Personal Religious Experience Paul tournier By

Daniel D. Musick, B.A., Wheaton College, 1973 http://www.garagedoor.org/paul_tournier/

These two experiences in Tournier's Christian life deserve closer attention, particularly in relation to the effect they had on his life and his soteriology. The first religious experience for Tournier occurred when he was 11 or 12, at which time he surrendered or consecrated his life to Christ.¹⁸ In a later reference to that event, Tournier notes that though he was a Christian, he had not experienced conviction of his sins.¹⁹ Similarly, he had neither surrendered his will²⁰ nor experienced conversion.²¹ During the time between his first and second experiences, he was active in the church,²² had written articles about Calvinism,²³ and had "fought for orthodoxy against liberalism."²⁴ His Christian experience did not become meaningful to him, however, until he later en-countered God. Of that experience he states:

"I am not speaking of salvation, which is already accomplished in Jesus Christ. It is rather a question of the transformation of my life, of my relationships with everyone--with myself, my wife, my children, and my patients--which had changed. Well, all the ensuing development of my existence came out of this face to face encounter with God. My intimacy with him was accentuated bit by bit; my life became enriched, freed from many hindrances; it gave me a vital interest in that other side of life, for its inner dimension, so necessary to us."²⁵

These experiences seem to have effected Tournier's universalism in two ways. First, several aspects of his soteriology became disjunct in his interpretation of these experiences. Dedication of one's life and be-coming a Christian, on the one hand, became divorced from the experience of conversion on the other hand--the conviction of sin, surrender of one's will, the regeneration of one's life through personal encounter with God. Emphasis on personal salvation, assuming Tournier had earlier stressed its significance, seems to have become more of a historical fact. As a result of this second experience, and the resulting disjuncture in his soteriology, there appear to be two consequences which had direct bearing on his universalism. First, his emphasis on one's personal encounter with God seems to have influenced his estimation of what the most important religious experience is: it is not personal salvation or becoming a Christian, but encountering God, which Tournier comes to conclude can be done in other religions and even in non-religious atmospheres.²⁶ Second, his de-emphasis on faith in Christ and its relation to personal salvation, and his apparent acceptance of salvation as a purely historical event probably made it easier for him to accept a universalist perspective: if all was accom-plished at the Cross, then it would be easy to assume the work of Christ was effective for the salvation of all, irrespective of our response to the gospel.²⁷

²⁷This disjuncture is particularly noticeable in his first book, written after his encounter with God in the Oxford Group. In the Healing of Persons he cites more religious experiences than in any of his other works. He cites examples of persons who encounter Christ (pp. 59, 153; cf. 43, 213, 222, 249), offer or dedicate their lives to Christ or God (pp. 15, 24, 92; 145, 150, 155; 174-5, 231, 281), experience God's forgiveness (pp. 25, 150); experience a transformation of lives and attitudes (pp. 6, 119, 154; 220, 239; cf. 209-213, 222) and undergo conversion (pp. 108-109, 114, 130; 137, 174, 263, 277). Nowhere does he refer to anyone being saved, however, nor does he even use the term in the theological sense. Elsewhere in his writings one would be hard-pressed to find Tournier referring to anyone being saved, or to the personal experience of salvation.

Focal to Tournier's career were the death of both parents by the age of six, his salvation/vocational decision at age twelve, and his sense of insecurity during adolescence. He was greatly influenced by the Oxford Group Movement and became active in its affairs during years when he was experiencing some isolation from his own church. His early years as a physician found him seeking to attend to the personal as well as the physical needs of his patients; his style of practice became for him an expression of Christian witness and ministry. Most of his writings are reflections on these experiences with persons coupled with attempts to explicate a view of man consonant with the Christian faith and modern psychology. H. Newton Malony
Fuller Theological Seminary
Graduate School of Psychology
Pasadena, California

....Paul Tournier...has frequently expressed his debt to Buchman for much of his own approach to counseling...."(29)

Lean further quotes Paul Tournier, the Swiss psychiatrist, regarding Buchman's effect on the church. "Before Buchman the church felt its job was to teach and preach, but not to find out what was happening in people's souls. The clergy never listened in church, they always talked" (153).