In my last post about the charity collector, I mentioned something of importance that I would like now to talk about further.
Using My Story With Apologies
I enter the realm of personal experience hesitantly, knowing that it is open misunderstanding. (At least one good friend of mine doubts whether I actually know the Lord even now simply because my experience is different from that of others!)
I've been told more than once that my 'intellect' would get me into trouble. (Strange, when I don't consider myself to be intellectually proficient at all.) Now at 68, I concede that 'intellectual' issues can be a snare used by the devil to lure us away from the Lord1 although I would add that often 'emotional' dysfunction stemming from painful family experience combined with individual temperament is a dense canopy preventing us seeing God, ourselves and others with any accuracy. Intellectual rumination is often an expression of deeper conflict.
In saying this, I mean, to warn us about over focussing on what is happening to us physically as if that is infallible revelation. Just falling over in a meeting doesn't necessarily mean anything; in fact, for some folk, it is highly undesirable.2
You may have had mystical revelations but even these can lead you and others astray because we are prone to misinterpret. Trusting in outward appearance and inward experiences alone is also liable to lead us awry. Let us rather trust in the Word of God which endures for ever (1Pet 1.23-25).
It is a fundamental principle of all the great, Christian prayer traditions that the one thing needful is to place our faith in Jesus Christ who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, leads us into the heart of God the Father!
2. My observation of one group of High Anglicans who devoutly practised anointing with oil and praying for the sick was that the person being prayed for, was always seated. When I asked them about that they said, 'Well we don't think it a wise practice to have them standing because in the past many people fall down' !!
3. The Wesleyan ethos had a significant influence on my life for a number of reasons. My paternal grandfather had been a Methodist lay preacher before becoming a part of the Pentecostal movement but grandpa was Methodist in much of his outlook. He exercised a strong influence over all his 11 children even while being a loving grandpa to his many grandchildren. I loved him dearly and missed him profoundly after his death.
You may have had mystical revelations but even these can lead you and others astray because we are prone to misinterpret. Trusting in outward appearance and inward experiences alone is also liable to lead us awry. Let us rather trust in the Word of God which endures for ever (1Pet 1.23-25).
It is a fundamental principle of all the great, Christian prayer traditions that the one thing needful is to place our faith in Jesus Christ who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, leads us into the heart of God the Father!
My struggle to know
From the time I was a child, I believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God (Jn 20.31). However, in my later teenage years I was bedevilled by the question of how can we know that God is real. No one I spoke with at my church seemed troubled with this question at all in the way that I was.
I was an oddity! I kept quiet and didn't speak about my inner turmoil. I felt trapped; caught within my church, school, later my work, and the reference books I was reading in order to understand myself all of which were telling me that I had an insoluble, intellectual problem of faith.
As near as I could understand things, I had no sound reason to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God or that indeed God Himself even existed. Reading everything I could find that could help me became my obsession. I made copious notes and learned much about philosophy and philosophers in the process but no relief ensued.
In my 20s and 30s, I had a good memory and could remember where I had read interesting ideas -the library source, the book, the side of the page in the book and sometimes even the page number. (Less so today of course!)
The pentecostal tradition of which I was part was steeped (without fully knowing it) in the experiential religion of John and Charles Wesley.3
John Wesley (1703-1791) was a scholarly, Anglican reformer who died an Anglican but of 'methodist' persuasion which those after him used to establish 'Methodist' churches, particularly in the US.
A later Wesleyan, Albert C. Outler (1909-1989) mid-twentieth century proposed a 'quadrilateral' of authority to determine the will of God, viz., scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, based on Wesley's comprehensive writings. However, Outler himself felt some sorrow about the terms because of their being 'misconstrued'.
1. That has
happened to me and to others I know but in my case, the problems became evident as emotionally-based rooted in my family history playing a larger role than my intellectual questions.As near as I could understand things, I had no sound reason to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God or that indeed God Himself even existed. Reading everything I could find that could help me became my obsession. I made copious notes and learned much about philosophy and philosophers in the process but no relief ensued.
In my 20s and 30s, I had a good memory and could remember where I had read interesting ideas -the library source, the book, the side of the page in the book and sometimes even the page number. (Less so today of course!)
The pentecostal tradition of which I was part was steeped (without fully knowing it) in the experiential religion of John and Charles Wesley.3
John Wesley (1703-1791) was a scholarly, Anglican reformer who died an Anglican but of 'methodist' persuasion which those after him used to establish 'Methodist' churches, particularly in the US.
The Structure of Methodism's Authority
A later Wesleyan, Albert C. Outler (1909-1989) mid-twentieth century proposed a 'quadrilateral' of authority to determine the will of God, viz., scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, based on Wesley's comprehensive writings. However, Outler himself felt some sorrow about the terms because of their being 'misconstrued'.
The four dimensions above can be associated with a four-sided geometrical figure (like a 'trapezoid' in this case --but it could be a square, rectangle or parallelogram, etc.).
For Wesley, the scriptures were viewed as foundational because they are the Word of God. The other three authorities are subordinate to Scripture. Wesley was quite clear about that fact (which builds on his Anglican heritage of scripture, tradition, and reason).
Watson has outlined the four elements using Outler's descriptions. It's Wesley's notion of experience that marks his departure from a strictly Anglican view but what does Wesley mean by that term?
Outler defines 'experience' to mean not just 'general' experience, and not even a general Christian experience either, but specifically, 'the assurance of our own sins forgiven'. See here. Wesley directly connects this assurance with the witness of the Spirit in our hearts that we are the children of God (Roms 8.16).
What Watson is at pains to point out is that 'experience' adds nothing doctrinally to the corpus of Christian teaching (as some within and outside the Wesleyan tradition are attempting to do with 'genderless' marriage).
Next time I will try to connect this Wesleyan teaching of the Quadrilateral (scripture, tradition, reason, and experience) with the question, Can We Know God is Real? Part 2.
For Wesley, the scriptures were viewed as foundational because they are the Word of God. The other three authorities are subordinate to Scripture. Wesley was quite clear about that fact (which builds on his Anglican heritage of scripture, tradition, and reason).
Watson has outlined the four elements using Outler's descriptions. It's Wesley's notion of experience that marks his departure from a strictly Anglican view but what does Wesley mean by that term?
Outler defines 'experience' to mean not just 'general' experience, and not even a general Christian experience either, but specifically, 'the assurance of our own sins forgiven'. See here. Wesley directly connects this assurance with the witness of the Spirit in our hearts that we are the children of God (Roms 8.16).
What Watson is at pains to point out is that 'experience' adds nothing doctrinally to the corpus of Christian teaching (as some within and outside the Wesleyan tradition are attempting to do with 'genderless' marriage).
Next time I will try to connect this Wesleyan teaching of the Quadrilateral (scripture, tradition, reason, and experience) with the question, Can We Know God is Real? Part 2.
2. My observation of one group of High Anglicans who devoutly practised anointing with oil and praying for the sick was that the person being prayed for, was always seated. When I asked them about that they said, 'Well we don't think it a wise practice to have them standing because in the past many people fall down' !!
3. The Wesleyan ethos had a significant influence on my life for a number of reasons. My paternal grandfather had been a Methodist lay preacher before becoming a part of the Pentecostal movement but grandpa was Methodist in much of his outlook. He exercised a strong influence over all his 11 children even while being a loving grandpa to his many grandchildren. I loved him dearly and missed him profoundly after his death.
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