The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Reformed Mysticism/Pietism vs True Experientialism

I find such statements as "having a personal relationship with God/Christ" obnoxious, arrogant and ignorant.

In nearly every single instance where I have heard someone speak in those terms, what they meant was having an emotional experience based upon an all-too-familiarity with God, i.e., a god of their own devices. It's not simply a matter of it being a product of "free-willism", but of the entire modern version of semi-Pelagianism. The irony, at least in my mind, of this type of thinking is that it is meant to develop some deep personal 'bond' with God but in fact it is seriously superficial. How so? Because it brings God down, as if that were even possible, to the level of man where God becomes one's "buddy-buddy" or "daddy", resulting in God being nothing more than a celestial friend who will tend to one's every beck and call; the proverbial celestial bellhop. Theologically, this self-imagined relationship effectively removes God's transcendence and ignores His ineffable holiness. Of course, the opposite error is also prevalent among the Mystics who so far remove God that it is virtually impossible to know Him... except, of course, for those select few who have transcended their earthliness through some ethereal spiritual experience.