The Theological Value of Experience [Improviso #29] 

I'll tell you a little story about "experience." Thirty years ago (Yes, I'm that old), I was in an aspiring Christian rock band, hoping to get off the ground. We were in need of a frontman/singer. A fellow who visited us told us that God had led him to come to us to be our singer. We were a bit skeptical, but we let him try out. The man LITERALLY could not sing--at all. He could not hold a pitch. He could not keep a rhythm. He was the farthest thing I could imagine from somebody capable of carrying a tune, let alone actually sing. We politely told him, after a couple of tries, that he ought to consider something else. Here's the thing: he was so convinced that God was leading him, and if I recall correctly he said that God basically told him to try out. His "experience" was what he was basing his attempt on. This is not the first time I heard people base their Christianity on their experience and end up becoming disappointed. People have had dreams and visions that never came to pass, despite their insistence that they "heard from God" in those experiences. And in a couple of cases I'm certain it drove people away from the faith. Experience is like tradition: it must conform to Scripture, or it is not valid. There are three sources for divine promptings: God, Satan, or human imagination, and no matter how sincere or realistic an experience may be, it must be examined in light of God's Word, and must be rejected if it conflicts with the Word. I do not entirely discount experience. That being said, experience has been used to justify false religion (Islam, Mormonism), to embrace unbiblical doctrines (revivalism, unscriptural "tongues", women pastors), to excuse evil (people who have divorced their spouses because they believed "God told them" that they were to do so in order to marry somebody else), and other things. Plus, the pursuit of experience AT THE VERY LEAST brings with it the temptation to deemphasize the authority of Scripture. All one has to do is look at the blasphemous accounts on Sid Roth's "It's Supernatural" show to see numerous examples of that. Let me tell you how experience has actually been validated for me. When I hear the arguments from atheists who overwhelmingly deny God's existence from will rather than evidence, I am reminded of the truth of St. Paul's words in Romans 1. When I hear the false teachers of the prosperity gospel, the passages warning about the love of money in I Timothy are validated. In other words, I experience the sinfulness of this world, see how it plays out, and that more than anything confirms the truth of Scripture about the need for humanity to embrace Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. G.K. Chesterton once wryly remarked that it was the arguments made against Christianity that solidified his embrace of the faith. I would argue that he is making a very scriptural argument from experience. And seeing our world now, I would completely agree with him.

The strongest argument for the value of experience is the fact many have converted to Christianity due to dreams and visions. These experiences saved people and given the biblical record of God working through dreams would tend to affirm the possibility of such things. The key to me is many of these folks who have these visions did not have access or inclination to engage in Christianity so they needed this more extraordinary intervention. But after receiving this vision as a promoting they can engage in the ordinary means of receiving the faith.

God is a God of means - that includes experience. Reading is an experience. Thinking is an experience. Everything humans do is experienced unless they're sleepwalking.

I think there's two "kinds" of experience: the foundational and the establishing. You talk about experience as foundational to how we understand what Jesus tesches; His reference from where He builds His illustrations. The enthusiasts on the other hand use experience in an establishing way; what they feel and encounter informs tuem on Who God is, and their readimg of scripture is through this lens. Why us God like a Father? Because He embodies the good and perfect attributes we try to model our fathership after. Why is speaking in tongues edifying to ourselves? Because I feel the anointing when I pray in tongues. Do you see how one is other than the other?