Mystical Theology and Its Relevance for Today’s Theology: Some Historical Observations

Abstract

Although a convergence between theology and mystical literature can be observed in recent years, it is not always very clear what the relationship between the two is. That there has been a gap between the two, for several centuries, is obvious. A passage in Teresa of Avila’s work is a sign of this, as are the difficulties the Jesuit Balthasar Alvarez encountered during his lifetime. However, there are older models—such as those by the twelfth-century Carthusian Guigo—in which there is an organic connection between the two. The cause of the problem may lie in a misunderstanding of the status of both, namely that the rational, investigative activity of theology on the one hand and the receptive surrender to God of mystical contemplation on the other are regarded as mutually exclusive. However, if one assumes, as John of Ruusbroec does, that the contemplative can be situated on the level of being, namely of the direct contact between God as Creator and the human person as creature, and not on the same “level” as the faculty of reason or intellect, then this misunderstanding disappears, and activity (including intellectual activity of theology) and contemplation can go together well. In particular, the model of the personal encounter between God and the human person can be helpful in this regard.

1. Introduction

The focus of this Special Issue of Religions is the tradition of mystical theology, and its relevance for today’s theology. The Christian literary tradition of mystical authors is exceptionally rich and we want to explore which specific challenges this older tradition of mystical theology contains for the theology of today.

Since it has a centuries-old tradition, mystical theology is obviously not a monolithic block. In the course of time, various interests, controversies, and discussions have been developed, and all these issues need to be studied and understood in their own historical context. Nevertheless, they may also have a specific relevance for the theology of today, possibly by opening perspectives that have been neglected for some time, possibly by showing dimensions that are not explored today. By way of introduction to this Special Issue of Religions, a specific fundamental observation can be made.

In the introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology, Edward Howells and Mark A. MacIntosh quote an interesting observation by Thomas Merton, from his Course in Christian Mysticism, which is a reproduction of a series of talks for the novices of his monastery, in the 1960s:

Without mysticism there is no real theology, and without theology there is no real mysticism. Hence the emphasis will be on mysticism as theology, to bring out clearly the mystical dimensions of our theology, hence to help us to do what we must really do: live our theology. Some think it is sufficient to come to the monastery to live the rule. More is required—we must live our theology, fully, deeply, in its totality. Without this, there is no sanctity. The separation of theology from ‘spirituality’ is a disaster.

(Howells and McIntosh 2020, p. 2)

This observation by Thomas Merton regarding the separation of theology from (mystical or contemplative) “spirituality” is not alone. Authors such as Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904–1984), Yves J.-M. Congar, O.P. (1904–1995), and François Vandenbroucke, O.S.B. (1912–1971) have addressed the issue of this “separation” during the same period, albeit from different historical analyses. In those analyses, they implicitly or explicitly stated that this separation was an unfortunate affair, sought to trace its causes, and thus implicitly or explicitly argued for a new rapprochement. Moreover, we see that a mutual rapprochement has indeed grown in the course of the following decades. An important factor here is the inspiration given by The Presence of God, Bernard McGinn’s monumental series, a project that can be called “the project that made mystical theology respectable” (Arblaster and Faesen 2018). In fact, the said Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology itself is a clear proof of this rapprochement.

In this contribution, we want to explore which specific challenges this older tradition of mystical theology contains for the theology of today. Can contemporary theology learn anything from the great authors of the mystical tradition, something that may be beyond the purview of theology today—not so much as to the content of Christian mysticism (because it is not essentially different from the content of Christian theology), but about the mystical tradition’s specific approach to this content?

As a starting point, I take a sixteenth-century statement by someone whose work is without a doubt counted among the canon of mystical literature, but who is not necessarily regarded by everyone as a “theologian”, namely Teresa of Avila (1515–1582). I will then contrast this with an older (twelfth-century) summary of the Christian intellectual project by the Carthusian Guigo (d. 1188) in which both “mysticism” and “theology” fit—even though the terms as such were not used then or used differently. I will hereby make explicit the presupposition of this summary, and also indicate how the first signs of the problem were noticed already in the twelfth century by William of Saint-Thierry (1075–1148). Finally, I conclude this contribution with a consideration by Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381), who offers an integration of both dimensions.

