Experiences and Emotionalism

Well, my ol' buddy Adrian is at it again - beating that old charismatic-cessationist drum again - this time he's into it with Dan Phillips from Team Pyro.  I have had online debates with Adrian on these matters in the past and have always found them helpful and enlightening.  If you are interested you can do a search for "charismaticism vs. cessationism" on my blog and it will take you to a slew of posts interacting with Adrian on the subject.

Adrian has invited me to comment on his recent exchange with Dan and so, I am happy to take him up on it.  I haven't had the chance to read all of the posts they have exchanged, but I will address two of them.

Dan wrote Tongues Across the Water," in reply to an earlier post of Adrian's and you can find links on that one to all of Dan's earlier posts.

Adrian replied with Charismatic Debate - Responding to Dan Phillips.

In this exchange, the debate is not on the charismatic gifts per se, but on the place of experience in the Christian life.  Dan says that Adrian and the charismatics tend to overemphasize feelings.  Adrian replies to Dan as follows:

Dan would probably agree with all of this up to this point. Where he parts company is over my call for us to eagerly seek for experiences of God. He repeats a frequent misunderstanding that cessationists often have of charismatics when he removes the last two words of that sentence and claims we are merely seeking emotional experiences. For most of the charismatics I know at least, it is NOT mere emotion that we seek; rather we seek an appropriate emotional response to the presence of God, and we seek His activity in our lives and churches to be manifestly present.

There is all the difference in the world between trying to work up an emotional frenzy (which, of course, we have all seen) and using legitimate God-given means of putting ourselves in an appropriate place where God can meet us.

Though Adrian is my best blogging bud and I love him dearly, I'm squarely with Dan on this.  And being a card-carrying know-it-all that I am I'll see if I can add something to the discussion.

I'm not sure what Adrian is trying to say when he says that charismatics are not seeking "mere emotion" but "an appropriate emotional response to the presence of God."  That sounds like an emotion to me.  But I think what he is getting at here is that charismatics are seeking the presence of God first, with the understanding that a sense of the presence of God will manifest itself in an emotional way.

Later in the post Adrian says this:

I do believe that we should seek those experiences of God and take every appropriate step to actively pursue them.

Well, here are a few incoherent thoughts on all of that.  I think one of the problems here is in defining what constitutes an "experience."  I suggest that all of life is an experience.  There is no such thing as a "non-experience."   Laughter is an experience, crying is an experience, reading a book is an experience, sleeping is an experience, watching TV is an experience, boredom is an experience, confusion is an experience, joy is an experience, loneliness is an experience.  Everything is an experience.  I am in the middle of an experience right now, the experience of writing a blog post.  Again, there is no such thing as a non-experience.

To take matters a bit further, we have to ask the question "what is an experience of God?"  If we believe that God is omnipresent, then we must insist that at all times and in all places, we are always experiencing God, whether we are conscious of it or not.  We may be experiencing His blessings, His cursings, His joy, His anger, His approbation, His rebuke, His discipline, His patience, or His tender loving care.  Again, whether we know it or not, there is no such thing as a "non-experience of God."  Even in hell, God is experienced in His wrath.

I believe that, in reality, what Adrian is advocating is not merely an experience of God in it's broad sense, but a particular kind, and narrowly defined experience - what I would call spiritual ecstasy.  Toward the end of the post he says this:

I do believe we can expect moments when heaven seems almost to break in and we respond with joy and wonder at the manifest presence of our coming king.

I actually can accept the first part of the statement at face value - I think we can expect moments of spiritual ecstasy at times but I don't see that the Scripture anywhere commands us to seek them.  Adrian quotes Lloyd-Jones on seeking these experiences, but without knowing the larger context of the following words I don't know where he would go to back them up in Scripture:

We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act?

I contend that God's activity is always manifest, isn't that what Romans 1, God's works are always manifest in creation.  Similarly, God's special graces are always manifest in the lives of any Christians who in any way conform their lives to God's Word.

I see in Scripture that, on very rare occasions, for instance Paul's experience of the third heaven in II Corinthians 12, there were those who experienced something like spiritual ecstasy, but I don't see that we are commanded to pursue such experiences.

When my boys were younger we used to spend alot of time playing catch with the football in the front yard.  Often they would run patterns - I taught them the differences between fly patterns, posts and down and outs - and I would throw to them.  One day, after only a few throws, one of my sons (who is a bit of a free spirit) stopped and said "dad, I need to work on my signature end zone dance."

