God’s Schadenfreude and Ours

Schadenfreude

[shahd-n-froi-duh]

noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.

Jonathan Edwards

“The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.”

The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.

[“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732

“God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God’s judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever.”
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Normally, the idea of schadenfreude would be seen as automatically out of bounds for someone who claims Christ but some of the best theologians of the Church throughout history have thought just the opposite and have embraced ideas of what we might call “Biblical Schadenfreude.” To be clear, there have been many of our greatest lights who have spoken that one character trait of the redeemed in heaven will be to delight in the misery of those who occupy hell who fought against Christ during their whole lives on earth.

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Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences

“Therefore the elect shall go forth…to see the torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable calamity of the impious .” Sent. Iv 50, ad fin

Gerhard

“…the Blessed will see their friends and relations among the damned as often as they like but without the least of compassion.”

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We should say at the outset that schadenfreude is a dangerous emotion only when injustice is celebrated, not when justice is served. In other words people can have a schadenfreude that is both consistent with a Biblical mindset and inconsistent with a Biblical mindset. A Biblical schadenfreude would be to feel pleasure when the wicked who dug their pits for the righteous, finally themselves fell into those pits (Psalm 7:15).

The Scripture drip with this kind of biblical schadenfreude. Read how Israel sings about Pharaoh’s defeat (Exodus 15). Go to the book of Proverbs and see the clear and unmistakable schadenfreude of Woman Wisdom (Proverbs 1:20-33). Go to I Kings 18 and join in Elijah’s schadenfreude as he mocks the bloodied pagan Priests.

This schadenfreude in Scripture reveals again that the Church in the West, as following the PC codes, is attempting to be nicer than God. There is no longer any capacity by Christians to laugh at the overturning of God’s enemies or to delight and cavort when those who attempt to overthrow God’s Kingdom are themselves overthrown. Indeed, the very mention of such an idea turns the stomachs of most modern Christians.

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Andrew Welwood

(speaks of the saints as being) “overjoyed in beholding the vengeance of God ,” and their beholding of the smoke of the torment of the wicked as “a passing delectation.”

Bishop Newcomb

“The door of mercy will be shut and all bowels of compassion denied, by God, who will laugh at their destruction; by angels and saints, who will rejoice when they see the vengeance’ by their fellow-suffer the devil and the damned rejoicing over their misery.” Catechetical Sermon

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John Portmann, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, set forth his own schadenfreude theory several years ago in his book, ‘When Bad Things Happen to Other People.’ Portman offers that we all consider justice a virtue and feel pleasure when we see lawbreakers brought low. We might say that it’s all to the good that Christians experience biblical schadenfreude, because this pleasure reflects our reverence for God’s law and God’s character. We rejoice in the wicked’s misfortune, not in a sadistic manner, but rather because their misfortune vindicates God’s righteousness against their attempts to de-god God and en-god themselves. Thus, according to Portman, there is such a possibility as Biblical schadenfreude and to experience Biblical schadenfreude would be a corollary of justice rendered to the guilty and so God’s law being upheld.

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Tertullian

“At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.”

“What a spectacle. . .when the world. . .and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy? As I see. . .illustrious monarchs. . . groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers. . .as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of. . .Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors. . .in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows. . .What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination.” [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]

Augustine

“They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. . .The saints’. . . knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted. . .with the eternal sufferings of the lost.” [The City of God, Book 20, Chapter 22, “What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked” & Book 22, Chapter 30, “Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath”]

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But where does all this biblical schadenfreude come from? Well, I would say that we laugh at the misfortune of the wicked because we laugh with the schadenfreude God of laughter.

¹Why do the heathen rage, and the people murmur in vain. ²The kings of the earth band themselves, and the Princes are assembled together against the Lord, and against his Christ. ³Let us break their bands, and cast their cords from us. 4But he that dwelleth in the heaven shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure…

The wicked need repent or face God’s laughter and mocking. God laughs at the thought that the created would rise up to plot against the creator and God laughs as he vexes them in sore displeasure. God is a God of schadenfreude mirth and it only stands to reason that His people should be as well.

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Thomas Aquinas

In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. . .So that they may be urged the more to praise God. . .The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens. . .to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, “Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned,” First Article, “Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned. . .”]

Isaac Watts:

During America ‘s “Great Awakening” the popular hymn writer, Isaac Watts (1674-1748), even set Christians’ feet to tapping with this crisp little verse:

What bliss will fill the ransomed souls,
When they in glory dwell,
To see the sinner as he rolls,
In quenchless flames of hell.

