Scripture vs. Experience?

As I’m getting into the swing of my seminary class, I’m noticing a strange trend, particularly among “Theology people:” They have this… tendency to criticize the modern church for putting too much emphasis on experience, apparently at the expense of scripture. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that not all is well and good with the church in the world today. There’s all kinds of stupid stuff going on. Nevertheless, it’s a rather disingenuous dichotomy

As I’ve said before, it’s very difficult to honestly say that scripture and experience are opposed to one another and then proceed to pass judgement on experience while lifting up scripture as a better reflection of reality. The people who are the most successful in making a distinction between scripture and experience usually proceed to throw out the bible, because most people understand that people whose experiences don’t match up with reality usually end up very carefully medicated, sitting in little padded cells.

Have no fear. I’m not saying that scripture doesn’t match up with reality. I’m saying that scripture and experience *both* match reality. In John 5:39, Jesus is speaking to an unspecified group of Jews and says “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” Basically, he was saying that Scripture and experience matched up perfectly in the presence of the Messiah. You might even say that he was raising experience *above* scripture, because he was saying that the scripture only spoke *about* him, yet here he was, the reality in fact. Nevertheless, the two matched up, as far as Jesus was concerned. He went on to say “yet you refuse to come to me to have life,” indicating that their failure to recognize him as Messiah didn’t have anything to do with a discrepancy between the Scriptures and the experience, but with the evil in their own hearts. That is to say, it was an interpretation problem brought upon evil men by darkened minds. They had a moral failing to recognize reality.

In case you have any doubt that the Scripture and experience can match up (at least as far as the bible’s own testimony is concerned) 2 Peter says that Scripture actually came into being by means of experience: “Prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” “Carried along,” huh? sounds to me like these prophets had “an experience” and that the bible came into existance as a result.

The bible speaks in countless other places about spiritual “experiences,” and never once (that I know of) does the bible condemn a person using their experience as a basis for belief or for understanding God’s will and purpose. Nowhere does Scripture indicate that Moses should have ignored that burning bush and stuck to what he learned from his father-in-law Jethro, or that Ezekiel shouldn’t have trusted that experience he had in the valley of dry bones. On the contrary, Paul speaks with some confidence to the Thesalonians, when he says, “We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” That “power and the Holy Spirit” thing may just mean really dynamic speaking skills, but it’s very doubtful. Paul was clearly indicating that there was something in the way the Gospel was preached to the Thesalonians that involved something more than the words, and that that “something” was of a supernatural nature. That is to say that there’s a pretty clear precident in scripture that experience can actually work to ratify the scriptures, and very little to indicate that scripture and experience should be placed in opposition.

There is, of course, little verse in in Deuteronomy that people tend to worry over:

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and will all your soul.

To me, the hypothetical experience described here is something like the happily married man who is sitting absently in a public place when suddenly a strange woman walks up to him and plants a solid smootch on his lips, and proceeds to say things like “come away with me, baby.” Any self-respecting man (who *is* happily married) would know exactly what to do in this situation: run away fast. The experience of being kissed by a strange woman in a public place, no matter how impressive, is not to be compared with being kissed by his own wife. A kiss from the wife communicates a sincere and devoted affection. A kiss from a strange woman in a public place is… violently scary. There is absolutely no chance that her advances could ever lead to anything good.

Nevertheless, a man who is afraid of being kissed in public places by strange women (a very nervous and jumpy man, to be sure) does not retreat from kisses. He retreats from strange women. He does not rush home and forgo the physical attentions of his wife in favor of reading through old high school love letters. For one thing, he will quickly discover that his wife was actually a quite terrible writer in high school, and for another, the man who avoids the experiential knowledge of his wife eventually ends up in the same position as the man who goes off in persuit of strange women: divorced. And from every indication in scripture, to be divorced from God is a very terrible thing indeed.

Of course, God has never been a terrible writer (unless you’re refering to the fact that Leviticus is really boring for the bedside table), and I’m sure I know what they’re after, those theologians who warn against putting our trust in experience: I don’t think they’re really worried about us putting trust in our experience. Who could really trust in a god with whom they had absolutely no experience? Even the simplest kind of faith requires the intervention of the Holy Spirit, which would be a kind of experience. Even reading the bible is a kind of experience. I think what causes them alarm is not that people put *trust* in experiences so much as that people so often *persue* experiences. Like Baby in the muppet sit-com Dinosaurs, we get thrown across the room by some experience and, instead of saying “wow, I just put a hole in the living room wall. Maybe screaming and yelling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” we just cry out “Again!!”

Persuing experience for the sake of experience is, if not evil, more than a little foolish. It’s like the college girl who receives a bouquet every day from an admirer. Every day she rushes to the mail room expectantly, and sure enough, she gets the most beautiful bouquet anyone has ever seen. And every day she cries out, “oh! I *love* flowers!” The flowers are real. There’s no doubt about that. But if she doesn’t put some serious thought into what those flowers mean, she’s going to end up in real trouble. She needs to find out who it is that’s sending the flowers, and what exactly he means by it. She needs to find out if his intentions are honorable, and if she’s truly interested in the relationship he intends for her. If she doesn’t put in the necessary thought, she’ll be setting herself up for some unfortunate possibilities. Her admirer (assuming the best aims on his part) may eventually give up if she doesn’t ever get the hint. Worse, some other schmo may come along and claim credit for the flowers and who knows what this other guy wants?

Jesus told the Sadducees, “You are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.” The Sadducees had it bad because it wasn’t like they didn’t have the scriptures or the power of God. Both were quite available to them. They were certainly *aware* of the scriptures, and Jesus himself was living nearby; if they had cared to inquire about the scriptures and the power of God, info was available. Today though, its a rare sort that drives off both sides of the road at the same time (you can do it, but it’s difficult). Usually, we pick our favorite curb. “Theology people” tend to err on the side of the guy who ignores his wife and reads her letters. “Mystics” or “Spiritual people” tend to err on the side of the girl who loves flowers, but doesn’t do the research to find out what they’re supposed to mean.

Nevertheless, I believe that both are important to the church and *both* need to be examined in the light of each other.

Author: KB French

Formerly many things, including theology student, mime, jr. high Latin teacher, and Army logistics officer. Currently in the National Guard, and employed as a civilian... somewhere View all posts by KB French