I liken that to this call to pursue experiences.  While no one should deny a football player the right to rejoice when scoring a touchdown or the euphoria that comes with a big win, doing an end zone dance or locker room celebration is not the object of the game.  The object is to play the game.

Similarly, what we are to pursue is not spiritual ecstasy, but Jesus Christ Himself.  And we ought not to make spiritual ecstasy the mark of a true experience with Jesus.  Nor ought we to expect that spiritual ecstasy will necessarily follow great spiritual victories.  Remember what happend to Elijah after his great victory over the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18-19.

Now, if you want to talk about an experience of a kind of settled joy that characterizes the whole of a Christian's life, I can accept that.  I believe that joy is a fruit of the spirit that can even be present in the midst of sorrow.  What I am arguing here is that this super duper intensified experience of joy that takes the form of spiritual ecstasy is not normative in the Christian life, and is not to particularly to be sought.

Related Tags: Christian, Christianity, Charismatic, Charismaticism, Cessationist, Cessationism, Spiritual Gifts, Charismatic Gifts, Holy Spirit, Spiritual, Theology, Religion

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

The first part of Adrian's point is fairly clear to me. It has the logical structure of "We do not seek merely A, but we think A is important." Then A is the appropriate emotional response to God, i.e. what Jonathan Edwards would call the religious affections. I'm not sure he means much more than that, at least at the level of everyday life. He does think something more than that will happen sometimes. Does he say that we should seek this or just that we should expect it to happen sometimes? He clearly says we should seek the proper emotional response to God, but it seems to me that what he doesn't say we should seek is any particular experience of God. Maybe he intends that, but that's what he seems to me not to say when the questions is posed in exactly those terms.

[cavman]

Yes, we are always experiencing God- but how are we responding to God? Are we stifling joy, or tears?

Scripture is full of descriptions of appropriate emotional responses (experience) in worship. Coming in contact with truth should elicit both emotional and volitional responses in us.
We non-Charismatics come across as being anti-emotional, as though our emotions are more impacted by sin than our minds & wills. Such a view does not mesh with Scripture. I should earnestly seek God, and receiving His grace should not leave me emotionally unmoved.
If I am commanded to worship God with joy and gladness, don't I then have a responsiblity to seek joy and gladness in God's presence, based on the truths of the gospel? I think I do.

[Sherry Early]

I just finished reading Jonathan Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light" before I sat down at the computer to read through some of my favorite blogs, including yours and Mr. Warnock's blogs. Even before reading Mr. Pierce's comment, I did think there was some relationship between what JE writes in his sermon, subtitled "that there is such a thing as a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the Soul by God, of a different Nature form any that is obrain'd by natural means." Edwards, too, is saying that what he calls "a divine and supernatural light" is different from merely knowing that God is good and holy and gracious. He draws a distintion between that "opinion that GOd is holy and gracious" and "having a sense (experience?) of the Loveliness and Beauty of that Holiness and Grace.

I'm not a charismatic myself, but Edwards, it seems to me, would line up alongside the "Reformed Charismatics" rather than those of us who de-emphasize experience.

[Dan L.]

Thank you for another considered post.

But did you perhaps run somewhat off track in the later part of your post when you assumed Adrian's call to be what you termed "spiritual ecstacy"?

You further said that "what we are to pursue is not spiritual ecstasy, but Jesus Christ Himself". I agree. And Adrian said the same thing quite clearly: "Of course, we must seek God, not mere emotional highs".

It seems to me that you and Adrian are more like-minded on this issue than appears. And Brother Lawrence and his Practice of the Presence of God (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.html) comes to mind.

[David Wayne]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Dan L. is right - Adrian and I probably are more alike in this issue than it appears. It usually works out that way when we have these little internet debates. By the time we've thrown several posts at each other we find far more areas of common agreement than it may appear at first.

Also, Dan L. may be correct that I ran off the rails in my characterization of Adrian's post as advocating a spiritual ecstasy. At the same time, it seems to me that, when you strip away everything else, he seems to be advocating that some kind of heightened emotional experience is to be sought after. And that is where I disagree.

Cavman's point is well taken in this statement:

"If I am commanded to worship God with joy and gladness, don't I then have a responsiblity to seek joy and gladness in God's presence, based on the truths of the gospel? I think I do."

