Religion

Christian lived experience

An experience means encountering an objective reality or a sign that will move someone towards their destiny. Experience is a major principle of one’s thought and is helpful in closing the gap that may exist between faith and reason. Christian experience is the most fulfilling experience that humanity can have and cannot be compared to any other. This is because it is a lived experience that involves the present immersion of one’s personality and all the aspects that make up his being. A lived experience makes sense only if it can have a fulfilling impact on the humanity and because Christian experience is a religious one influencing the behavior, perception and beliefs of a person it offers such kind of fulfillment. The experience can only be limited if the humanity understanding of it is reductive or inadequate and his faith in God will continue to be irrelevant. In such irrelevance, his belief will be detached from the Christological origin and will just be reduced to a theory. The Christian life through experience cannot even compare to the commonsense ethics and its influence reaches far from this and is normally a permanent dimension of the entire human existence. Basing from the teachings of the church, the experience may not guarantee elimination of human trial or provide total human freedom physically but it calls upon the humans to “the depths of all the questions, to his own fundamental structure, to his own fundamental structure, to his own real situation” (Giussani & Hewitt, 2001).

Therefore, a lived experience through Christianity is a true religiosity without which all claims and efforts to offer solution to human suffering are in vain. Originality is the true basis through which any experience especially a religious one can be understood. Religious and human experiences are founded on original experience and such originality can only be found in a lived Christian experience. As such there is a need for humanity to have a personal experience of God as represented in the true church doctrine.  Such an experience fulfills the original experience of humanity and at the same time preserves it. It is an experience that even the modernity and post modernity whose experience may seem to be getting the upper hand cannot offer. The modern philosophical explanation of experience shows its incapacity in accounting for the unity-in-difference which exist between the world and God. The result is that been the inability to show the status of truth, and subsequent generation of systematic vagueness about the nature and character of God, human and the world. These inadequacies form part of the reasons why the world experience, apart from the church, cannot offer a comprehensive explanation on the meaning of life and its divinity. Any experience detached from the Christianity will try in vain to seek the meaning of life in factors that make up human self.  The inability to discover that a fulfilling human experience will only be achieved through personal knowledge of God brings about all the theories that try to link the meaning of life to mortality rather than immortality.

 

Truth and Beauty

 The beauty in truth can be evidenced in personal and present experience. This truth is not an illusion but it is not the ultimate reality but they serve as a pointer towards God. Truth and beauty are embodied in the uniqueness shared by human beings having the commonness in one God.  For humanity, truth and beauty tells more about God and whenever there is truth, the beauty about God will be experienced through a person Christian experience. The personal experience enables one to encounter the beauty of truth and realize that such truth will be an illusion if it fails to point towards a God who is universal and common to all the human beings (Giussani & Hewitt, 2001).  Truth and beauty are embodied perfectly in the Lord and cannot be defined precisely when one does not have a personal experience of Christianity through a relationship with God. Then one will be able to know that Christian truth is understood through an affirmation of this religion as corresponding with objective reality. It is a structure of inner Christian experience, namely the relationship a personal believer will have with God. Such a relationship will only be experienced through Christ and other religious practices that are involved in a Christian experience.   Through a personal experience one is able to perceive truth, reason and reality as an organic whole.  One is able to come to contact with what is true when a proposition of truth is presented in their mind since truth is something whose existence is beyond the material things.  This could be the reason why some believe truth to be an illusion since their minds have not been open to receive the beauty of it. 

In the beauty of truth, a believer comes into contact with the divine through an experience they have had in have received in new realism. When truth is revealed, one is able to get into the world of rational ideas and perceive the world which corresponds to the real appearance of things. It gives some the ability to think about a thing that doesn’t involve the immediate and the ability to be ability to be nonfigurative. This is remarkable since it enables a person to perceive things in a way that they can recognize the beauty in truth, but it can be unhealthy if one uses it as an escape. Hence, if one is not in line with the revelation of a universal God, they cannot have a full view of this beauty in truth. Sin and prejudice make them biased so that they are not objective in what they experience and, therefore, are limited by space and time to see the entire truth at a glance. They are only able to make comments corresponding with a certain level of truthfulness about the appearance of things.  The truth and beauty in a common God is perceived through reason, conscience and imaginations. These are the receptors that enable humanity to learn from experience, differentiate themselves from animals and enable one to come into contact with a supernatural and divine world.  The reasoning and conscience enables those who encounter Christ two thousand years after vanishing from the world to realize that he corresponds to the truth which he claims to have. Therefore for anyone who comes into contact with God through Christian message, it is crucial that they be certain about the reality of this message given that it will be a critical issue for their lives and for life they will lead in the world. Beauty in truth, beauty and truth are illusionary if one has not had an experience that enabled them to perceive them in reality.  The experience dispels the notion that truth is illusionary the individuals are able to understand that living in church can be a way of experiencing the reality of a universal God.

 

Church and human fulfillment

The human fulfillment provided by the church is normally attained from the basis of personal awareness through an understanding that unity of life’s conception has a connection with the idea of a living God, a message that is passed on to Christianity. The church has attempted to impart a meaning in human life from the point of view of a Christian experience. The claim by the church on its capacity to provide personal awareness can be attributed to the fact that it enables humanity to realize that there is a meaning in life. This meaning is understood by those who belief the message that there is a goal in life that can only be attained by people who seriously get involved with life its encounters, events and problems.  This is possible to those who understand the holiness of life as taught by the church as the preventative of God in the earthly undertakings. Holiness of life is upheld by the church and that is why it gets involved in various activities that are directed to the fulfillment of the needs in the society and in this way the human fulfillment is achieved. Human fulfillment comprises of the spiritual and physical aspects that are linked sustainability of life. The spiritual and physical aspects of human life are influenced by the environment in which one is living in, which can explain the stand that the church can impact on how life is perceived and lived. The environment is an indication of the fabric of influences that are human experience and is normally a reaction between the originality of human and an array of circumstances.

 The support offered by the church includes the upholding the dignity or holiness of human and various activities that are geared towards alleviating the unconducive living conditions. The notion that all humanity from conception to a natural death has an inherent right to life and which is consistent with their dignity forms the beginning of personal fulfillment. At every stage in the development of human, the church gets involved so that it can impart the sense of belonging, purpose and a meaning beyond what this life can offer. The church therefore stands firm on the belief and truth of afterlife as a factor that can bring about human fulfillment in the activities human undertake. Such activities when based on associating oneself with the welfare of others build a deep sense of personal fulfillment. This is a basic teaching of the church, that a selfless act will have more satisfaction than one intended for personal gain. The individuals who choose to associate themselves with church embrace the principle of participation in the society while seeking the common well-being of everyone more so those who are disadvantaged.  Through this principle, the church is able to steer the human efforts towards achieving humanity fulfillment and the upholding of the knowledge that God intend for everyone to be content in His divinity through Jesus Christ who was actively involved in caring for humanity.

 

Reference

Giussani, L., & Hewitt, V. (2001). Why the church?. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.