Jade,
It could be argued that
all experience is subjective (i.e. "just in your mind"), but that won't help us much.
The real problem you have is how do you validate my "experience" of God. As you said, I might as well be schizophrenic and make the same claims. I have asked a few people (including some of my agnostic/atheist friends) and they seem convinced I am not schizophrenic or delusional. So my best answer is that in all other areas of my life I'm quite normal and reasnable. I wouldn't get away in court by pleading temporary insanity or paranoid delusion, even if I said something silly like "God/Satan made me do it". No-one would believe me.
Actually, my attempts are just as good (or bad) as yours. It "feels"like wisdom, but only in applying it does it make any difference in normal life. I can only say what I have "learned", and like any person, it is up to others to accept or reject my ïnsights". If things were more black and white, we wouldn't need a justice system, would we?
I have mentioned 'learning' about God. I mean that one's "knowledge/understanding" of God changes and grows as it is tested. Not
scientifically tested, in the general sense of the word, but tested by life itself. I have suffered, persevered, it has built my character, and as a result I have reason to hope. It is a psychological fact, but an interesting side-product was faith. I put my hope in Christ, and when the experience/results were put into words it read: "God was faithful". I did not reach or "grasp" God, but I have gained faith in Him, and that faith has never disappointed me - I have often disappointed myself, and am often disappointed by others and by circumstances, I often doubt, but nothing ever reaches beyond faith. It would never occur to me even once to take credit for anything when credit so obviously (to me) belongs to God.
Finding God is a constant persuit. It isn't something that is owned. For some it is a persuit in vain, for others it is the most rewarding experience imaginable.
New Life,
I don't know that it is stated like that explicitly (not that I recall), but it certainly is the message that our rigteousness before God is by faith. Our faith as Christians is based on the resurrection of Jesus.
Romans 1 (NLT)
16For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes--Jews first and also Gentiles. 17This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life."
Something that should be noted in this discussion of faith is that, while "faith" has both secular and religious meaning, the two perspectives are a little different. From a secular viewpoint (as it is demonstrated in X-Men 2
), faith is something that bridges the gap between knowledge and reality, when empirical knowledge hasn't yet caught up with the present.
From a religious (at least Christian) POV, faith goes beyond the present, the belief in God or the unknown - it is closely connected to a living relationship with an unknown God, a rock that keeps on rolling, not a rock that is found and passed by. It is the very rope by which we are pulled out of the water and saved from drowning. Not something we can achieve by ourselves - we can merely hold on to it. Faith is the tool by which we are made "righteous" by a historical, present and future God, and this "righteousness" has no secular function. There's no getting past that in discussion - unless it is to point out the use of secular "faith" in religious circumstances, or vice versa. Keep both perspectives in mind when you read the following, and you'll see what I mean:
Rom. 10: 3
Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes [has faith in Him].