Christian Mysticism And Incarnational Theology

This book examines the relationship between transcendence and immanence within Christian mystical and apophatic writings. Original essays from a range of leading, established, and emerging scholars in the field focus on the roles of language, signs, and images, and consider how mystical theology might contribute to contemporary reflection on the Word incarnate. This collection of essays re-examines works from such canonical figures as Eckhart, Augustine, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicolas of Cusa, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, along with the philosophical thought of Iris Murdoch, Jacques Lacan, and Martin Heidegger, and the contemporary phenomena of the Emerging Church. Presenting new readings of key ideas in mystical theology, and renewed engagement with the visionary and the everyday, the therapeutic and the transformative, these essays question how we might think about what may lie between transcendence and immanence.

This book examines the relationship between transcendence and immanence within Christian mystical and apophatic writings. Original essays from a range of leading, established, and emerging scholars in the field focus on the roles of language, signs, and images, and consider how mystical theology might contribute to contemporary reflection on the Word incarnate. This collection of essays re-examines works from such canonical figures as Eckhart, Augustine, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicolas of Cusa, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, along with the philosophical thought of Iris Murdoch, Jacques Lacan, and Martin Heidegger, and the contemporary phenomena of the Emerging Church. Presenting new readings of key ideas in mystical theology, and renewed engagement with the visionary and the everyday, the therapeutic and the transformative, these essays question how we might think about what may lie between transcendence and immanence.

’Mystical theology’ has developed through a range of meanings, from the hidden dimensions of divine significance in the community’s interpretation of its scriptures to the much later ’science’ of the soul’s ascent into communion with God. The thinkers and questions addressed in this book draws us into the heart of a complicated, beautiful, and often tantalisingly unfinished conversation, continuing over centuries and often brushing allusively into parallel concerns in other religions. Raising fundamental matters of epistemology, representation, metaphysics, and divine reality, contributors approach the mystical from postmodern, feminist, sociological and historical perspectives through thinkers such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, William James, Evelyn Underhill, Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Otto, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chrétien. Medieval and early modern radical prophetic approaches are also explored. This book includes new essays by Sarah Apetrei, Tina Beattie, Raphel Cadenhead, Oliver Davies, Philip Endean, Brian FitzGerald, Ann Loades, George Pattison, Simon D. Podmore, Joel D.S. Rasmussen, and Johannes Zachhuber.

Some books on mysticism offer New Age syncretism. Others propose simplistic methods of producing spiritual experiences. Still others deconstruct religious experience. The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Oliver Clement, however, avoids these pitfalls. Clement presents the mysticism of the early fathers themselves, from whose writings he offers exceptionally rich selections that are not readily available. In so doing, he introduces the reader to Christian mysticism through the words of those who were “drunk with God,” but whose religious experience was firmly rooted in Christ. Most importantly, given the modern propensity for bogus spirituality, Clement shows the indissoluble unity between mysticism and doctrine. The Fathers speak doctrine in voices radiant with the dark vision of God and their doctrine is both the fruit of prayer and the form of spirituality. From this perspective, the Church’s teachings about God, Christ, Church, Sacrament and Christian vocation become the objects of contemplation and the personal quest for God finds its way within, not apart from the Church, ecclesia. Christian mysticism, therefore, always occurs within the womb of the Church, particularly within the locus of the liturgy and thus, is prevented at the outset from becoming merely a freewheeling and self-authenticating form of emotional exuberance. Mysticism, thus firmly rooted, is considered the normal spiritual life of all Christians. All the faithful are called to realize fully the grace of their baptism, that is, to fulfill their humanity by being divinized through grace. These words might be disconcerting or raise the specter of “enthusiasm,” but some proper understanding of this calling, however embryonic, is indispensable to spiritual growth, to the life of the Church and to the transformation of culture. Why, for example, when so many Americans claim to be Christian does their faith have so little impact on our culture? Or why are the Church’s moral teachings found to be so excessively burdensome? Perhaps Christians have seldom been directed toward a spirituality that would open them to a fuller vision of their true destiny in Christ. A recent classroom experience illustrates the point. A young Christian father of two vigorously proposed many practical reasons for using contraception. His understanding of fatherhood operated on a purely naturalistic level; his concern to provide for his children likewise revolved around material goods. But once he glimpsed the ultimate destiny in Christ to which he and his children were called, he saw his fatherhood as a participation in a sacred mission and trust. Only then did the Church’s teaching and the sacrifices it entails make sense enough to follow. Such illumination is an essential component in the birth of mystical life from which, for the fathers, the moral life flows. To use Clement’s terms, “only when the beauty-goodness of the truth captures the spirit-heart is the person able to engage in Christian praxis and to make the sacrifices necessary not merely to be good but to be transformed into Christ.” This transformation entails strenuous spiritual combat with a fallen human nature that the Fathers understand with exquisite perception. But even here the patristic thrust is basically positive, an attraction to the beauty and goodness of God that calls forth virtue, rather than an emphasis on the direct destruction of sin. Clement aptly describes asceticism as “an awakening from the sleep-walking of daily life. It enables the Word to clear the silt away in the depth of the soul, freeing the spring of living waters.... It is the Word who acts but we have to co-operate with him, not so much be exertion of will-power as by loving attentiveness.” Although spiritual growth naturally encompasses the activities of prayer, fasting and so forth. Clement never discusses this apart from Christ and Trinity. Salvation is not achieved through Pelagian self-development but in Christ and through his Church. The Fathers’ theological center prevents their mysticism from collapsing into self-centered or naturalistic forms. The beauty that attracts is never separated from her sisters truth and goodness. The Roots of Christian Mysticism needs to be read by Christians seeking spiritual depth and by anyone wanting to taste doctrine as a living word. It is an excellent introduction to patristic thought and offers not only extensive selections of their writings but an appendix of about seventy pages of biographical material. Only one criticism of the book is offered: references to modern writers need to be noted so the reader can pursue them. Otherwise, this book is a gem. Jerrilyn Szelle Crisis April, 1996