2. An Observation by Teresa of Avila

It is known that Teresa of Avila was asked by her confessors to put her life story in writing, because they wished to check whether her desire to live a different form of religious life, according to a more strict observance, was indeed reliable (Teresa 1951). Teresa, however, found herself faced with a difficult problem. After all, she had to explain the specific mystical dimension of her life, but she realized that it would not be understood by those who had given her this assignment. At the point where she should relate this particular aspect, she interrupts the narrative of her life, inserting a rather long interlude (chapters 11–18) with a rather theoretical digression on four different forms of prayer (Teresa 1951, pp. 651–98). The intention of this interlude is clearly to provide a framework and an intellectual clarification to its readers, with the hope that the specific mystical dimension of the sequel of her story would be understood. In this digression she uses an elaborate metaphor, which she partly found in the work of Francisco de Osuna, and which she develops herself creatively, namely the metaphor of the water supply of a garden (De Osuna 1981, p. 124). The garden represents the soul, and the plants and flowers therein represent the good dispositions and the good life, which signify joy to God who visits the soul. This encounter between God and man is the final perspective, which underpins the entire discourse, as we shall discuss further on. These plants and flowers must now be supplied with water. Teresa distinguishes four forms of water supply:

by taking the water from a well, which costs us great labour; or by a water-wheel and buckets, when the water is drawn by a windlass (…); or by a stream or a brook, which waters the ground much better, for it saturates it more thoroughly and there is less need to water it often, so that the gardener’s labour is much less; or by heavy rain, when the Lord waters it with no labour of ours, a way incomparably better than any of those which we have described.1

For our subject, the first and second forms are primarily the most important. The first form is a metaphor for meditative prayer. Teresa describes this quite extensively, without, however, giving a real definition—unless including the short description “by this fetching water from the well I mean working with the mind2”. It is clear, however, that it concerns meditative prayer in the sense of, for example, the Ignatian method (“they should do their best to engage in meditate on the life of Christ, even if it tires the mind”3). Teresa emphasizes that it takes effort to keep the mind’s attention focused, that it sometimes yields little, and above all that it demands the full intellectual activity of the human person (“I was trying to make clear how much we can attain by our own power and how in this first stage of devotion we can do a certain amount for ourselves”4).

The second form of prayer is described by Teresa on the basis of the metaphor of collecting the water “by a water-wheel and buckets”, where it is clear that the human activity is less, and that this form of prayer implies more human passivity and receptivity:

This state, in which the soul begins to recollect itself, borders on the supernatural, to which it could in no way attain by its own exertions. (…) His Majesty begins to communicate Himself to this soul and wishes it to be conscious of the method of his communication.5

This will be further elaborated in the remainder of Teresa’s explanation. The third and fourth forms of prayer—supplying water through the irrigation from a river and watering when it rains—refer to an even greater passivity, in which God is even more active. In the fourth form, the human person is no longer active, but God is only active.

The important point for our subject is that Teresa outlines the transition from a form in which the human person is active (the meditative prayer), to a level where he or she allows God to become active. The first form of prayer can be seen as an intellectual, studious form of reflection on God, which is also systematic and orderly. There are obvious similarities with study and systematic theology. The transition from the first form of prayer—which Teresa, in passing, calls tiring and troublesome—to the second, third, and fourth forms of prayer is a transition from autonomous, intellectual activity to an increasing receptivity on the part of the human person.

In fact, this ties in nicely with a distinction Thomas Aquinas makes: active, searching reflection on God (which he calls “philosophy”) and listening, receiving theology. Indeed, at the beginning of the Summa he asks whether, in view of knowledge, anything else is actually needed than what reason teaches us—which he summarizes under the name “philosophy”. His answer implies a double movement, namely from the human person to God and from God to the human person:

It was necessary for human salvation that there should be instruction by divine revelation in addition to the philosophical science pursued by human reasoning—chiefly because we are ordered to God as an end beyond the grasp of reason. As Isaiah says, “Without you, God, no eye has seen what you have prepared for those who love you” (Is 64:4). But we have to know an end before we can direct our intentions and our actions toward it. So, it was necessary for the salvation of human beings that truths surpassing reason should be made known to us through divine revelation.6

Later in the article, he sums up the matter by saying: “Human reason should indeed not pry into things above human knowledge. But we should welcome them in faith when God reveals them to us”7. The distinction between the active, seeking “philosophy” and the listening, receiving theology is thus clearly summarized. There is something similar in Teresa’s text, namely when she says that we cannot bring ourselves to the second, third, or fourth form of prayer. This is not surprising in itself, since those forms actually entail greater receptivity.