Yet I wouldn't take that statement hook, line, and sinker. I think a better way to say it would be "we have a responsibility to seek God's presence, which will be attended with joy and gladness."

But I would still want to modify that and point out two things - those who entered the presence of God were most often terrified and wanted to die, i.e. Isaiah and John. And secondly, I would point out, as I did in the post and as Cavman acknowledged - we are always in the presence of God. It's not a matter of seeking God's presence, it's a matter of removing the blinders that hinder us from being aware of God's presence.

And to Sherry, I know what you are getting at and I agree that Edwards is on the right track. I think he is arguing against a kind of rationalistic Christianity and that I affirm. I would simply again point out that I am not de-emphasizing experience, as there is no such thing as a non-experience. The question is "what kinds of experiences are Christians to pursue?"

As I defend myself here, I do want to say to those of you who are critical of my position that your criticisms have landed and are valid in many ways. While I do not agree that we ought to pursue these elevated emotional experiences, I do agree that joy is a necessary by-product of knowing Christ. The marriage relationship gives a good analogy - basing a marriage on elevated emotional experiences is a recipe for disaster. Yet, we would all agree that their is something terribly wrong with a man or woman who cannot find emotional delight in their spouse.

[Scott]

Amen to your clarifying comments-humble and balanced as always

[Jack Brooks]

"We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act?"

1. We see the activity of God in creation 24 hours a day; but undoubtedly this isn't what Adrian means.

2. Every Christian has the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit 24 hours a day, and He is not waiting for us, or depending on us, to push His agenda for us forward. But I guess that isn't what he means, either.

3. The likely meaning of the phrase, "the manifestation of God" is reductionist. I mean, it reduces what is a very big category down to just three things (more or less): speaking in tongues, healings, and feelings of God's presence during worship services (even though God's presence is always with us, so what exactly do we mean when we say this sort of thing?).

4. Where are Christians supposed to concentrate out mental faculties, in order to lead a Spirit-powered and Spirit-enriched life? Ephesians 5 tells us to be filled with the Spirit, while the parallel passage in Colossians 3:16 says "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly". So we get continuously filled by the Spirit by receiving and meditating by faith on the Word of God. Yup, a "non-experiential" Christianity means you aren't even saved (to paraphrase Martyn Lloyd-Jones). But the phrase "Christian experience" cannot be limited to miracles.

5. Generalizations don't prove specifics. The generalization "God can still act" (which we clearly must believe, considering the Moon doesn't fall into the Earth) being true doesn't prove that the Pentecostal view of gifts is right. This is just a softened version of the typical Vineyard smear against non-third-wavers, that if we don't accept their view of the gifts then "we don't believe in the power of God."

6. What is the great message of the Bible? It is that a holy God found a way to justify unrighteous sinners to Himself, and restore them to eternal life, by slaughtering His only Son on the cross and then raising Him from the dead. The great message of the Bible isn't about spiritual gifts; or rather, it's about the Real Miracle, which is the empty tomb and what that empty tomb achieved.

7. Worship is by faith, rather than sight. We don't need to get God to come down to us in the worship service, He's already here as Creator, and He's already here in an intimate way as our Father and Husband. Our sense of feeling alienated from Him could be caused by physical illnesses, or unrepented sins; and then we try to cover over issue of unrepented sins by seeking special worship experiences.

Since God is always with His children, I wonder what we really mean when we talk about feeling His presence.

[Pastor Michael]

I'm with Cavman. How would it go over with my wife if I said to her, "honey, I want to spend more time with you than anyone, and know you better than any other person, but we have to be careful about our feelings. I'm scared to death that my heart my race at the thought of you."

A question I have though: how is it that a Christian's emotional response to God is related to their views on cessationism? Experience tells me that I can expect to see more emotion on display at a charismatic service than at a Reformed Presbyterian one, but why should that be? Shouldn't a head and heart full of the knowledge of God fill us with feeling irrespective of our viewpoints on the legitimacy of present day charismata?

[Jan McKenzie]

Thanks to David for raising this topic and for the comments made.

