Tradition, Experience, Interpretation: A Dialectical Model for Describing the Development of Religious Thought

Abstract

The term "experience" points to that "something" which stands "between" a tradition and its reinterpretation. From one point of view that means new situations or new contexts. But reinterpretation is accomplished by persons and groups. "New experience" equals "new situation" as perceived by persons or groups. Tradition and experience are inseparably connected. Both in trying to work out a history-of-religion account of early Christian thought', and in trying to understand the Qur'an with empathy, the author has often found it useful to envisage religious thought in terms of a dialectic between tradition, experience and interpretation. This means that religious thought develops in a process in which traditions are time and again interpreted in the light of new experiences, and vice versa: experiences are interpreted in the light of traditions. In other words, elements of the tradition are reinterpreted, but this happens in the framework of the very tradition in question. The emphasis can be put on different sides, either on tradition or on experience. The point is to underline the "process" and its dynamics — to call attention to change, reinterpretation, actualization and reapplication of traditions.