You can have faith without having much personal experience; you can hold to the Christian faith and not actually know God yourself. (I’ve met many of these dear souls!) – I have faith in my [doctor] but I don’t know him at all. We certainly don’t share our life together. I am grateful for his help, if needed, but we aren’t anything like best friends. Similarly, you can have faith in God from a distance, you can have a relationship with Christ but not be intimate; not be inhabited; intertwined; saturated.