Love, Knowledge, and Mystical Union in Western Christianity: Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries

1987 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Divine Presence ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Immediate Experience ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
Christian Perfection

All ideals of Christian perfection, and mysticism is certainly one of these, are forms of response to the presence of God, a presence that is not open, evident, or easily accessible, but that is always in some way mysterious or hidden. When that hidden presence becomes the subject of some form of immediate experience, we can perhaps begin to speak of mysticism in the proper sense of the term. The responses of the subject to immediate divine presence have been discussed theologically in a variety of ways and according to a number of different models. Among them we might list direct contemplation or vision of God, rapture or ecstasy, deification, living in Christ, the birth of the Word in the soul, radical obedience to the directly present will of God, and especially union with God. All of these responses, which have rarely been mutually exclusive, can be called mystical in the sense that they are answers to the immediately experienced divine presence. Therefore, the mysticism of union is just one of the species of a wider and more diverse genus or group.

scholarly journals Seeing God. Thomas Aquinas on Divine Presence in the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 739-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Roszak ◽  
Tomasz Huzarek
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Natural Level ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Changing World

Abstract: How to recognize the presence of God in the world? Thomas Aquinas' proposition, based on the efficient, exemplary and intentional causality, including both the natural level and grace, avoids several simplifications, the consequence of which is transcendent blindness. On the one hand, it does not allow to fall into a panentheistic reductionism involving God into the game of His variability in relation to the changing world. The sensitivity of Thomas in interpreting a real existing world makes it impossible to close the subject in the ''house without windows'', from where God can only be presumed. On the other hand, the proposal of Aquinas avoids the radical transcendence of God, according to which He has nothing to do with the world.

scholarly journals Tell us no secrets: St. Irenaeus’ contra-gnostic doctrine of communion

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Don W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Church

Discussion related to the potential for mystical union with God was largely absent from the writings of the Church Fathers prior to the late-second century. Toward the end of that century, however, the concept of communion with God emerged as a topic of interest in both early Christian and Gnostic literature. St. Irenaeus of Lyons was among the earliest Christian writers to critically reflect on the subject. He argued that participation with the divine was possible only in the “orthodox” churches and required three key elements: a life lived in connection to the Spirit of God, in community with the true people of God, while bearing evidence of godly piety and virtue. Whereas Gnostic conceptions of communion frequently included an emphasis on the reception of an exclusive, secret gnosis, Irenaeus’ paradigm offered a public, progressive path of ascent to God.

An Unresolved Tension in the Christology of D. M. Baillie

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-308
Author(s):  
J. L. M. Haire
Keyword(s):  
Divine Nature ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Christ

D. M. Baillie's God was in Christ is now published as a paperback, and this is a pointer to the widespread nature of its appeal. No modern book in English on Christology has been more readable or given a greater sense of honesty of thought or ecumenicity of spirit. It has appeared to many to throw new light on the wonder of the Incarnation, and on the human and Divine in the life of our Lord. Its Christology, however, has also been already the subject of criticism in this journal where Professor J. H. Hick, of Princeton, in March 1958 suggested that Baillie's solution is really a form of adoptionism, the Man Christ Jesus being the Man in whom the most perfect presence of God to Man and the most perfect response of Man to God is manifested. I agree with Professor Hick that much of what Donald Baillie says does appear to point to a form of adoptionism, but I would maintain that there is another strain in Baillie's writings which is not simply a form of predestinarian compulsion as Hick suggests, but is an attempt to say what the traditional orthodoxy said when it spoke about a Divine nature in Christ. The aim of this article is to show that this real tension is to be found in Baillie's writing, and that for this reason his solution of the paradox of grace does not turn out to be nearly so complete a solution as he thinks.

Eschatology

2020 ◽  
pp. 645-665
Author(s):  
Hugh Feiss
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Compassionate Care ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Union With God

Mystical experience is a foretaste of heaven and so eschatology and mysticism are related. Five examples of this relationship are Gregory the Great’s account of Benedict’s final vision of the world in the light of God, the twelfth-century Victorines’ explanation of how mystical union leads to configuration with Christ and so to compassionate care for others, Bernard of Clairvaux’s theory that the souls of the blessed do not have full union with God until they are reunited with their bodies and their fellow Christians at the final resurrection, Julian of Norwich’s struggle to understand how all can be well when there is sin, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the divine presence in matter and of the responsibility of humanity to evolve toward the fullness of Christ. These intersections of mysticism and eschatology are elucidated by Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of prayer.

scholarly journals Die ontwikkeling van die menslike bewussyn: Teorieë oor die ontwikkeling van menslike bewussyn – die ontdekking van die ‘misterie van die siel’

2009 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Integral Theory ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Ken Wilber ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God

