Does Religious Experience Justify Religious Belief?

The present article addresses the epistemic value of religious experience as espoused by William Alston, one of the eminent figures in philosophy of religion. The discussion on the epistemic justification in Alston's epistemology comes first in this article. In order to examine the procedure which leads to the formation of religious beliefs, the writer of the article seeks to cast light on the chain of arguments Alston follows to provide a distinction between the idea of sense perception and religious perception from the perspective of epistemic justification. Putting forward two approaches to the epitemic justification, i. e., evaluative and normative approaches, he shows that the epistemic pretension of sense perception can be justified only on the basis of minimum approach to the normative justification, and then examines the religious (Christian) perception approach against this attitude towards epistemic justification, concluding that this epistemic approach, like the other one, is justifiable and religious experience can justify certain religious beliefs under certain conditions with the stipulation that such a prima facie justification may be undermined or confuted by other strong counter-arguments.