"Experience" in the Wesleyan quadrilateral

[Paprika]

You still end up with new knowledge so the point is moot.

You have no sense of nuance. Got it.

[KingsGambit]

I would prefer some sort of model myself that essentially allowed for reason, though allowing it to take a backseat. If nothing else, an impression I get from the gospels is that Jesus wants us to seek the intent of God's commandments and a sort of reason may be needed to determine these. I'm having trouble articulating what I'm thinking here but I hope the point is somewhat clear.

[Teallaura]

You still end up with new knowledge so the point is moot.

[Paprika]

Reason is also a means of knowledge - if it is a means of knowing it must necessarily result in knowledge.

Sure, but not of the same type. Reason works on existing knowledge to produce knowledge.

[Teallaura]

Reason is also a means of knowledge - if it is a means of knowing it must necessarily result in knowledge.

[Paprika]

I agree with RBerman that unlike the others which are sources of knowlege, reason is a means of knowing and thus it shouldn't be considered as the same type.

[RBerman]

It seems to me best understood as using reason (a means) to interpret data gathered from Scripture (above all), tradition (as an expositor of Scripture), and personal experience. It could be diagrammed as a triangle with those three vertices and reason as lines connecting each to the other, but that diagram wouldn't make the primacy of Scripture clear, so the analogy still wants improving.

[Teallaura]

Maybe I'm just more wary of personal experience than I should be. There have been countless people over the years who have confidently affirmed that God visited them in dreams and told them the end of the world was going to happen any day now. I came across a Youtube video yesterday by one such person, and it was met with many commenters affirming the same thing.

But it is through personal experience that many, maybe even most, come to Christ. Yes, it can be treacherous which is why it is the bottom of the quadrilateral and Scripture and reason (maybe even tradition) both overrule it (don't get overly hung up on which rules which - guideline. Scripture as supreme is the only one to really worry about).

[KingsGambit]

Maybe I'm just more wary of personal experience than I should be. There have been countless people over the years who have confidently affirmed that God visited them in dreams and told them the end of the world was going to happen any day now. I came across a Youtube video yesterday by one such person, and it was met with many commenters affirming the same thing.

[Teallaura]

I've always understood it to be personal experience although collective experience wouldn't be ruled out. The quadrilateral is just a guideline - it's not meant to be more than that.

Tradition and experience are distinct, however.

[Paprika]

Experience as a noun has a wide semantic range.

Source: Experience, Evidence and Sense by Anna Wierzbicka

A. Past experience, accumulated knowledge
1. a doer's accumulated knowledge
2. a undergoer's accumulated knowledge
3. an observer's accumulated knowledge

B. Current experience, sensory or sensory -like
4. an observer's and an undergoer's perception or series of perception
5. an observer's and a participant's records of their perceptions
6. [a person's] current awareness-cum-feeling
7. [a person's] limited but reliable knowledge of a place and time

© Copyright Original Source

It would be interesting to see to which of these Wesley referred to.

[KingsGambit]

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).