From David Clarkson's Public Worship to be Preferred Before Private:

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

I think the problem with saying "Experience is not the way to measure truth" is that it sounds ridiculous to modern sensibilities precisely because often - in the real world - experience DOES help us distinguish between what is true and what is false.

For instance, take the old thing about what (supposedly) happens if you throw frogs into boiling water.

Now, my experience (that they simply die) isn't enough to make an absolute statement about what will happen, but it is enough to refute the original premise.

So in at least some cases, experience does "measure" truth. (I.e., it disproves the premise as a reflection of what all frogs do if thrown into boiling water.)

I think that we'd do better to get very specific about what types of thing, or under what circumstances, experience can't "measure" truth.

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Ben
Chaplain, US Army
Ft. Riley, KS
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

Ben, I believe the point being made is that experience doesn't validate truth. It may affirm truth, or it may grate against truth, but it never validates it. Forgive my poor wording.

The problem I see with it is that the only way to argue against someone's personal testimony is to call them a liar.

Christ testified to the truth and people either believed him or thought he was a liar. The Apostles testified to the truth that they saw and heard and people either believe them or think they are liars.

I believe the testimony of scripture so I test all things against it to verify truth, but those contemporary with it only had the Old Testament and the exegesis and testimony of the Apostles to go by, obviously there is the ultimate grip of the testimony of the Holy Spirit, but when one testifies to the testimony of the Spirit what is to keep others from calling them a liar unless they share that testimony?

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David
PCA
Richardson, Texas

Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.
--C.H. Spurgeon

Actually, that's not quite true. Often people are simply mistaken about what happened or about the means by which something happened. So we can challenge someone's understanding of their testimony without calling them a liar.


But that aside...

In my line of work I routinely have someone look me in the eye and lie to me about something that (supposedly) happened to them. I have no problem at all with calling someone a liar if I am convinced that they are lying. (I may be cynical, but I'm no sucker.)

I wonder how many charlatans are able to lie to the flock precisely because they're banking on people being unwilling to call them out because they don't want to appear to not believe in the supernatural power of God.

It is a pretty complicated situation. I suppose that if you were to show someone from scripture that what he claims happend to him from God couldn't have and he then admits fault he could have been a sincerly mislead individual regarding the culpability of the sin even though the words spoken were still a lie. But what about those who disregard scripture even though they are well studied in it? Are they not liars? Does one have to know they are lying to speak an untruth? Isn't all untruth a lie?

R.C. Sproul said that everyone has the right to interpret scripture but no one has the right to interpret it incorrectly and that all incorrect interpretations are rooted in sin.

Also we cannot know truth apart from some sort of experience.

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J. P. Grigoletti II * Lay-man * Église Réformée du Québec
Québec, Québec Canada * Member: Église Reformée St. Marc
http://Grigoletti.blogspot.com - blog
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