Negative theology or apophasis - the idea that God is best identified in terms of 'absence', 'otherness', 'difference' - has been influential in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of negation developed in continental philosophy. Apophasis also has a strong intellectual history dating back to the early Church Fathers. Silence and the Word both studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with contemporary secular philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers explore in their own way the extent to which the concept of the apophatic illumines some of the deepest doctrinal structures of Christian faith, and of Christian self-understanding both in terms of its historical and contemporary situatedness, showing how a dimension of negativity has characterised not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years.

The incarnation has made mystics of us all. What if we read the gospels as if that were true? In his book Contemplating Christ,Vincent Pizzuto offers an exploration of the interior life for modern contemplatives that is as beautiful as it is compelling. With an emphasis on the gospels and Christian mystical tradition, his book explores ancient themes in new and surprising ways. Drawing on his rich experience as an academic and priest, Pizzuto gradually unfolds the Christian mystery of deification to which the whole of biblical revelation and the Christian contemplative life are ordered: through the incarnation, we have all been made “other Christs” in the world.

Christian mysticism is unique in its view of Jesus' death and resurrection as the very cause and exemplar of the mystical life in all its purity. Jesus' saving death on the cross exemplifies the mystical letting-go of everything consoling, tangible and finite in order to surrender totally to the mystery of the Father's unconditional love. In this introduction to Christian mysticism, Reverend Harvey Egan, S.J. presents four Christian mystics as paradigms of the classical tradition: St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing. From this foundation he moves to two contemporary figures, Thomas Merton and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, each of whom reflects a contemporary transposition of the two mystical traditions, the apophatic, which emphasizes the radical difference between God and creatures, and the kataphatic, which emphasizes the similarity between God and creatures.

Called in a special way to listen to God's whispers, the mystics amplify not only what it means to be baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 'and to having the Trinity living in them 'but also what is deepest in the human spirit. Mystics experience themselves as an infinite question to which only God is the answer; as an immense longing that only Love can quench; as a nothing in the face of the No-Thing. They are God's fools, troubadours 'the great artists and poets of the interior life whose learned ignorance" articulates the art of loving God, neighbor, self, the Church, and the world. In Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition Harvey Egan draws on fifty years of reading and teaching the mystics to sketch the varieties and passion of the mystical life across more than two millennia. Through their stories and words Egan reveals that all were conscious of the paradox of human identity 'supremely and unsurpassably manifested in the God-Man 'that the genuinely human is disclosed only through surrender to God and that the search for God cannot bypass the genuinely human.

Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism—from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism brings together a team of leading international scholars to explore the origins, evolution, and contemporary debates relating to Christian mystics, texts, and the movements they inspired. Provides a comprehensive and engaging account of Christian mysticism, from its origins right up to the present day Draws on the best of current scholarship by bringing together a collection of newly-commissioned readings by leading scholars Considers examples of mysticism in both Eastern and Western Christianity Offers a brilliant synthesis of the key figures and historical periods of mysticism; its core themes, such as heresy, gender, or aesthetics; and its theoretical considerations, including theological, literary, social scientific, and philosophical approaches Features chapters on current debates such as neuroscience and mystical experience, and inter-religious dialogue