I have never quite known how to understand the "Experience" part of the Wesleyan quadrilateral ( http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp...D=312&GMOD=VWD ). I have heard it sometimes taken to describe conclusions the church comes to over time, but according to this link from the UMC (who would seem to be a reasonable historical authority on Wesley) it apparently rather appears to conclusions reached in one's life through the process of sanctification.
I have a couple of questions: Is the concept of experience solely supposed to refer to one's personal, inner witness? If so, how would this manifest itself in practical terms? Or can the term also be used to refer to conclusions of the church over time? I have sometimes seen given as an example how the church came to adopt abolitionism in the 18th/19th century (Paprika and I had an interesting shoutbox discussion this morning on whether this was more of an example of the Scripture part of the quadrilateral, based on Philemon), and a modern example is how some people have come to accept theistic evolution based on modern scientific findings (and I'm not looking to debate that here, just to use it as an example).
I have a couple of questions: Is the concept of experience solely supposed to refer to one's personal, inner witness? If so, how would this manifest itself in practical terms? Or can the term also be used to refer to conclusions of the church over time? I have sometimes seen given as an example how the church came to adopt abolitionism in the 18th/19th century (Paprika and I had an interesting shoutbox discussion this morning on whether this was more of an example of the Scripture part of the quadrilateral, based on Philemon), and a modern example is how some people have come to accept theistic evolution based on modern scientific findings (and I'm not looking to debate that here, just to use it as an example).
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