CHAPTER IV
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
BY PRESIDENT E . Y. M U LL IN S , D. D ., LL . D ., LOUISVILLE, KY ., U . S. A.
Human experience is the one datum of all philosophy, and all science. The experience of the individual and of the race is the grist which is poured into all the scientific and philo sophic mills. Hence Christian experience as a distinct form of human experience ought to receive more attention than it has ever received before. Professor Bowne has emphasized the fact that whatever your philosophy, your experience is the same. You may call things by any names you wish and it will not affect experience. Christian Science says that all is mind, that a cobble stone, for example, is simply an idea and not a real piece of matter. We will suppose that some one hurls it and it strikes your head and sends you off for relief. Then you have an experi ence in the realm of the ideal. You have an ideal stone, strik ing an ideal head, and raising an ideal bump and producing an ideal dizziness and pain, and requiring the application of an ideal liniment, which produces an ideal cure, and affords you an ideal satisfaction and peace of mind. But all this does not in the slightest degfee alter the experience itself. And if you were going to rear a philosophic system on the principle deduced from sudden contact of cobble stones with human craniums, you would be compelled to take this concrete human experience to begin with. JO H N JA SPER PH ILOSOPHY Science and philosophy are beginning to recognize the evi dential value of Christian experience though they are very 76
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker