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Illumination or encounter view UEGW 34

The illumination view, advocated by Friedrich Schleiermacher (a late seventeenth to early eighteenth-century historical-critical theologian), Unitarians, and some encounter theologians of the early twentieth century, claims that inspiration works in all believers as the Holy Spirit heightens the spiritual perceptivity. Those with this view did not see a qualitative difference between what the prophets experienced and what any Christian may experience. This view de-emphasizes, if not denies, the idea of new objective truth or propositional special revelation. It diminished the Bible to a mostly naturalistic process. Adventists who tend towards this end of the spectrum might respect Ellen White but consider her to be a remarkable person with only devotional or experiential authority. UEGW 34.2