Experience as the Ground of Certainty
Experience as the Ground of Certainty These diverging viewpoints on the nature and content of religious experience make it clear that we must carefully distinguish here between truth and error, and be on guard for misunderstanding.
Upon deeper reflection, we become increasingly convinced of this, for if we take experience to mean sense perception—as we do when we speak of the experimental sciences—then there is no place for experience in religious knowledge. The real content of the Christian faith, whether it be taken in a broader or narrower sense to include only moral truths or also the person of Christ, the trinity, the incarnation and Christ's propitiation, is entirely beyond experience.
It cannot be seen or heard, measured or weighed. And it is completely impossible to establish the truth of that faith by experiment.
If experience is taken in the sense of inner experience, it is true beyond doubt that the Christian faith brings with it a wealth of experiences. Guilt feelings, concerns about sin, accusations of conscience, fears about death and eternity, the need for redemption, hope in Christ, peace in His blood, reconciliation with God, fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit, consolation of the heart, joy of the soulforetastes of eternal life and many other humbling and comforting experiences-to a greater or lesser degree these are all part of the life of those who follow the Christian way of salvation. The Christian faith awakens a whole world of emotions in the human heart, ranging on the scale from groans of utter brokenness to the jubilant song of blessed exultation.
But all these experiences presuppose, accompany and follow faith.
They are not its ground and do not precede it. Anyone who does not believe the Scriptures' teachings on sin and does not acknowledge them as a revelation from God, also will not be overcome by a sense of guilt. Anyone who does not confess Christ to be the Savior of the world will not seek propitiation for sin in His blood. Similarly,
anyone who does not believe in the Holy Spirit will never taste His fellowship. And anyone who doubts the existence of God cannot rejoice in being His child and heir. Those who come to God must, in short, believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who seek
Him.
All these truths, which constitute the content of the Christian faith, are also by their very nature impossible to experience personally.
They are, after all, not innate ideas; we cannot dredge them up from the hidden treasure of our hearts simply by thinking hard. We can only learn about them if we are told by someone else. No one knows by nature that God is the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, that He suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried, descended into hell, arose, ascended into heaven until
He shall come again to judge theliving and the dead, that the Holy Spirit regenerates man and leads him into the truth, that there is one holy, catholic church to which in grace God has given the gifts of the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
It was a common practice to derive the resurrection from the experience of God's children. And the power of the resurrection is indeed revealed in believers. The new, spiritual life flows to them from this source. They are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ. Faith, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of glory, dying in Christ are built on the resurrection, and without it these experiences would be no more than vain illusions.
Nevertheless, it is self-deception to think that the reality of the resurrection of Christ can be deduced from the new life of the children of God apart from the Scriptures. The Christian knows that he owes this new life to Christ's resurrection only from the apostolic witness. This is the only way he can come to know it here on earth.
The inner experience of the power of Christ's resurrection