The Weight of Experience

I took a class last Spring entitled "Christian Theism and the Postmodern world". In the class we looked at some of the classic arguments for the existence of God and the popular objections to God's existence. Recently, a podcast I was listening to got me thinking about the argument from experience. Prior to the class I did not give much credence to the role experience plays in discovering or affirming truth. My argument being whether I experience something to be true or not is irrelevant to what is true.

What I came to appreciate in this class is the great value we place on experience in our culture. We tend to base our understanding of truth on what we've personally experienced through our senses, which is why we have phrases like "I saw it with my own eyes" or "I couldn't believe it until I touched it". Even Thomas, in John's Gospel said, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

When we experience personally, or secondhand, a miracle we tend to give more credit to God. Even though, I do not think everything that happens at a Benny Hinn crusade is of God, many people are influenced to believe in God because of what they experience at them. Conversely, there are stories like Charles Templeton (not Face from the A-Team). He was a Christian and a member of the Billy Graham Crusade, but died an agnostic. He tells of a time when he went to a ladies' home and prayed for her daughter and as he prayed the daughter was healed. When asked how he could not believe in the Christian God after experiencing such a miracle, he said that he could not understand why God would choose to heal her and not the billions of other suffering children in the world.

These stories show me that experience can be used to both affirm God's existence and used to deny it, even with the example of miracles. So I find myself feeling that experience is a strong support in the argument for the existence of God, but should not be the primary argument. What say ye?