Evaluating Religious Experience

I have not had much time for reading the past few weeks, so progress in The Religious Affections has been halted. I was able to pick it up again today and to plow through part 2 of the book.

In part 1, he defends the case that true religion, that is, saving faith, is rightly accompanied by emotional responses, by affections. In part 2, he seeks to reveal those affections which seem to accompany religious experience but which neither prove or disprove the presence of real conversion.

This is his concern — to demonstrate what are real evidences of true conversion and to distinguish them from the false or spurious. There are spiritual actions or reactions which may or may not evidence true faith. We can greatly err if we rest our hope of eternity upon some evidence which may just as easily arise from the work of the enemy as from God.

As a pastor I have such great trouble in convincing people that some experience they have had may or may not be a sign from God that I often just give up. Edwards is diligent to assess experience by Scripture, and this is a helpful discipline.

“That only is to be trusted to, as a certain evidence of grace, which Satan cannot do, and which it is impossible should be brought to pass by any power short of divine.” [page 159]

In part 3 he will reflect upon what then are the true signs of a real conversion experience. The early reports are that Edwards is so stringent in his assessment of spiritual life that he creates despair in true believers. The other day when I told a friend that I was reading this book, he said with a smile, “So, are you still a Christisn?”

So far, I am, and I will be when I am through. Part 3 is the largest portion of the book, so being ‘through’ will come some time from now.