such as philosophy and science. But in this type of reflection, marcel argues, we must realize that no matter how careful or deeply philosophical our reasoning is, we can never fully capture at the level of reflection the nature of our various experiences. this level at best only partially, and therefore inadequately, captures our experiences; yet it does allow us to understand something about them. at worst it can distort the experience...