The development of the human consciousness: Theories of the development of human consciousness – discovering the ‘mystery of the soul’A number of theories on the development of human consciousness have tried to incorporate all views on the subject into one integral theory. However, Ken Wilber is the first philosopher who managed to combine the external with the internal fields of study. Using Wilber’s integral theory, a number of researchers developed their own theories in their field of speciality. Jim Marion used Wilber’s development theory to show the evolution of consciousness from a Christian perspective. Steve McIntosh, an integral philosopher, takes Wilber’s ideas further, and even criticises him on a few points. Another important researcher following Wilber is Andre Marquis, who developed an integral questionnaire to help pastors gauge clients’ problems. James Fowler, Clare Graves and Bill Plotkin also researched the evolution of human consciousness. This article examines each of these researchers, and concludes with a glance at several viewpoints on the soul and the mystical union with God.

After Arminius

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. McCall ◽  
Keith D. Stanglin
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
System Building ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
Important Position

“Arminianism” was the subject of important theological controversies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it maintains an important position within Protestant thought. What became known as “Arminian” theology was held by people across a swath of geographical and ecclesial positions; it developed in European, British, and American contexts, and it engaged with a wide range of intellectual challenges. While standing together in their common rejection of several key planks of Reformed theology, proponents of Arminianism took various positions on other matters. Some were broadly committed to catholic and creedal theology; others were more open to theological revision. Some were concerned primarily with practical concerns; others were engaged in system building as they sought to articulate and defend an overarching vision of God and the world. The story of this development is both complex and important for a proper understanding of the history of Protestant theology. However, this historical development of Arminian theology is not well known. In this book, Thomas H. McCall and Keith D. Stanglin offer a historical introduction to Arminian theology as it developed in modern thought, providing an account that is based upon important primary sources and recent secondary research that will be helpful to scholars of ecclesial history and modern thought as well as comprehensible and relevant for students.

Christ-Centered Peregrinatio: The Mediated Journey

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Dual Roles ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Union With God ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

This chapter discusses how Christ bridges the human–divine, temporal–eternal, earthly–heavenly realms by healing and purifying the believer for union with God. This union with God consists of knowing and loving God—imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come. This union happens through the conformation of the believer to Christ in love, which forms the believer for rightly ordered relationships with God, self, and neighbor. Augustine pictures the process of conformation as the journey to the homeland, a pilgrimage the believer makes to God in Christ. Christ is the way to the homeland and he is the way because he is the homeland. Christ’s mediating and healing work is inextricably tied to his dual roles as the way and the end.

L’analisi ġazaliana del concetto di ittiḥād

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 130-146
Author(s):  
Ines Peta
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literal Sense ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God

Abstract The aim of this contribution is to highlight al-Ġazālī’s account of ittiḥād or “union” with God; to this purpose, we have traced and examined, within his works, the various passages dedicated to the subject. This analysis shows that al-Ġazālī, although critical of the doctrine of ittiḥād understood in the literal sense, accepts it in a metaphorical way, interpreting it as the state of obliteration of the self (fanā’) in the divine uniqueness (tawḥīd). Even though he defines tawḥīd, in its highest sense, as “not seeing in existence but One”, the terminological and content analysis of the ġazalian passages clearly shows, in our opinion, that he does not adhere to the monism inherent in the so-called waḥdat al-wujūd; on the contrary he strongly supports the monotheistic paradigm. The assertion that God is the only real existent – to be understood in Avicennan terms as the only necessarily existent –, does not imply in fact that creatures are deprived of their own substantial reality and is therefore consistent with the statement that everything has God as its sole creator. In this sense, the ġazalian need to point out that the “absorption” of the Sufi into God is not ittiḥād but tawḥīd is not a mere terminological issue or an instrumental attempt to make “orthodox” an “heterodox” doctrine, but it is the proper expression of the true meaning of that “absorption”, and it’s no coincidence that it corresponds to the foundation of Islam: monotheism.

The Experience of Beauty: Hugh and Richard of St. Victor on Natural Theology

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 234-253
Author(s):  
Ritva Palmén
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Immediate Experience ◽  
The Trinity

In this paper, I will argue that the Twelfth Century spiritually -oriented texts present an important, but often neglected instance of natural theology. My analysis will show that in the texts of Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) and his student Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) we find a Christian Neo-Platonist variant of natural theology. The elements of natural theology form a central part of their larger spiritual programmes, which in turn are meant to guide the human being in her ascent into divine realities and thereby offer immediate experience of the presence of God. I will give special attention to Hugh’s treatise De Tribus Diebus, as it explores both the manifestations of the Trinity in the created world as well as the beauty of all created objects. Hugh’s account will be supplemented by an exposition of Richard’s idea of experience as a vital means for all knowing.

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