Experience is all

There's a discussion going on at Matt's blog about meaning, experience, and scripture. In frustration that sola scriptura had been raised as a way to say that one's opinions should only be informed by the scripture (against Matt's observation that his opinons are informed by all manner of things), I suggested that scriptural meaning may be mediated through other things that we experience - such as a friend's conversation or a CS Lewis novel.

In discussing it with Matt afterward, it seemed that his point was more profound than mediation.

His real point (for which I have an 'amen') is this: that reading the bible is not an isolated category which imparts a non-experience-infused meaning to us. Even in reading, we are 'enmeshed' in a context and shifting kaleidoscope of meanings - all of which are imparted by the totality of our experiences.

This seems to me to be completely true. One cannot maintain a simple dichotomy between 'reading scripture' and 'experience', saying that opinions should be informed by one and not the other. In the way the world actually is, that kind of position makes no sense at all.