Mystical Union

2020 ◽  
pp. 403-421
Author(s):  
Bernard McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Final Model ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Biblical Foundations ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter follows the evolution of the three main models of Christian understanding of mystical union from the biblical foundations down to the crisis of mysticism at the end of the seventeenth century. Although the technical term ‘mystical union’ was rarely used for most of this period, many Christian thinkers spoke about becoming one with God through grace. Three main models emerged. The first is unitas spiritus (union of spirit), based on 1 Corinthians 6: 17, according to which God and the person unite in spirit by willing the same thing. This was often expressed in erotic terms. The second model is Trinitarian—a union in which a human comes to share in the inner life of the three Persons of the Trinity. The final model is the union of indistinction in which union is understood as a merging with God that leaves all distinction behind, at least on some level.

From Seeker to Finder: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Spiritualism Before The Quakers

1948 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Arthur Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
British History ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
The Trinity

The period of the Civil Wars and Commonwealth in England was one of the most momentous epochs in British history. For small groups of people the decade of the 1640's inaugurated a New Age—an age in which the Holy Spirit reigned triumphant. Such believers reached the zenith of Puritan “spiritualism,” or that movement which placed the greatest emphasis upon the Third Person of the Trinity.

The Manual of 1614

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-172
Author(s):  
J. D. Crichton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Teresa Of Avila ◽  
Country Houses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ordinary Person ◽  
The Many

In recent years, students of recusancy have begun to turn their attention to the inner life of the Catholic community, a development much to be welcomed; and it is understandable that for the most part the centre of interest has been what is called the spiritual life. Influences coming from St. Francis of Sales and St. Teresa of Avila have been traced, and Augustine Baker has rightly been the subject of much study. What needs further investigation, I believe, is the devotional life of the ordinary person, namely the gentry and their wives and daughters in their country houses, especially in the seventeenth century. There were also those who towards the end of the century increasingly lived in London and other towns without the support of the ‘patriarchal’ life of the greater families. No doubt, many were unlettered, and even if they could read they were probably unused to handling anything but the simplest of books. It would be interesting to know what vernacular prayers they knew and said, how they managed to ‘hear Mass’, as the phrase went, what they made of the sacrament of penance, and what notions about God and Jesus Christ they entertained. Perhaps the religious practice of the unlettered is now beyond recall, but something remains of the practice of those who used the many Primers and Manuals that are still extant.

scholarly journals TO THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE: The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity and its Interrelatedness to the Economy of God in Salvation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-159
Author(s):  
Robb Lawrence Torseth
Keyword(s):  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Theology Proper

It is a contemporary trend by many theologians and philosophers to view the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (from hereon, DDS) as an unnecessary, illogical, and problematic addendum of scholasticism to theology proper. However, upon further investigation, this doctrine is found to be prevalent and implied in biblically orthodox ontology. Furthermore, it may be shown that the DDS bears potentially broad ramifications to how we understand the Trinity (given that it proceeds from simplicity in logical priority) and, subsequently, how we understand the initial, sustained, and perfected work of God in salvation through grace. Therefore, contrary to current theological trends, it may be stated that the DDS is, in fact, a centrifugal, practical, and even indispensablepart of the Christian understanding of how we know God. 

Phenomenology of Interior Life and the Trinity

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Robert Farrugia
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Michel Henry ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Static Nature

Michel Henry radicalises phenomenology by putting forward the idea of a double manifestation: the “Truth of Life” and “truth of the world.” For Henry, the world turns out to be empty of Life. To find its essence, the self must dive completely inward, away from the exterior movements of intentionality. Hence, Life, or God, for Henry, lies in non‑intentional, immanent self-experience, which is felt and yet remains invisible, in an absolutist sense, as an a priori condition of all conscious experience. In Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity illuminates the distinction between the immanent Trinity (God’s self‑relation) and the economic workings of the Trinity (God‑world relation). However, the mystery of God’s inmost being and the economy of salvation are here understood as inseparable. In light of this, the paper aims to: 1) elucidate the significance of Henry’s engagement with the phenomenological tradition and his proposal of a phenomenology of Life which advocates an immanent auto‑affection, radically separate from the ek‑static nature of intentionality, and 2) confront the division between Life and world in Henry’s Christian phenomenology and its discordancy with the doctrine of the Trinity, as the latter attests to the harmonious unity that subsists between inner life and the world.

