Building pictures

I've been thinking lately about the pictures we have of people. Intentionally or not, we store away little bits of memory about the people we meet. As you see people at action, you learn about their characteristics, likes, interests, values, abilities, etc. which all come together in this amalgamation I'm calling a 'picture'. Naturally, the longer you know someone the more in-depth your picture of them is going to be. (I think they call these pictures 'schema', can anyone verify that?)

Now, about our picture of God... How much of our picture of God has come from direct experience of Him (henceforth 'experiential knowledge') and how much has come from what we've been told (henceforth 'transmitted knowledge')? I got to wondering this after pondering some of the characteristics of God. Not many would argue that God is not loving, merciful, just, mighty, good, etc. But how many of these have I actually experienced directly in my own life, not just heard or read about? Do you think there is a place for both experiential and transmitted knowledge, or is one a 'truer' way of getting to know God than the other? For that matter, would you classify the Bible as experiential (directly relating to God, since His Word is living) or transmitted (learning about God from someone else, since it was written from other people's experiences of God)??? Or *gasp* could it be BOTH?!

I guess I'm leaning towards the idea that both are essential to getting to know God. We need to learn from others, because others have a lot of wisdom to share, and let's face it we all need help. Without it, our knowledge of God would be limited to only what we ourselves could experience or comprehend (don't know about you, but I sure don't know everything!). However, if we're coasting along only on what has been told to us about God, then we're not going to grow either. You can't have relationship with someone you're not experiencing personally. Otherwise you're just learning theological facts. It's an interesting exercise to try and identify just where specific ideas you might hold about God have come from...

Any thoughts???