Faith vs Experience

The Act of Faith is an act of the will, not an emotional reaction to an experience. It is something we choose, not something we "experience".

From Crisis

By James Baresel

The language of "experience," as regards to the Faith, can lead believers into an unstable understanding of revealed truth.

Recently, I have been more disappointed than surprised to hear three unimpeachably faithful and admirable priests attempt in their preaching to ground Catholic belief in “experience.” One argued that reception of Communion by supporters of abortion is “incompatible with the ‘experience’ of Catholic truth,” another encouraged those “who have ‘experienced’ God’s truth” to “share the ‘experience’ with others.” I cannot remember details, but the remarks of the third were along similar lines.

The first was a young priest from Poland—where the Church did not suffer from the widespread extreme dissent seen in the United States—who was here studying for an advanced degree. Both of the others regularly offer the Tridentine Mass and attended what has long been regarded as one of America’s best seminaries. Each of the latter’s time as a seminarian took place during the pontificate of Benedict XVI, when even good seminaries were improving.

If it is at all common for good men like these to hold such views after receiving some of the better formation available today—and I have every reason to believe it is common—then we are in more of a mess than is generally realized. Each of the three attempted to ground Catholic belief in what is a weak and unstable foundation at best and quicksand at worst.

“Experience”—as used by the three priests—is not a term taken from Catholic Tradition but from “Continental Philosophy.” Used in that way, it does not actually mean an experience but an emotional reaction to an experience. In ordinary language, an “experienced trout fisherman” is one who has been fishing many times and knows how to catch trout through trial and error—practice and habits developed over time. For Continental Philosophy, the “experience of trout fishing” is how it emotionally feels to fish for trout, which naturally can vary from person to person.

“Experiencing” a miracle in the ordinary meaning of the word—seeing a miracle occur, being miraculously healed, and so on—is naturally a strong foundation for Catholic faith. Emotionally feeling the Faith is true after witnessing a pilgrimage is another matter. The former concerns an objective, verifiable fact that can be recognized by an intellect free of emotional influence and can only be explained on a supernatural basis. The latter is a particular individual’s internal, personal impression.

Extensive analysis of the contrast between faith and experience is a major component of The Nature of Belief by Fr. Martin D’Arcy, a leading early-to mid-20th-century theologian and philosopher. An essay he wrote about the religion of the master novelist whom he received into the Church, published in the book Evelyn Waugh and His World, briefly summarizes the contrast. 

In his words:

All converts have to listen while the teaching of the Church is explained to them—first to make sure that they do in fact know the essentials of the faith and secondly to save future misunderstandings, for it can easily happen that mere likings or impressions, which fade, may have hidden disagreements with undiscovered doctrines. Another writer came to me at the same time as Evelyn Waugh and tested what was being told him by how far it corresponded with his own experience. With such a criterion, it was no wonder that he did not persevere. Evelyn, on the other hand, never spoke of experience or feelings. He had come to learn and understand what he believed to be God’s revelation, and this made talking with him an interesting discussion based primarily on reason. I have never myself met a convert who so strongly based his assents on truth.

The point should be rather obvious. A person with a strong emotional desire to see murderers and rapists punished may “experience” as justified the vigilante killing of these criminals. Someone else may “experience” legitimate use of war or capital punishment as immoral because of a strong emotional aversion to killing. Determining when killing is and is not justified requires putting aside those emotional impulses and the “experiences” associated with them.

Little thought is needed to see that those who reject some of the most basic teachings of the Church—particularly in matters of sexual morality—are often guilty of the same error as Fr. D’Arcy’s unnamed potential convert. Such individuals see the loneliness of an abandoned spouse or the smiles on the faces of people in sinful relationships and “experientially” conclude that Church teaching is wrong.

That “experience” can also point people toward the truth is no argument against Fr. D’Arcy. Properly ordered emotions can do so. But emotions cannot be relied upon to be properly ordered. Purely intellectual criteria—metaphysics, natural law, the compatibility of Catholic teaching with philosophical truths, historical evidence for the credibility of divine revelation, etc.—must judge which “experiences” point to truth and which to error.

Priests should lead to an intellectually grounded faith those whose Catholicism is based upon “experience”—not ground belief in an “experience” which is neither sufficient nor necessary.