"In Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis tells the story of a man who didn’t think he should have to bother learning theology because he’d had some powerful personal experiences of God. Lewis acknowledges that such experiences may have profound value. Such a person, he says, may claim to know God the way someone who spends a lot of time at the beach may claim to know the ocean. But if you want to cross the ocean, a map would be more helpful than your personal memories of the beach, and if you want to journey toward a deeper knowledge of God, theology is a sort of map that will help you more than personal experience alone. Then Lewis makes the point that a map of the ocean is not opposed to experience but is rather based on the composite experience of hundreds of people, and Christian theology is not opposed to experience but is rather based on the composite experience of thousands of people. In the same way, the academic life builds on the experience of tens of thousands of people who have gone before us in any given discipline — people who have thought and written and experimented. We don’t withdraw from experience when we step into the academic world, but we do draw back into a broader view, so that we see not just our own perspective but the perspective of many thinking people all at once."
Dr. Laura Smit
Calvin College
I just read Romans 5 today and was struck by the mention of experience leading to hope...
And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." -- Romans 5:3-6"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;