Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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If it be true, can be taken back to life and tested
there."' Fosdick used the idea of the Trinity as an
example. "The Trinity that matters is the Trinity of
experience.'
Thus, the true church does not merely inculcate
outdated statements of past experience. It communicates
timeless truth in terms meaningful to contemporary man in
order to make these Biblical experiences present
reality."'" "What is permanent in Christianity is not
mental frameworks but abiding experiences that phrase and
rephrase themselves in successive generations' ways of
thinking and that grow in assured certainty and in
richness of content.
Following that statement consistently, Fosdick
admitted the presence of "outgrown elements" in
Scripture. ="5 Bible writers recorded their experience
of God in accordance with contemporary knowledge, but
"whenever any revelation comes into contact with the
human mind, it becomes relative." 2. Examples of such
"outgrown elements" include "the resurrection of the
flesh,"'s° " the physical return of 3esus,"
1 "demons
as the source and explanation of life's manifold
evils," :32 and "angels.""
While Bible descriptions may have become obsolete,
Fosdick did not see them as beyond relevance. "In every
case we have found that the category which at first
seemed outgrown was in fact the transient phrasing of a
permanent experience." :75i. The abiding truths hidden