Experiencing God

Some philosophers claim that it is not possible for God, if God exists, to figure in the phenomenological content of experience. W.T. Stace was one such philosopher committed to this claim, but he offered nothing in the way of an argument for it. William Forgie, however, has argued that on the assumption of two putatively plausible theses about the phenomenology of experience, phenomenologically theistic experience is impossible. In this paper I suggest how a broadly Anselmian theist 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 show how three of those objections fail of their aim and how the argument can be reformulated to meet the fourth. I conclude that a broadly Anselmian theist who accepts the theses in question has good prima facie reasons for believing that phenomenologically theistic experience is possible.