An Experiential Faith
For a young Christian, one of the most common struggles is that they experience the highest of highs... exhibiting much passion and exuberance, only to struggle with the lowest of lows.. days or weeks later. They are left confused, wondering why it is that their faith is so volatile when their experiences seemed so genuine. Its a constant roller coaster ride. They go from revival to revival, retreat to retreat, depending on it to fuel their passion once again... and try to hold out the best they can till the next time they can "experience Jesus" in a powerful way. Faith is based on experience and emotion... and they perceive God mainly through the lens of experience and emotion. I can speak first hand of this.. and even now find myself victim to this. We are such emotional and experiential beings... that it even trumps ration and logic at times. Problem is that perception and experience are always changing and also relative to the person decoding that experience. There are so many human variations and factors at play and each time, God is different. Even though it is an immature faith, for me personally, it set the stage for where my faith is today... wherever that is. I look back fondly upon my genuine experiences and my "honeymoon" phase of my faith. It has been and continues to be one of the most exciting and passionate times of my walk with Him. However, it is also important to realize that our faiths are not complete and that there needs to be a continual growth period... and continual maturity in our walks. This cannot happen without Gods word, and a continual thirst for fresh revelation of His word.
More and more we celebrate our differences in society.. and most times rightly so. We champion creativity and originality... individuality and uniqueness. We've decided that we need more tolerance for such individuality, originality, and creativity, so we've come up with whole philosophical ideas and schools of thought to support it. Subjectivism, empiricism... whatever you think is good is good... whatever floats your boat is acceptable. It is a form of self and human idolatry. I am not bashing individuality and originality... nor creativity as God has made us each unique and creative. However, when it is championed at the expense of absolute truth and at the expense of God's word as well as His supremecy, it becomes problematic for us all.
Search for Truth
For a non-Christian, or even more specifically an atheist, there have been a series of experiences that have led that person to deny the existence of God. Because we are finite beings with finite knowledge, we cannot know for sure the beginning and the end. We cannot know for sure where to start our search for or against God. At some point we develop our own presuppositions and go from there. Evidences builds in the form of experience, and available knowledge but it is NOT the absolute starting point so to speak. May times, when Christians and non-believers argue about God, they do so with vastly different presuppositions and biases. They try to fill the disconnect but at some point, rarely do they end up seeing eye to eye and even more rarely is an atheist converted due to a human debate.
As a Christian, I absolutely believe that God's word is the undeniable and absolute truth.. that it is the beginning and end.. the foundation that does not change throughout time and space. I am presupposed in all my life's thoughts to Gods existence, and His supremacy and absoluteness of His word. The more and more I study Gods word, and the more and more God reveals to me truths of His character, the stronger and stronger this presuppositional thought becomes. My faith is viewed not only through my experiences but the ingrained truth of God's word. Quick explanation... even though there really cant be a neutral basis to debate my presuppositions of Gods existence and the truth of His word, I am afforded this through the avenue of my faith. I am as the bible says, saved by His grace, through faith. To me that makes it golden, though to an average non-believer, my faith is just strong subjectivism, and doesn't afford any more creditability to proving Gods absolute being. But again, that is based on a finite knowledge and a supposition/starting point of neutrality that isn't really neutral. Remember, perception is deceiving because it has so many human elements... many of which I've talked about already on this blog, such as the heart. Simply put, our experiences aren't the end all, be all of truth... and we cannot live thinking so, nor even apathetic to our perceptions of truth.
Ultimately, experiences lead us to God, but in it of itself is still a human element. The experience leads to the truth that is out there to be discovered, but many mistake the experience as the basis for their faith. While alter calls and the sinners prayer play a big part, it is not the starting point for salvation nor faith. They direct us to the Truth of who God is, and who we are in our roles in His glorious redemptive work.
haha that chart is pretty funny
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