For our subject, it may be helpful to make a historical comment on this matter. Indeed, the transition from active, seeking intellectual activity to the more receptive was explicitly seen as problematic in Teresa’s time—early modernity. A significant dossier in this regard is that of Balthasar Alvarez (1533–1580), a Jesuit and confessor of Teresa for several years. Although he has held important positions in the Jesuit order, he was at one point obliged to account to the Superior General of the Order, Evrard Mercurian (Lardinois, 1514–1580), for his way of praying, which was perceived as a form of delusion. Balthasar Alvarez then wrote an account of this and sent it to Rome. Mercurian eventually reaffirmed his confidence in Balthasar Alvarez, but warned against generalizing this form of prayer in the Order.

The account that Balthasar Alvarez wrote has been preserved:

For sixteen years I toiled like one who plows without receiving any fruit. My heart was weighed down and much troubled all the while, filled with sorrow that I found myself empty of all the graces, gifts, and abilities for which many others in the world were believed, honored, and esteemed. I was confused and affected for many reasons, one of which was the desire that I should devote myself to prayer (…). I resolved to devote myself to prayer only in so far as sacred obedience required .... After fourteen years I decided to place myself in God’s presence like a beggar hoping for an alms, but with my reason I still reflected very much on myself. All the while I remained in desolation, thinking and convincing myself that I would never attain spiritual perfection (…) When sixteen years had passed I found my heart—at a moment when I least expected it—quiet, widened, free from all created things, and with a wonder like that of the saints who will say at the day of judgment, ‘Lord, seeing thee we see all good things, and are filled’.8

Balthasar Alvarez then describes in more detail what this new condition means to him. We will not go into this further; suffice it to say that Balthasar Alvarez has unexpectedly discovered a new form of prayer in which he relates to God in a more receptive way. It is important, of course, and above all, that this attitude was considered so problematic that he had to answer to his superior general for this.

The French historian Henri Bremond (1865–1933) discussed it, in an exhaustive chapter of his Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, and indicated that we are dealing here with a symptomatic issue (Bremond 1930, pp. 228–69). He cites a personal note from the correspondence of the Superior General Everard Mercurian (Lardinois, 1514–1580) with Father Diego de Avellaneda, who was appointed visitator of the province of Castile, to which Balthasar Alvarez belonged. In this note, the superior general asks the visitator to ensure that this way of praying is eradicated (Bremond 1930, p. 253, emphasis in the text). For Henri Bremond, this is a symptom of the dominance of active asceticism and the phobia of contemplation and mysticism (Bremond 1930, p. 228). He points out that the same Everard Mercurian ruled that mystical authors such as Ruusbroec, Herp, and Tauler were not allowed to appear in the libraries of the Jesuit houses, unless with the explicit permission of the provincial superior (Faesen 2010a).

In light of this, it is therefore not surprising that Teresa of Avila felt compelled to insert a long interlude in her autobiography in which she tried to clarify this dimension point.

Teresa’s contemporary and friend John of the Cross (1542–1591) made interesting reflections on this. Especially when he asks when it is justified to move from one form of prayer—namely the more active, searching reflection on God—to the other, more receptive form. Are there indications that one is no longer an issue, and that the other may start? He gives three criteria for this (Juan de la Cruz 1993, pp. 253–54), namely that:

(1) the person in question no longer finds taste in the active, searching reflection on God as before; as long as he finds taste in it, he should stick with it;

(2) the person in question is not attracted to bring his or her active, searching reflection on another subject;

(3) the person in question is much more attracted to the attentive and receptive attitude towards God. He describes it thus:

