Reality & Christ continued
theistic conceptualizations:
we find that their testimonies are based on claims concerning the Re ality and instrumentality of Christ. To some Christ may he just a poetic idea, to others an ethical norm or a historical figure. But to those claiming fellowship with God, Christ is far more than this. Not only did He walk the shores of Galilee 2,000 years ago, He also lives and works in the human heart today. Here the objective, historical fact interacts with personal, sub jective experience, vitalizing faith and escaping the limitations of a pure objectivity or a pure subjec tivity. It is this complete faith which has enabled Christians to overcome all obstacles with a calm assurance of the reality of a rela tionship which gives meaning to existence. Throughout the world today, simple, devout people are living lives of intense, inner reality and are being sustained by this faith. There is a cognitive aspect to this experience, even though it is knowledge only in part, as also St. Paul expressed it. The intuition of God is concrete, though partially obscure. Without much ability to rationalize or formulate, the mean ing of these persons’ lives is being worked out through the indwelling of the Spirit of God, testifying to the reality of Christ and the truth fulness of Scripture. This experience is personal. It is the experience of a person for a person. As Truehlood has empha sized it, one of the significant aspects of it is that it is not so much the thrill of discovery as the aware ness of being assaulted, not so much finding God as the reaction to the Reality which finds us. If it were only a quest, all the personal qual ities would he in us. It is man’s response to grace, making it in tensely personal. It is the great soul-stirring experience of being loved, and only a person can love. Pascal’s famous conversion experi ence, as recorded in the Memorial he wore on his person till death, testifies dramatically to this con crete, living encounter with a per sonal God, as opposed to philosophic
F ire God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, Not of philosophers or men of learning. Certainty, joy, certainty, feeling, sight, joy, God of Jesus Christ. M y God and your God. Thy God shall be my God. Ruth. Oblivion of the world and all outside God. Joy, Joy, tears of Joy. Though Pascal’s experience was more of the dramatic unusual type and thus not normative, the inner assurance which comes from a per sonal relation to Christ has always been a part o f the true Christian’s testimony. Not all experience is the same, but what is striking is the astonishing regularity with which characteristic features do appear. It testifies to the fact that the Spirit is one. Another aspect worth noting is the duality in religious experience which parallels what often is found in supreme aesthetic expression, a combination of strength and sweet ness, majesty and love, so pro nounced in the p a in t in g s of a Michaelangelo or the symphonies of a Beethoven. This is the reason why these giants usually appear in the transitional phase between a classical and a romantic period, when form has been crystallized and waits to he imbued with power ful emotion. In spiritual experience man confronts God both as “mys- terium tremendum” and “mysteri- um fascinans.” On the one hand, in fear and trembling and sensible of her nakedness, the soul is dimly aware of the Infinite Being on Whom she depends for her very existence. On the other hand, deli cious as the morning breeze blow ing through a garden of flowers, the King comes because He desires the beauty of the human soul, His own free gift and the faint reflection of His own infinite beauty. In Jesus we find the unique duality of sever ity and gentleness, of power and love. As Rudolf Otto has shown, the fear of the Lord and the love of
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