The Argument for God from Experience: Human Beings Experience Something More

In Premise 1 of my Argument for the Existence of God from Experience, I state: Human beings have experiences that evoke a profound sense of dependence, awe, and transcendence (what Schleiermacher calls the feeling of absolute dependence).

My last blog served to explain what Schleiermacher means by his feeling of absolute dependence. In short, Schleiermacher contests God is experienced by humans as a non-sensate awareness in what he calls the immediate self-consciousness. For him, this plays out as a feeling of dependence on Creator from creation.

My goal today is not so technical. I aim only to provide justification for my claim that humans do, in fact, have experiences which evoke feelings of dependence, awe, and transcendence.

Religious Experience

"Man is born with the religious capacity as with every other. If only his sense for the profoundest depths of his own nature is not crushed out, if only all fellowship between himself and the Primal Source is not quite shut off, religion would, after its own fashion, infallibly be developed." (1)

Schleiermacher penned these words in the midst of the Enlightenment, when for him sensitivity to the experience of the divine was being dulled by the systematic deconstruction of belief in a higher power. In many ways, we live in similar times. The claims of Christianity are being lumped together with notions of nationalism, and the result for many is the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

For this and for many reasons, I will make no attempt to assert all people have experiences which may attest to the presence of God in their lives. But it is, at the same time, apparent many do.

Dependence, Awe, and Transcendence

In its 2025 Religious Landscape Study, Pew Research Center demonstrates a striking 93% of survey respondents experience a sense of awe (ie. vastness, vulnerability, dependence, renewal) when they consider the beauty of nature. For them, this experience occurs at least several times a year.

The same group of respondents experience what they describe as "the presence of something from beyond the world" (i.e. transcendence), at a rate of 61%. The frequency of this occurrence, for them, is also at least several times a year.

Of interest, 28% of nones (i.e. those who identify as aethiest, agnostic, or nothing in particular) included themselves in the group of those who experience something beyond the world. Importantly, that those who consider themselves nonreligious have self-transcendent experiences (STE's) is a finding confirmed in recent research.

Additionally, the percentage of those affirming transcendent experience is up from 59% in the 2024 Religious Lanscape Study, suggesting that, while belief in God overall may be on the decline, the experiences that may point to God are on the rise. (Perhaps words fail in the midst of cultural and spiritual tumult.)

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkley, and founder of Greater Good Science Center. While by no means a religious Center, Dr. Keltner is widely recognized for his research in the human experience of awe, collecting and synthesizing thousands of individual accounts detailing personal encounters. Importantly, he notes:

"It merits considering what was not mentioned in stories of awe from around the world. Money didn't figure into awe...no one mentioned their laptop, Facebook, Apple Watch, or smartphone. Nor did anyone mention their new Nikes, Tesla, Gucci bag, or Montblanc pen. Awe occurs in a realm separate from the mundane world of materialism...a realm beyond the profane that many call the sacred." (2)

For those interested in reading more of Dr. Keltner's work, I have linked his book on awe here.

Bottom Line

Those who believe in God have offered many explications of their faith. For philosophers like Paul Tillich, God is the Ground of Being. For process theists like Charles Hartshorne, God is the Soul of the Universe. For Schleiermacher, God is the One on whom we are absolutely dependent. For many, however, their experience of "something more" then themselves is far less defined.

Of course, there is more that can be said in defense of the proposition that humans have experiences which provoke a sense of dependence, awe and transcendence. This post, at minimum, serves to demonstrate the existence of research in support of the claim.

In my next post, I will begin to review Premise 2 of my Argument for the Existence of God from Experience. Specifically, I will explore my assertion that these experiences are epistemically significant, as a source of non-propositional knowledge. I will start by examining the work of Michael Polanyi.

1. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, trans. John Ohman (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishing, 1958), 87.

2. 8 Wonders of Everyday Life For Awe And Self-Transcendence. Accessed 8-5-2025.