Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
I have seen and I testify : a very biblical way of knowing.
But, we might say, that was John the Baptist; hardly your average benchmark? Surely we shouldn't expect any such dynamics today.
I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he
we should all have at least that testimony of seeing Spirit dynamics?
experience first.
But what of the treasured framework of scripture? Well yes, but the New Testament witness is that experience is constantly re-ordering the frame, reshaping what they thought they knew. Indeed the whole biblical narrative is doing that. What is God really up to?
How does Israel end up with a crucified messiah as the hope of the nations? Experience has to play its part, tell us how this works. Paul had better scriptural knowledge than most of us - and still had the wrong end of the stick - until an experience with the risen Jesus corrected him.
On reflection there is much of this in Scripture. Peter doesn't open the doors to Gentile mission after a 3 day conference on the missional implications of messianic fulfillment of Old Testament promise; pondering the meaning of the inclusion of 300 Philistines in David's bodyguard and the real meaning of the Abrahamic promise.
No - he has a vision that gets him out in a Gentile's house - where he sees the Holy Spirit fall on Cornelius and his household.
Those involved do not appeal to scripture as the verification - the argument hinges on experience.
"The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God."
We get the whole thing twice; an account of what happened, and then Peter's recounting to those Jewish Christians who aren't impressed by fraternizing with the Gentiles.
And so in recounting this to the Jewish Christians he cites the experience in detail:
"I saw a vision ..
"I saw something like ..
"I looked into it and saw ..
"Then I heard a voice ...
"I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! ..
“The voice spoke from heaven a second time..
"This happened three times ..
“Right then three men... stopped at the house where I was staying ..
"The Spirit told me..
"He told us how he had seen an angel appear ..
"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them ..
And acknowledges that only after experiencing all this did an understanding begin to form.
"Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ "
Thats Peter - who spent three years with Jesus.
And that dramatic story carries the day.
"When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.” "
We better be careful about dismissing the role of experience!!! - the biblical picture is that sometimes we work out what Spirit of God is up to through observing Him in action.
Certainly its Peter - a trusted leader among them - we don't want to be at the mercy of every untested claim. But even if we acknowledge that risk, we have to maintain an attitude and a mindset that is still open to the basic willingness to looks and see what God is up to. The desire to avoid errant or risky ideas of guidance might minimise that, or tend to relegate it to history.
Yet Peter is hardly going to say experience doesn't matter. Or his listeners ask, "When you walked on the water Peter, did you consider the biblical antecedents?" No, Jesus said come; the relevant biblical antecedent is that God's people follow Him, come what may - not that they have seen everything before.
The bible is all about unexpected experience. God is leading them out. The waters part. The Magii have come. Mary is pregnant. The Messiah is here. John is baptising. The Spirit comes upon Him. Jesus is transfigured. The body is not in the tomb. Paul is arrested on the road. The Holy Spirit has come as tongues of fire and a rushing wind - and now even on the Gentiles
Scriptural understanding and categories are always catching up with all this. And it must do so - i'm not at all dismissing the need for sound learning that draws out the resonances of these events. I love learning here - pursuing more. But ruling experience out of court as a primary witness, as the data that theology has to deal with, is a mistake. As is systematizing it all to a known quantity; can hardly be God's story if we manage to do that.
More formal ways to say that might be to claim the primacy of history as the ground of both being and knowing; of ontology and epistemology - though these hairy terms are useful only to buttress the simple claim that what actually happens is the primary evidence; the story, our story, matters more than just propositional truth. I'm reflecting on this again as i listen to a post grad series of lectures - the lecturer a continuing example to me- as he was 20 years ago - of reconciling academic intellect and pentecostal dimension. (I've worked in science and maths and IT as well as education since then, and certainly appreciate propositional truth - but can see the biblical story doesn't come that way. I'm not even sure the scientific one always does for that matter.) Or as Whitehead - who was certainly no anti-intellectual - said of philosophy, the primary appeal must always be to immediate experience. If the system can't explain that, its lacking in truth.
And we don't just want to talk about the story of the past. We want to be surprised by the dimensions of unexpected experience as God does something among us! That's biblical!
And not just dramatic moments or power encounters - though by all means lets not squeeze that out of the picture - but what is God doing in quieter ways in our daily lives. Can we see it?
(update - discussed more in the comments).
Experience is a challenge to all who hold to the importance of Scripture, but the truth is clear, experience is the way we form our theology. When you engage in conversation with other Christians it becomes clearer that their views are largely formed out of their experience, even when they appeal to Scripture as a justification for that experience.
ReplyDeleteWe are experiental creatues as well as intellectual beings. I agree with you that it is time we recognised the importance of experience, but experience reflected on in the light of Scripture. As an example of this I refer to one senior clergyperson who has a strong history of detailed Biblical criticism. Their family has a homexual child and this has led to a rationalising of the Biblical witness against such behaviour. Experience has triumphed over clear revelation.
On the other hand you could easily point to other instances where experience has led to s deeper relationship with the Lord founded on the biblical witness. One example would be my own experience of the pentecostal experience which I had resisted on biblical grounds, but had to accept my experience and subsequently read the Scritures in a new way to see the validity of my experience.
Who knows, there may well be other blind spots in my knowledge which are yet to be corrected by future experiences!!
Hi John,
ReplyDeletesounds like we agree that its biblical and a fact of human nature that experience causes one to form and rethink theology. The example you cite where negative experience has lead one to probably faulty conclusions is the risk i guess, but i don't think it invalidates the principle that experience informs our story; and that in large it informs theology in general. Maybe the liberal and conservative camps are ultimately based on experience – good, bad, reaction etc?
Totally agree with the need to rethink in the light of scripture - just as in the example of Gentile mission Paul later proceeded to teach and reflect on this in detail- but a lifetime of study hadn't opened that door until experience caused him to rethink his categories; and then the text did indeed support that; but he needed the Spirit to be able to see it.
To take another example that comes to mind; whether we experience the miraculous today - or perhaps the prophetic is a less dramatic example - or never see this in our circle, seems to me likely to effect our theology of whether such things still happen - and that then affects how we read the text.
For example, is Jesus inability to perform many miracles in his home town - except by laying on hands - still instructive in any practical sense for us today? Does it just tell us about his experience; or does it also teach us something about these same dynamics today. Similarly with the instructions on spiritual gifts etc.
I don't think our reading of Gospel texts can stand outside of that experiential question, even when counterbalanced against personal bias by tradition and scholarship. Turning to scholars for an impartial answer on the miracle question – a reading free of eisegesis - we’d find them divided exactly because experience is divergent. How many have had to change their theology when experience went beyond what they had ruled out?
So I think experience does precondition our reading.
And while there is the risk of introducing our own ideas, I think there is a risk we won't even see certain dynamics unless experience is somewhat parallel. Whether we think the plane still flies affects how we read the flight manual.
Acts 2 was an interesting historical and biblical event - until it started happening again Asuza St - with all of the same reactions :)
anyway - thanks for reading - you've taught me heaps of course.