God's existence can be experienced with immediate certainty

This argument is used in the debate Does God exist?.

This argument is a “pro” argument in the debate Does God exist?.

Keywords: faith, mystical experience, Mysticism, Contemplation, Art, inner certainty, God, Existence of God

Summary

The existence of God can be experienced directly in privileged moments when life seems full of meaning and the universe adorned with supernatural beauty. These moments belong to art and poetry, and can be experienced when listening to certain sacred music or in intense moments of love. More quietly, it can be faith experienced as self-evident that imposes itself on certain people. These subjective experiences are accompanied by a feeling of certainty and evidence that nothing can shake. The existence of such experiences raises the question: aren't they proof (not rational, but experienced) of God's existence? If not, can they be explained in a down-to-earth, even reductionist way? Where do these transcendent emotions come from?

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References

Justifications

The certainty of faith
Mystical experiences
The experience of love
Contemplating sacred art
Contemplating nature

Objections

These are subjective experiences
These are infantile feelings that invade adult consciousness, leading it to believe in an illusory completeness.
Faced with the world, we can also be subjectively certain that God doesn't exist, that everything is absurd...
Even if the phenomenon has a divine origin, the deities to whom these transcendences are attributed vary.

Parent debate