St. Anthony Mary Claret

“Once [a soul] is condemned by God, then God’s friends agree in God’s judgment and condemnation. For all eternity they will not have a kind thought for this wretch. Rather they will be satisfied to see him in the flames as a victim of God’s justice. (“The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge . . .” Psalm 57:11) They will abhor him. A mother will look from paradise upon her own condemned son without being moved, as though she had never known him.”–

“The Pains of Hell,” Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, consisting of thirty-five meditations from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as explained by St. Anthony Mary Claret. St. Claret’s “explanations” were written in Spanish in the late 1800’s.
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It is schadenfreude that the saints will experience in the judgment of the wicked at the great white throne judgment. The saints will and should find satisfaction and pleasure in the wicked’s misfortune because God’s justice is vindicated and their wicked plans to overthrow God are crushed.

Indeed, we might go so far as to say that where there is no schadenfreude where the wicked are caught in their own trap and so destroyed, there we find an example of sub-biblical Christianity.

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Catholic Truth Society

What will it be like for a mother in heaven who sees her son burning in hell? She will glorify the justice of God. – Pamphlet from the late 1960s, part of a catechismal teaching [cited in an essay by the English poet, Stevie Smith, “Some Impediments to Christian Commitment”]

J.I. Packer

“…love and pity for hell’s occupants will not enter our hearts.” J.I. Packer in article “Hell’s Final Enigma” in “Christianity Today Magazine, April 22,2002 .”

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This is a hard truth for modern Christians with our Arminian sentimentality. People in the modern Church see this as mean, and yet they do so without pausing to consider that not having a sense of satisfaction and pleasure at the misfortune of the wicked would be to not have a sense of satisfaction and pleasure that God’s name is upheld and esteemed.

Of course we should not enter into schadenfreude to soon. Even now, we should plead with the wicked that they might escape both God’s shadenfreude and ours. Even now, out of passion for God’s glory, and compassion for the rebellious we should command all men everywhere to repent. We should remind the need of men to “Kiss the Son lest He be angry and they perish in the way.”

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Martin Luther

When questioned whether the Blessed will not be saddened by seeing their nearest and dearest tortured answers, “Not in the least.”

Samuel Hopkins

“This display of the divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God, will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed.”

Tim Keller Channels George Orwell

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”

Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, part 1, chapter 3, pp 32

“I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a “song” about the wonder and meaning of God’s creation. Genesis 2 is an account of how it happened… For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject the concept of evolution as All-encompassing Theory.”

Tim Keller
The Reason for God — pp 97-98

Keller refuses to accept either 6 day creationism, nor full blown evolution. Keller is also on record as saying, “You’ve got some problems with the theistic evolution….” As a result Keller goes for the “messy approach” that seeks to combine all of them and none of them. Of course the “messy approach” means that Keller has just embraced contradiction. In point of fact, Keller has exceeded Orwell’s “double-think,” moving on to the hallowed ground of “triple-think.”

Examining Keller’s quote above we easily detect Keller’s contradiction in terms of the most basic tenet of Reformed Christianity (Keller is a Presbyterian minister) and that is God’s exhaustive sovereignty. What Keller has posited here is that God and some other agency called “Natural selection,” co-operated together unto the end of creation. Now, Keller does seem to give God the upper hand but notice that Keller’s God is merely guiding Natural selection. Where did this Natural selection that God is guiding come from?

Do keep in mind also that one of the core tenets of Natural selection is the arrival of species by a random process of time plus chance plus circumstance. The whole idea of Natural Selection is that it is not guided. Meanwhile the whole idea of a sovereign God is that He doesn’t cooperate in creation by guiding another independent agent called “Natural selection,” to a agreed upon end. When reduced to its essence, Keller has a Sovereign God guiding a process that is by definition a random process of chance. This is classic Orwellian double think taken up as Evangelical art form. In saying everything Keller has said nothing.

Keller does indeed reject Evolution as a all encompassing theory of origins but at the same time he has also rejected the Sovereign God of Reformed Christianity as a all encompassing theory of origins. The result is a mish mash of contradictions as combined with a miasma of pseudo-intellectualism.