scholarly journals ’n Kritiese blik op missio Dei in die lig van Efesiërs

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Breed
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Mutual Relationship ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Critical View ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

Missio Dei is ’n belangrike tegniese term in die gesprek oor die missionale taak van die kerk. Die term word egter nie konsekwent met dieselfde betekenis in die gesprek gebruik nie. Daar word selfs teenstrydige betekenisinhoude aan hierdie term geheg. Sommige gespreksgenote gebruik hierdie term sonder om duidelik te maak wat hulle spesifiek daaronder verstaan. Hierdie situasie lei tot misverstande en kan aanleiding gee tot ’n onbybelse benadering tot sending. Hierdie artikel ondersoek twee belangrike aspekte van die missio Dei-gesprek, naamlik die standpunt dat sending (missio) tot die wese van God behoort en dat Hy daarom ’n sendende God is, asook die standpunt dat sending (missio) uit die Drie-eenheid se onderlinge verhouding voortvloei. Verskillende benaderings in die missionale debat rondom die begrip missio Dei word krities ondersoek en op grond van Paulus se brief aan die Efesiërs geëvalueer. Vanuit die Efesiërbrief word ’n voorstel gemaak ten opsigte van die betekenis wat die begrip missio Dei behoort te dra asook hoe sending op die selfopenbaring van die Drie-eenheid volgens die Efesiërbrief gegrond kan word.A critical view of missio Dei in the light of Ephesians. Missio Dei is an important technical term in the discussion of the missional task of the church. In this discussion, however, the term is not used in a consistent sense. Even contrary semantic contents are associated with it. Some participants in the discussion use the term without clarifying what they understand by it. This situation causes misunderstandings and may give rise to an unbiblical approach to mission. This article investigates two important aspects of the missio Dei discourse, namely the viewpoint that mission (missio) is inherent to the nature of God, which means he is a missional God, as well as the viewpoint that mission (missio) flows from the mutual relationship in the Trinity. Different approaches in the missional debate regarding the concept of mission Dei are critically investigated and evaluated on the grounds of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Based on the Ephesian letter a suggestion is made with regard to what the meaning of the concept of missio Dei ought to be, as well as how mission can be based on the self-revelation of the Trinity according to the Ephesian letter.

Re-conceiving the Trinity as the Mystery of Salvation

1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. LaCugna
Keyword(s):  
Second Step ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Trinity

We began by wondering what it might mean to speak of the immanent and economic threefoldness of God. Rahner's axiom provided leverage on the problem by showing that trinitarian theology is meant above all to be a truth about the mystery of salvation. That is, it is a way of both narrating and conceiving the God who saves and the God who saves.The correspondence between these two emphases presented a hermeneutical problem at two methodological levels, and so the second step was to examine the meaning of the copula in Rahner's axiom in order to decide how we might (a) link up our narrative of God's history with us with God's inner history, and, having answered that, how we might (b) link up our speculation about God's ‘inner’ life with the divine reality. We replied in the case of (a) that the axiom legislates speaking of God by drafting an equivalence between the temporal history of God-with-us and the eternal history of God, and vice versa: the economic trinity is the immanent trinity, and vice versa. In the case of (b) and building on the answer to (a), we proposed an understanding of the trinity as a theological model. The model (trinity of relations) is related to the ‘modeled’ (God-in-relation) both heuristically and ontologically. The theological model of trinity therefore must incorporate imagistic as well as discursive, indirect as well as direct modes of discourse.Finally, we indicated some of the theological and methodological consequences of understanding God as being the ‘God for us’, and of re-conceiving the doctrine of the trinity to be a theological model of salvation.

Socinianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Free Will ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Church Authority ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul ◽  
The Trinity

Socinianism was both the name for a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theological movement which was a forerunner of modern unitarianism, and, much less precisely, a polemic term of abuse suggesting positions in common with that ‘heretical’ movement. Socinianism was explicitly undogmatic but centred on disbelief in the Trinity, original sin, the satisfaction, and the natural immortality of the soul. Some Socinians were materialists. Socinians focused on moralism and Christ’s prophetic role; the elevation of reason in interpreting Scripture against creeds, traditions and church authority; and support for religious toleration. The term was used polemically against many theorists, including Hugo Grotius, William Chillingworth, the Latitudinarians, and John Locke, who emphasized free will, moralism, the role and capacity of reason, and that Christianity included only a very few fundamental doctrines necessary for salvation.

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