My own thoughts bend in a slightly different direction. I share some of the opinions expressed here because I am a Christian. Yet I feel very caught in the middle because I am neither a cessationist regarding spiritual gifts, nor am I a charismatic as I understand the widely accepted use of the term, that is, I do not speak in tongues or believe it is required as a proof of conversion or holiness in Christ. But the topic itself, our personal experience with or of God, lies at the very centre of my Christian life, as it does the rest of you.

I hold a paradoxical view of divine revelation. It is a theology of the cross which says God hides himself in order that he might reveal himself, the cross of Christ being the supreme example of this principle. I mention this because the discussion is about our experience of God and I assume a certain shared belief, at least on David's and Jeremy's part (from reading their work and discussion), in the "conservative" view of Biblical revelation, inspiriation, and authority.

I also mention this view of mine (Lutheran, though I am not a Lutheran) because it helps me account for a range of unity within diversity when it comes to such theological questions. It is one of my presuppositions that all theological discussion must hold the two in balance, giving a charitable acknowledgement to the paradox.

Having said that as a prelude, I'll offer a somewhat open opinion. I take the life of a Christ as the perfect and inspired expample of a man filled with the Holy Spirit. I do this based on an exegesis of such passages as Luke 4.1,14,18 and so on throughout the Gospels. I see Jesus as the definitive man of God who is also God incarnate, the God-man form accepted and taught by the church. He is offered in Scripture as our model of an "experience" with God. Of course, him being God makes this another paradox for our faith. Nevertheless, he is repeatedly offered to us, as I think most of you admit, as our example. We are told to "walk as he walked" through life.

However, none of us have perfected that walk. I can say that of myself with great confidence. Therefore, my subjective experience of his objective revelation is incomplete. This leads me to conclude that quite a range of "expeience" may well exist between my personal aquantance with God and your own. In fact, I have no dobut about that.

But being more specific, I see a deep experiential life taught by Christ yet no speaking in tongues, at least not as offered by many today as the "unknown" form. I understand the use of tongues as cultural accomodation by the Holy Spirit to meet the necessity of spreading the gospel in a multi-cultural, language-rich enviroment; I do not see it as a "sign" of spirituality, though spirituality is required in receiving the gift. The gift should not be confused with the giver, the Holy Spirit. I do not know of a passage in Scripture that requires it as a spiritual proof or necessity.

I'm familiar with the idea that the New Testament church carried on past the historical life of Christ. Culturally, that is true. But theologically I can only believe we have been playing catch-up since his resurrection. The "greater works than these" that he said the church would do in his name is not a reference to greater or different qualtity, but to a broader, less localized extent. As to the "experience" of the church, the body of Christ, it can never go beyond the incarnate Word, for it has nothing else as a source of its life. His life is the definition of life.

But this takes us back to the most basic modern and postmodern question: how is that life to be interpretated? Ah...there's the rub. My answer? I follow the self-authenticating rules of hemeneutics laid out in the Bible itself, a grammatical-historical reading of the text that would be common to the average twelve-year old reader. I know this limits some of the joys in abstract speculation, but doctrinally the Bible is unfit for purpose if it does not first teach truth on such basic levels. I pick, by the way, that age group because it is the one our daily newspapers acknowledge as the average reading level. At least, they used to. Of course, what I've written here goes beyond that, which may say something about my own fitness to speak about spiritual things.

I see it's time to quit. As I said, the discussion took my thoughts on a somewhat different turn. I'll leave it up to David for posting.

[pgepps]

On the one hand, we clearly can and should "command our emotions" in the Christian walk. Else how could we be instructed to "Rejoice" and to "Count it all joy."

On the other hand, we seem to be instructed to do so by correctly perceiving the events of life as given by God for His glory and our good.

Surely this entails a conscious meditation upon His goodness and an effort to re-member our experience as shared among Christ's Body, identified with Him in suffering and in expectation of glory, in exaltation by right and humiliation by divine ordinance, for the good of those yet to be saved, who will join us and suffer and rejoice with us until Christ's Body is complete in time as it is in promise.

The error of the charismatic seems, to me, to be in asking God for the stimulus of exaltation, responded to joyfully; where we ought rather to learn of Him to respond joyfully to the stimulus of humiliation because of our confidence in His promise of exaltation to come.

Cheers,
PGE

[Mickey]

I think you're right on the money here. I will confess that I don't see why it's necessary to be cessationalist in order to have the right view on "experiencing God" though. I guess it depends on what you mean by "cessationalist."

Well, I've linked your post here.