The third and surest sign is that the soul takes pleasure in being alone, and waits with loving attentiveness upon God, without making any particular meditation, in inward peace and quietness and rest, and without acts and exercises of the faculties—memory, understanding and will—at least, without discursive acts, that is, without passing from one thing to another; the soul is alone, with an attentiveness and a knowledge, general and loving, as we said, but without any particular understanding, and adverting not to that which it is contemplating.9

This advice could certainly be misunderstood, as if John of the Cross were indicating that one should pass from one to another when one simply feels like it, as if the criterion were some sort of subjective and emotional preference. His explanation, however, is much more sophisticated. What matters to him is that the human person—who is actively seeking God—at a given moment becomes aware of the activity of the divine Other, and must allow it. In that situation, it would only be disruptive to remain active on one’s own, and it is certainly more appropriate to be open, receptive, and listening. To put it in the terms of Thomas Aquinas: “Human reason should welcome things above human knowledge in faith when God reveals them to us”. Yet in the sixteenth century the objectivity of those who are suspicious of this mystical dimension (such as Mercurian) has often been that it comes down to following one’s own subjective and emotional preference.10

An important point now is that all this presupposes a kind of dialogical relationality between God and the human person, in which both partners (God and the human person) are sometimes active and sometimes receptive. The contemplation is then the moment when God is active, reveals himself, and the human person lets go of his active, seeking (and controlling) attitude, and simply listens to the divine Other. If indeed there is such a dialogical relationality, it would be useless and even a hindrance to the relation if the human person kept on holding on to the initial active attitude. After all, from the point of view of dialogical relationality, the ultimate aim is the encounter of the human person, as human person, with God as God.

3. The Older Tradition: Guigo the Carthusian

This view has an old and long tradition. As an example, we take a classic from the Christian spiritual–theological literature, namely Ladder of monks, written by Guigo the Carthusian. We know almost nothing about the author’s life, as befits a Carthusian.11 He was prior of La Grande Chartreuse, and specialists currently agree that he may have died in 1188.

The text speaks of four steps in the ladder of the monks—in line with several other texts from the monastic tradition that describe similar degrees.12 After the description, he elaborates this insight applying it to one example, namely the Bible verse “blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt 5, 8), but we will not consider that further elaboration here.

The text reads as follows:

One day when I was busy working with my hands, I began to think about our spiritual work, and all at once four stages in spiritual exercise came into my mind: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. These make a ladder for monks by which they are lifted up from earth to heaven. It has few rungs, yet its length is immense and wonderful, for its lower end rests upon the earth, but its top pierces the clouds and touches heavenly secrets. (...) Reading is the careful study of the Scriptures, concentrating all ones powers on it. Meditation is the busy application of the mind to seek with the help of one’s own reason for knowledge of hidden truth. Prayer is the heart’s devoted turning to God to drive away evil and obtain what is good. Contemplation is when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.13

This is an interesting synthesis of what we might call the life of the human mind, a summary of the fundamental aspects of the adventure of the human mind, rooted in earlier monastic thought, which was nourished by Biblical and patristic reflections. This summary by Guigo offers the opportunity to make the fundamental structure of this adventure more explicit.

First, there is lectio. Guigo summarizes it as “the careful study of the Scriptures, concentrating all one’s powers on it”. In the English translation, scriptura is translated as “Scriptures,” with a capital letter, that is, the Bible. The example that Guigo elaborates later is indeed a biblical text. But it is not impossible that Guigo meant all scriptures, i.e., the entire tradition of Christian literature, and possibly the classical authors as well. This is certainly not alien to monastic culture. On the contrary, Jean Leclercq dealt with this point extensively in his well-known book on medieval monastic culture, L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu, for example, when he discusses “the alliance of the literature of Antiquity with the biblical and patristic tradition” (“l’alliance de la littérature antique avec la tradition biblique et patristique”) from which monastic culture is born (Leclercq 1957, p. 51). In any case, lectio is essentially careful study, requiring the full commitment of the soul, and careful attention. It requires human activity and concentration.

