The mystical view of religion

On the Authority of the Bible and 'God Experiences'

Below is a description of the mystical view of the religions. If you also apply this way of looking at the Christian religion, you get a Christianity in which it is all about 'God experiences' and the Bible is no longer the authoritative Word of God. Source: here.

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The invisible reality and 'God experiences'

“There is a reality behind the visible reality. This reality has been given various names. God, the god-force, the world-soul, brahman, the power, and so on. Contact is possible between people and this higher reality. This produces a real “God experience”. A transcendent experience, that is, an experience that transcends the world of the sense-perceivable. It is an authentic, a real, a real, “god” experience.

These authentic experiences of God cannot be rationally understood, even partially. They cannot be displayed in language. They are in fact unspeakable. Yet people have spoken and written about their experiences with the divine. This has resulted in the so-called holy books of the world's religions. The writers of the holy books have had an authentic experience of God, but they have interpreted and explained it in a flawed way, colored by their limited world view. In the holy books a personal processing and precipitation is given of an authentic experience of God. The holy books therefore give no revelation, no real information corresponding to reality about the divine. They are only testimonies (certificates) of the fact that people have had God experiences.

Surely – the dogmas

The mistake now is that people have come to absolutize the sacred books in which the founders and adherents of the great religions have recorded their authentic but limited experiences of God. They have come to objectify them. This is, it is said, the fall of religion. They have come to think that in the holy books true, reality-corresponding information about the divine has been given. They have come to claim that there is so-called 'propositional truth' (see wikipedia) able.

As a result, people have become dogmatic. The adherents of these religions speak with certainty about the divine: "So it is." It is known. That's why they think anti-thetical. They assume that when religions contradict each other, they cannot both be right. For two opposite statements cannot be true at the same time. They also reject the other religions from there. People have become intolerant. This in turn has led to all kinds of aggressive fundamentalism. The root of religious intolerance, it is argued, is the idea that the holy books give truth, that is, information that corresponds to reality, 'propositional truth'.

Doctrines, dogmas, which are "absolutely" stifle life. The result of teachings and doctrines is that they lock up the real spiritual life (the real God experiences) in a stifling armor of dogmas. True God experience, however, is dynamic and not static. True information, 'propositional truth', about the divine is not possible, you can only have experiences of truth, you can experience moments of truth.

The Bible as God's truth does not exist in this view

The view that in holy books such as the Bible, for example, true knowledge about reality ('propositional truth') and the idea that the truth is spoken and represented in doctrines (dogmas) is seen as a form of rationalism, as an expression of human pride. Man thinks in his great pride he can seize the divine. He sees the products of his own mind (that is, the holy books and the teachings based on them) as divine revelation, as divine truth, which would give true information about the total reality. In fact, this is said to be idolatry, for man worships the products of his own mind as coming from God.

Doctrine, the theory goes, is in reality no more than a ladder, a method, a way, to arrive at an authentic experience of God. When you have achieved that experience (enlightenment), you throw away the ladder. To advance on the path of personal growth, you can use one teaching one moment and then another, even if it conflicts with the first.

Thus, at the basis of all world religions is a common religious primal experience. The five great world religions are therefore also called the five sisters. They all have the common religious primal experience as a mother, as a source.

The story of the elephant

Besides the fact that this primordial experience cannot be expressed in human language, the primordial experience is so overwhelming that limited people cannot experience it completely, but only partially. The latter is the second reason why people in their various holy books have come to a sometimes contradictory processing of the primordial experience. To illustrate this, the image of the elephant and the five blind men is often used. At one point, five blind men encounter an elephant. All five of them grope to investigate. The first runs into a leg.

The world religions are therefore not opposed to each other but next to each other, they are just as many processings of contacts with the divine. None of them are big enough to capture the total experience. The world religions complement each other. The adherents of the different religions must become humble, recognize each other as authentic experiences of the divine, and learn from each other. If they do, they will enrich each other and together they will be able to experience more and more of the great fullness of the divine.

The religions can therefore also formulate a global world ethics together and thus promote justice and world peace.

The way of the experience of God – 'redemption' and 'liberation'

In the mystical view of religion, the mind (rationality) of man is seen as an obstacle rather than an aid in finding authentic God experiences. There is an anti-sense mood; the mind as the great whore. The divine experiences can be evoked in various ways. Through meditative reading of holy books, through rituals, through asceticism, through meditation (emptying), through law-keeping, sacred dance, magic, icons, and so on.

There must be openness to the divine. That means that the intuitive side has to be developed. The so-called feminine side of man. The mind must be stopped (emptied) and the inner ear and eye opened and developed.

Behind the mystical view of religion, by and large, is a complete world view. People have their own view of the deepest structure of reality (ontology), of man, of knowledge, of truth, of revelation. Mysticism also often has its own path of redemption. This is not, as is the case in biblical Christianity, about salvation by faith, by resting in faith on God's promises, on the finished work of Christ. Rather, it is about ascending through all kinds of experiences to the divine. The experience is liberating and blissful.

The mystical vision of religion, with the underlying mystical worldview, forms the great structure, the framework, under which all kinds of philosophical and religious, mystically oriented, movements fall. This applies to Platonism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Hinduism, New Age, existentialism, postmodernism, but also Roman Catholic mystics, Protestant neo-orthodoxy and the hard core of the charismatic movement. Even many modern evangelicals are, more and more, starting from the principles of the mystical vision.”

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Postscript TdJ: When I read this unbiblical and completely human view of (Christian) religion, I can only conclude the following:

• When you no longer see the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, "god experiences" become determinative of your faith;
  When having "god experiences" becomes important to your faith, the Bible loses the authority it has as the Word of God.
• If the "primal experience" or "core experience" of all religions is the same, all the "holy books" are at best fabrications of men and at worst prompted by demons. But Christianity is not a religion of 'god experience' but of faith.
  Also, the Bible is not a book of human inventions and experiences, but the book in which the one true God reveals Himself to people. It makes clear what we have to believe about God and warns us against all those other religions with their gods.