Does Religious Experience “Prove” Christianity Is True?

No religion in the world would survive without confirming religious experiences. There must be more than intellectual dogma for a religion to be relevant and in order for it to inspire belief and acceptance. Even religions that do not emphasize a personal relationship with deity, such as pantheistic religions, still maintain a subjective element to belief in which their god (whatever it’s conceived to be) satisfies spiritual needs. This may occur in the here and now, as in Christianity, or only in some future state of bliss. But all religions answer life’s great mysteries: Why am I here? Where did I come from? What happens to me after death? This is nowhere more important and evident than in Christianity.

Christianity rests on a solid foundation of history and can be verified by all the canons of historical investigation (as we’ll see in part two of this of this series). But our faith also touches the heart as well as the mind. Religious experiences that reflect a true encounter with the living God are a vital ingredient of Christianity. More than any other religion in the world, Christianity confirms its truth-claims through profound, life-changing religious experiences. Jesus’ disciples set the example for countless millions of Christians to follow.

Before Jesus was crucified, His followers abandoned Him, fled to their homes, and locked themselves inside from fear of the Jewish and Roman authorities (Matt. 26:56; John 20:19). Yet a few weeks later, these same men were boldly proclaiming the Christian message in the very city and before the very authorities who crucified Jesus. What caused this dramatic turn-around? What caused them to forfeit the comforts of life, their family and friends, and their traditional religious beliefs to embrace a religious movement that resulted in persecution and death? They encounter the living and risen Christ, and their lives were changed forever.

Over the past twenty centuries, millions upon millions of Christians claim to have experienced similar dramatic, life-changing, personal encounters with Jesus Christ. Not visible encounters, but spiritual encounters every bit as real and profound. Atheists and skeptics have become believers. Alcoholics and drug addicts have been set free from their dependencies. Marriages have been healed. Damaged relationships have been restored. Love, compassion, tolerance, and patience have blossomed where hate, greed, jealousy, and anger once flourished. It would be foolish to sweep aside such a magnitude of personal testimony as insignificant. Religious experience is powerful affirmation for the authenticity of the Christian world-view.

Unfortunately there are some misconceptions and misapplication of religious experiences among Christians. Generally, religious experiences confirm revelation (spiritual truths) not reveal it. Theologian David Wells noted:

In any genuine knowledge of God, there is an experience of his grace and power, informed by the written Scriptures, mediated by the Holy Spirit, and based upon the work of Christ on the Cross. What is not so clear from the New Testament is that this experience should itself become the source of our knowledge of God or that it should be used to commend that knowledge to others. (No Place For Truth; or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology, 173)

He later elaborates:

Biblical faith is about truth. God has described himself and his works to us in the language of the Bible, and it is quite presumptuous for us to say that we have found a better way to hear him (through our own[religious] experience) and a better way to find reality (by constructing it within the self.) (184)

Wells is cautioning us not to put too much emphasis on religious experiences as an avenue for spiritual enlightenment independent of Scripture, and especially as a foundation for evangelism (we’ll look at this more closely in a couple weeks). The Bible is God’s objective revelation of divine truth, and therefore determines the legitimacy of our personal religious experiences. If they are not in harmony with Scripture, they are not genuine. ©

This raises a real concern, which we’ll explore in next week’s blog article: If our religious experiences are not in harmony with Scripture and therefore bogus—where do they originate?