God spoke, but not everyone heard it the same way.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 12, Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice from heaven responds, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” everyone present at the time, heard something, yet the crowd's reaction to this encounter was not uniform. Some thought they heard thunder. Others believed that an angel spoken. What are we to make of this?
This isn’t the only time a divine encounter has divided human perception. It often happens when the record says there was more than one witness. For instance, on the road to Damascus, Paul sees a blinding light and hears the voice of Jesus. It says his companions saw the light, but heard nothing. At Pentecost, many people miraculously heard the apostles preaching in their native language; others did not, and dismissed it as drunken babble. Why do divine encounters—moments of infinite significance—seem to resist universal agreement? Kitaro Nishida, a Japanese philosopher, might have an answer.
Pure Experience: Before the Categories
Nishida describes a stage of perception he calls Pure Experience: the moment of direct, immediate awareness before our minds step in to label, analyze, and divide. In this state, there is no “me” observing the sunset or “you” listening to my story. There’s just the event—whole, undisturbed, complete.
Imagine standing at the edge of the ocean. The waves, the wind, the salty air, and the sunlight all come as one unified event. In Pure Experience, you don’t think, “I am here” or “This is the ocean.” Those thoughts come later, once the mind begins its inevitable work of categorizing, naming, and interpreting.
For Nishida, this act of reflection—while useful—distorts the original encounter. What begins as direct experience becomes mediated through thought. It’s secondhand knowledge, reshaped by memory, and the limits of individual perspective.
Imagine standing at the edge of the ocean. The waves, the wind, the salty air, and the sunlight all come as one unified event. In Pure Experience, you don’t think, “I am here” or “This is the ocean.” Those thoughts come later, once the mind begins its inevitable work of categorizing, naming, and interpreting.
For Nishida, this act of reflection—while useful—distorts the original encounter. What begins as direct experience becomes mediated through thought. It’s secondhand knowledge, reshaped by memory, and the limits of individual perspective.
What Does This Mean for Theology?
Theology is the work of reflection. It’s an attempt to make sense of the pure experience of the divine encounters recorded in scripture. These texts describe extraordinary events: the burning bush, the still small voice, the Word made flesh. We make sense of these terms and describe them using terms like Trinity and Substitutionary Atonement. But these are just models—useful, perhaps even necessary, but ultimately artifical.
As George Box, the statistician, once said, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Theology is no exception. Its models reflect mediated experience, not the pure, unfiltered encounter with God.
Karl Barth, the great theologian, famously said, “The Bible becomes the Word of God.” For Barth, the text on the page is lifeless until the Spirit breathes life into it. You might say it’s like dry bones being awakened. In Nishida’s terms, this moment of awakening is a new Pure Experience—a direct encounter with God through the medium of Scripture.
When God Speaks, Some Hear Thunder
This brings us back to John 12 and the voice from heaven. When God acts, why isn’t the experience the same for everyone?
I think the answer lies in the very nature of divine encounters. When God acts, it’s not like seeing a sunset, or hearing the ocean. These are events that transcend human categories. They have no earthly analog, no familiar reference point. As a result, people interpret them differently—some profoundly, some skeptically, some not at all.
It’s not just the experience that varies but also the reflections on it. Take the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christians agree it is the pivotal event in history, yet they debate it endlessly. Why? Theories of atonement—whether penal substitution or Christus Victor—are only attempts to describe the same event. Faith should rest on the event itself, not on our models. Some models may be better than others. New models may answer some of the shortcomings of older models. To hold a single model up as equivalent to the event itself does a great disservice to the reality of the pure event itself which escapes any attempt to fully describe it.
I think the answer lies in the very nature of divine encounters. When God acts, it’s not like seeing a sunset, or hearing the ocean. These are events that transcend human categories. They have no earthly analog, no familiar reference point. As a result, people interpret them differently—some profoundly, some skeptically, some not at all.
It’s not just the experience that varies but also the reflections on it. Take the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christians agree it is the pivotal event in history, yet they debate it endlessly. Why? Theories of atonement—whether penal substitution or Christus Victor—are only attempts to describe the same event. Faith should rest on the event itself, not on our models. Some models may be better than others. New models may answer some of the shortcomings of older models. To hold a single model up as equivalent to the event itself does a great disservice to the reality of the pure event itself which escapes any attempt to fully describe it.
Always Reforming
The early Reformers used to use the expression: Semper Reformanda—“Always Reforming” to remind us that the work of theology is never finished. Our reflections must continually adapt as we wrestle with divine revelation - to understand it more clearly and the implications it holds for our lives.
Nishida’s idea of Pure Experience offers us a challenge and an invitation. It reminds us to distinguish between the raw event and our interpretations. Divine encounters are like thunder—that rumbles through history, powerful but elusive. What we hear depends on how we listen.
Faith, then, is not in the model but in the reality.
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