Indeed so great is Keller’s faith in his “Natural selection guiding god” that Keller can testify with all the fervor of a true believer,

“How could there have been death before Adam and Eve fell? The answer is, I don’t know. But all I know is, didn’t animals eat bugs? Didn’t bugs eat plants? There must have been death. In other words, when you realize, ‘Oh wait, this is really complicated,’ then you realize, ‘I don’t have to figure this out before I figure out is Jesus Christ raised from the dead.’ ”

So, Keller can not have enough faith to believe the Scripture that death did not enter until after Adam’s fall but he does have enough faith in his “Natural selection guiding god” that (s)he could have it all figured out even if he can’t figure it all out. If one is going to have that kind of faith why not place it in the Biblical record?

Some, in speaking out Keller’s defense have noted that Keller often speaks differently in different contexts. I am not surprised by this in the least. In point of fact it is exactly what we would expect in someone practicing Orwellian double think. There is nothing intellectually sophisticated in any of this. It is all Orwellian double and triple think. In short we see Keller channeling Orwell,

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”

Catechizing Unruly Children

Fascinating that all these avatar photos of the people bigoted against Christianity are all streamed with the rainbow over their faces. Can you say “group think?”

1.) The idea of “Rights” is not a Christian concept. Christians speak of duties. Still, forcing sodomite definitions on the social order is indeed depriving people of “rights.” It is depriving them of the right to have objective definition of marriage and this “right” was taken away by tyrannical action of a wicked kind.

2.) Separation of Church and State is a myth in the way that your using it. The phrase was in none of the founding documents. Indeed, many of the States had state Churches that were supported by state governments well into the 19th century. In point of fact Church and State while distinct can never be separated and if they are separated the consequence will be the kind of conflict that we are seeing in the broader culture. This is so since both Church and State must be pinned upon the foundation of religion. If Church and State are separated and pinned on different religious foundation the result will be conflict. No two distinct religions can survive together in the same social order for long. However, what does work in order to change the overall religious foundation of a people is to chant “separation of Church and State.” This gives those who want to change the religious foundation of the State time to wreak their havoc without being interfered with by the Church.

3.) You insist that my “Christian definition of marriage doesn’t get to define the legal one.” Never mind that this has been the legal definition in the West for millennium. Still, even if we put that aside why should it be the case that the sodomite definition of marriage gets to be the legal one? Hoisted on your own petard much?
However, you have run into the fact that law is ALWAYS a reflection of some god, God and religion. Stipulating failures along the way, law as been a reflection of the Christian God in the West for centuries. Now the law is fast edging towards being a reflection of the Molech god of sodomy and the Molech god of sodomy is forcing the social order to accept its definition of marriage.

But of course you can’t see that because you have your head up the rectum of your Molech god. If you want to know what the water is like don’t ask a fish.

4.) You speak of Christians “brainwashing toddlers?” How do you think the nation went from appalled by the notion of sodomy 60 years ago to the point where stupid millennials find it perfectly acceptable? Can you say brainwashing and propaganda? Of course you can.

5.) Since Genesis 1 is the beginning of created time I’m confident that the Biblical faith has been around even before faith, despite your insistence to the contrary. (After all Adam believed before he had a wife.)

6.) Yes … Christians do have a monopoly on moral morality. Although I will conceded that pagans have a monopoly on immoral morality.

If you deny God then all that is left is the material. If all there is, is the material then morality is defined as nothing more then three wolves and two sheep voting on what is for dinner. Only Christianity can provide an objective basis for stable morality.

7.) Your spouting of Lev. 19:19 just reveals your ignorance concerning the Christian faith and does nothing to advance your cause though it does wonderfully demonstrate what a fool you are,

I will in a separate comment explain for you your error on this matter. It’s ok that you are just regurgitating something you’ve heard in the broader culture. I will unwind it for you.

8.) You don’t believe in sin and yet here you are, in essence, saying I’m sinning because I don’t believe that sodomy is a legitimate definition.

Sin is an inescapable category. If you will not have the Biblical definition of sin as provided by the Sovereign God you will merely redefine the word in order to fit your sovereign ordaining of the world.

Clearly Jeremy, you likewise are a bigot against Christ, the Christian faith and Christians.I’m all about an exchange of ideas Nik. We have been exchanging all over the place here. What you don’t like is that you’re being told you are wrong and are getting creamed in the process.

You mistake me for someone who is only interested in armchair debate. NO! I’m interested in

1.) Defending the honor of the Lord Christ against all of his enemies.

2.) converting you by dealing honestly and lovingly with your soul

3.) At the very least making the people who only read these threads without commenting think twice before they repeat your inanities.

