Description
By Rev Fr William Goh
Set of 3 cds
Talk 1. Finding God through Faith and Experience
The request of the Greeks who came to Philip and said, “We want to see Jesus” articulates anew the thirst of every modern man who is searching for God. Only in God can one find true meaning and purpose. Where is God to be found? Without a personal experience of God, the secularized man might conclude that God is an unnecessary hypothesis for life. What is the relationship between faith and experience? Is not faith and experience contradictory, since faith is to believe without seeing? Is our faith defective merely by assenting to the truths? Can we replace experience with intellectual faith? This talk will explore the relationship between faith and beliefs.
Talk 2. Recovering the Initial Christian Experience
How does one come to faith in God? A definite experience of God in our lives is critical in our faith journey. Being a Christian begins with a definite experience. In order to recover for ourselves the life-transforming experience of the Spirit, we must inquire into the early Christian experience of Christ that brought about a radical transformation of their lives. The basic and initial Christian experience in the primitive Church is of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we will not have faith in Christ. Hence, we need to consider how we can recover our experience of Christ through initiation to the life of the Holy Spirit.
Talk 3. The Elements of an Experience of God
What does the love of God entail? Is the love of God a pure act of the will without passion? Can the fatherliness of God, the presence of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit be experienced? God is real only when we are touched by the Holy Spirit. But a deeply personal experience of God must not be confused with a mere emotional expression. Rather faith must be concrete, intuitive and mystical. It must embrace the whole humanity, namely, the spirit, the body, intellect, will and emotions. It includes receptivity to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the divine consolations as well. Finally, a word of caution, lest we think that growth in faith is a movement from spiritual experience to spiritual experience. On the contrary, there are objective elements of faith which includes doctrinal, scriptural, catholic tradition, Church discipline and the celebration of the liturgy.
