It’s important to know how words shift, change, and develop in their meaning as centuries pass. If we understand where they came from and how they have evolved, we can use them better and more accurately. For instance:
The Latin verb experior basically means to try, test, prove, put to the test. Hence it can mean:
– to make trial of a person
– to know by having tried, to know by experience
– to try to do a thing
– (as a present participle, experiens) enterprising, venturesome
– (as a past participle, expertus) tested, tried, approved or with experience, experienced
It’s at the root of the English word, experience, which can mean:
– a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something
– the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something
– the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time
– knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone
It’s also at the root of the English word, experiment, which can mean:
– a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition, etc.
– the conducting of such operations
– (as a verb) to try or test, especially in order to discover or prove something
Generally, the methodology of science includes almost all these meanings, since it involves observing, researching, theorizing, testing, analyzing, and concluding.
Generally, the methodology of religion includes some of the meanings associated with experience, but hardly at all those associated with experiment.
In scientific methodology, experiments are necessary to verify the validity and truthfulness of a theory. Whether the experiment succeeds or fails, it has value in the learning process.
However, in religious methodology, a failed experiment is not usually appreciated as a value in the learning process. Usually it is identified as a moral defect, a negative judgement of the experimenter, and as a violation of accepted rules and regulations.
Human nature being what it is, most people have grown and developed, instinctively using a methodology that is more “scientific”. In other words, we’ve learned by trial and error.
We either try and err ourselves or we trust the shared conclusions of others who have tried and erred before us.
The very essence of our learning process involves making mistakes.
Actually the trial and error methodology works in religious matters as well. There, too, we learn by trying and erring ourselves or trusting the shared conclusions of others who have tried and erred before us.
However, in religious affairs often the learning process is thwarted since our trying and erring may be censored and identified as evil and sinful. The expectation usually is that we should totally and exclusively trust and be guided by the wisdom of others who have gone before us.
Hopefully, our “Last Judgement” won’t confuse our in-good-faith erring with our stubbornly repeating failed experiments!
13 March 2022