4.) embarrassing your foolishness and exposing your childish argument.

From the Mailbag — Charlotte Pastor’s Chit Chat

Bret,

To be honest with you there is no good fruit to come from the argument that will ensue if we continue this conversation. I used to enjoy apologetics in my early years in ministry. I have lost my taste for that and this invitation to pray was not intended to spark debate nor win in any argument anyway. I want to see the Kingdom of God come in our city. I will not convince you to ENCOUNTER Jesus in any way that you are not already expecting. And you will not convince me that what I EXPERIENCE is not valid. GREATER THEOLOGY IS NOT WHAT THE CHURCH NEEDS, what we need is Greater revelation of who Jesus is.

Blessings,

Rev. Sandy Andrews
Full Life Church
Charlotte Mich.

Dear Sandy,

Sandy,

1.) You want a “greater revelation of Jesus” but expect to have that greater revelation apart from a greater understanding of our undoubted catholic Christian faith and the doctrines and theology that convey that greater revelation? That is passing odd and demonstrates a false dichotomy on your part. There will be no greater revelation of Jesus apart from a greater theology.

2.) I appealed to Scripture. You appealed to experience and encounter. You do realize that your appeal is classical liberal theology right? Have you ever read or are your familiar with Schleiermacher? I ask because you are channeling him right now Sandy.

3.) Honestly, I think I’m the only one with the different theology here. Inasmuch as y’all are coming together you express that you have a unity in theology.

4.) With all due regard, given your language, I will be praying that your vision and understanding of the Kingdom of God will be kept at bay.

A man with an argument is never at the mercy of a man with an experience.

I promise to pray for your repentance while I am praying for my repentance and while you are praying for “revival.”

How can two walk or pray together Sandy, unless they agree?

May the Lord Christ grant us grace to be His genuine under-shepherds,

Bret

A Man With An Experience Is Never At the Mercy Of A God With A Revelation

A short examination of a minister who is trying to hard to be deep and insightful and who thinks he succeeds at it.

Preacher Conway (PC) writes,

I hope to explore how I read and understand Scripture, to wonder together what it is to pick up this book and to wrestle with it. I begin here because this continues to be one of the most challenging and dynamic facets of my faith. What does it mean to say that God is revealed by Scripture? What does it mean for me to be intellectually honest as a scholar and as a human being and yet trust that the Bible is more than just any other book?

Bret responds,

1.) Note the implied difficulty in being both a scholar, a human, and taking the Bible seriously … as if it is just such a labor to square this circle. Nevermind that it is a circle that has been squared by intellectually honest Scholars for millennium. Did Augustine, Anselm, the Cappadocians, Aquinas, Bonaventure, etc. take the Bible seriously? Were they scholars?

2.) I don’t want to over extrapolate here, but it sure seems, that right out of the gate, there is a hint of the glory in uncertainty. Look at how much angst I’m in, given all the uncertainty I have. Look how I have to wrestle the uncertainties of God’s revelation. How noble it is to be uncertain.

PC writes,

I begin here because this is a fundamental presupposition of my faith: our experience of faith and understanding of Scripture does not exist in a vacuum. Whenever we talk about God, Scripture, Jesus, etc. we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our modern understanding of faith has been molded and shaped by a conversation that has been happening in homes, churches, and the halls of academia for centuries. Our individual and collective experience of faith enters into a small part of this dialogue, a small branch of the bigger conversation about who God is, about the world He created, and about how we live, move, and have our being on this planet we call earth.

Bret responds,

1.) Note that our understanding of Scripture is totally immanent. Our understanding of Scripture is totally subjective. Our understanding of Scripture is not accounted for by any Objective or transcendent categories. There is no reference to the God breathed nature of Scripture. No mention of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. All there is, is human conversation.

This is not to deny the subjective dynamic of understanding Scripture. It is merely to contend that if all we have is the subjective then there is nothing objective there to understand except some kind of wax nose Bible.

2.) If all we have is the subjective then who is to say which subjective is the one true subjective? Why is Calvin right and Kierkegaard wrong? Why should we subscribe to the TFU or Westminster and not the Schleitheim confession? Why prefer the Historic Church and not the Cathars?

3.) He begins with “our experience of faith” and then insists that “our experience of faith” is conditioned only by our experience in talking about the faith with others. It is experience, and only experience all the way to the bottom. There really is no authoritative Transcendent word.

