Theology and Theological Experience : A Certain Proposal by Dominique Dubarle

Is it possible to verify the statements of faith? This article claims to open a discussion with the French philosopher Dominique Dubarle’s teaching, expressed particularly in a lecture titled The Verification of the Statements of Faith and the Theological Experience. Theological experience must here be understood in a strong meaning of both parts of this term: it is not only a ‘religious experience’, which has too ambiguous or too weak meaning, but an experience with a certain objectivity, mediating a knowledge of God. How this experience can be situated in the structure of the mind? Dominique Dubarle in his lecture introduces an interesting discussion on the meaning of the ‘active mind’. Under which conditions a human experience can be qualified as the theological one, it is a real experience of God? Considering the role of freedom in the constitution of faith, we should not forget that the statements of faith are always singular.