4.) Allow me to submit that the only Giant’s shoulders PC has been standing on is a German chap named Schleiermacher. He was another bloke who knew a thing or two about subjectivism.

PC writes

“I begin here because I must acknowledge something that causes fear and consternation among many Christians. Yes, as I have come to understand more about the world around me, about, say, evolutionary biology or the dominance of patriarchy, my understanding of Scripture has also undergone a transformation. Some Christians will immediately throw their hands in the air in disgust at this and immediately conclude that my faith has acquiesced to the world. The world as I perceive it has shaped my faith rather than vice versa. God is unchanging and His Word is eternal, some may say, so how can you let your faith in this unchanging God be shaped by the shifting theories of science?”

Bret responds,

1.) PC acts as if his understanding of the world around him is unmediated by faith / theological / Worldview categories. PC speaks as if his mind was tabula rasa and with his tabula rasa mind he understood reality quite apart from any beginning theological-faith presuppositions or axioms. He speaks as if he arrived at facts apart from a philosophy of fact.

2.) So, my question is, “What theology did PC employ in order to understand the world around him?” I mean, PC’s understanding was mediated by some theology. “Understanding of the world” does not come to us theology free. The reason that Aleister Crowley understood the world one way and that Cornelius Van Til understood the world in a different way is because the lens (beginning axioms) through which each looked at the world were dramatically different.

3.) As such, a Biblical Christian theology would have helped PC to conclude that “evolutionary biology” is a myth, and that “biblical patriarchy” was and is good and proper. You see, Biblical presuppositions then work to interpret one’s experience as opposed to having one’s autonomous experiences interpret Scripture. This is the heart of PC’s problem. He is allowing his own putatively autonomous experience (and not really autonomous because all experience is pre-interpreted by some theological grid) to trump the perspicuous teaching of God’s divine revelation.

Paging Dr. Schleiermacher.

4.) Interesting that PC never answers that last question in that paragraph above that he has hypothetically presented to himself.

PC writes

“No matter how we formulate our faith, regardless of the conclusions at which we arrive regarding such issues, our understanding of God and Scripture have been shaped by our experience in the world, by our upbringing, and by a host of other environmental factors. To find ourselves asking questions about Scripture because of experience in the world is not itself a bad thing. On the contrary, these questions may have the potential to bring us to a deeper and fuller understanding of God and our relationship with Him.”

Bret responds,

1.) Notice it is “we who formulate our faith,” and not “the faith that formulates us.”

2.) Notice how it is our understanding of God and Scripture which is shaped by our experience and not our experience that is shaped by God and Scripture. Notice how environment trumps God and this in spite of the fact that it is God who predestined our environment that men “would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

3.) Asking questions about Scripture is good as long as the answers we arrive at are formed and shaped by Scripture.

Look, it has always been a staple of the Reformed faith (PC and I are both Reformed) that God is always prior.

PC writes,

“At some point in our lives, for instance, we all must come to grips with the realization that God’s answer to our prayers does not necessarily come in the form in which we expect or want. Such experiences help us come to a more complete understanding of verses like Matthew 7:7-8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” The point of this example is not to explore a theology of prayer; rather, my hope is to demonstrate that our experience in the world impacts the way in which we approach and articulate our faith.”

Bret responds,

Is PC concluding that God doesn’t answer prayer the way PC wants it answered? Amazing insight there. Generally, Biblical Christians take for granted that the problem is with them and not with God.

PC writes,

“The reality is this – while experience does not dictate the answers at which we arrive, our lived experience in this world often prompts our questions, and questions, it seems to me, are rarely a bad thing.

I begin here because this is perhaps one of the most unacknowledged challenges we have when it comes to reading Scripture – the Bible is a complicated, multifaceted book. Whether we like to admit it or not, the way in which we describe the central themes of the Bible have been shaped by our experience. This is not to say that experience trumps Scripture.”

1.) PC has spent the whole piece more than hinting that experience trumps Scripture and now at the very end he merely asserts that is not the case. Go figure.

2.) Given everything that PC has said up to this point how can it be that “experience does not dictate the answers at which we arrive?”

3.) I will agree that questions are not a bad thing.

In the end PC does not have Scripture. He has a Gestalt empty chair he calls “a Bible,” and a Rorschach Ink blot he calls God’s revelation.

One wonders what PC does when his experience is over and against that of his Council or one of his congregants? Who’s solipsistic experience ‘wins’ the argument?

Given this kind of “reasoning” is it any wonder that churches are just one big “encounter group”