Then, there is meditation, which is also a studiosa mentis actio, namely to seek with the help of one’s own reason for knowledge of hidden truth. The difference with the foregoing is clear: lectio studies and listens attentively to the given text. Meditatio is different; it is reflection on the basis of and under the guidance of one’s own reason. The mind asks questions—probably evoked by lectio—and tries to find answers through the careful use of reason. Meditatio and lectio belong together, since meditatio originates in lectio. Lectio stimulates one’s own reason for meditatio.14 Both are forms of searching activity of the human person for God.

However, the search for hidden truth cannot be completed by the authority of human reason, if only because a number of questions remain unanswered. Here, Guigo brings up the oratio, and this is a pivotal moment. He describes oratio as devota intentio cordis in Deum. But the first meaning of the word oratio is, of course, “speech”, “conversation”, and thus a prayerful conversation with God—we can think of oratorium, as locus orandi, namely where one speaks personally with God (Blaise 1975). Guigo especially emphasizes the relational and intentional orientation by the words intentio cordis in Deum. This seems very important in order to understand the “ladder” properly, since it introduces the specific relational dimension: the human person wants to discover the truth, and on this point he or she is relationally oriented to God as the origin of truth.

The last rung is meditation on, about which Guigo mentions two things: first, the mind is elevated above itself in God, and second, the mind “tastes” the joy of eternal pleasure (mentis in deum suspensae quaedam supra se meditatio, eternae dulcedinis gaudia degustans). This aspect implies that the mind itself is not active—after all, it is “above itself”—but that God is active. In the adventure of the mind, it is the Other who offers the joy of eternal pleasure.

Thus, in this sketch of the life of the human mind we see an essentially relational dimension. The sketch is a summary in which human activity and divine activity are both valorized. In lectio and meditation, the human person is fully active, but in contemplatio the human person is fully receptive to what God gives. The truth is actively sought and conquered, but also passively received, as a gift from the source of truth. We could say that this sketch can be seen in its entirety as the structure of the encounter between God and the human person.

It is obviously crucial that these four elements are not separated from each other: meditatio is evoked by lectio; oratio is a consequence of the questions that meditatio cannot answer,15 and for which it addresses God in oratio. And contemplatio is a fulfillment of the prayerful conversation with God, namely when God himself speaks, and the human person only receives, listens, tastes. Here, the human person is embraced by the ungraspable mystery which is God.

This implies that the four elements each have an inner orientation. They each have their own value in themselves, of course, but they do not simply coincide with themselves either. What is more, each element is part of the relationship and encounter of the human person with God. In other words: they enable the monk—or whoever climbs this ladder—to experience his most essential orientation towards the divine Other in an extremely concrete way. Each element finds its value in that orientation.

This text by Guigo thus shows us a vision of the complementarity of the active, seeking attitude (lectio, meditatio) on the one hand, and the receiving attitude (oratio, contemplatio) on the other hand, a vision that had a long tradition and which Guigo has developed into a clear synthesis. It is precisely this complementarity that is being problematized in the time of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Balthasar Alvarez. Henri Bremond has pointed out that this is not a historical anecdote, but a symptom of a deeper issue.

To clarify this deeper issue, we can examine what presupposition is present in this older (later problematized) tradition. Briefly summed up, this premise is that both theology and contemplation (mysticism) are based on a personal encounter, and are thus essentially relational. The ultimate Truth, God, is not an abstraction but a Person. In order to arrive at truth, the knowing human person must, on the one hand, make an effort, use all his or her intellectual faculties to the fullest, but, on the other hand, also realize that it is only in a very specific quality of the encounter that it is possible for the divine Person to show himself as He is.

Building on Bremond’s historical analysis—who notes that every form of prayer is essentially an act of love (Bremond 1930, p. 231)—we can assume that it is precisely this relational ground that has been problematized. Indeed, un acte d’amour presupposes a deeper relationship, in which both partners fulfill their own role.

4. When Does the Separation or “Divorce” Appear?

That which, in Guigo’s view, constitutes a fairly natural and organic balance of human activity and receptivity to the initiative of the divine Other, and the meeting of the two, has later lost this balance, namely when theology—in the words of Max Huot de Longchamp—has “detached itself from its contemplative roots” (Huot de Longchamp 2005).

Opinions differ about the historical period in which this “separation” took place (Faesen 2004). Albert Deblaere has shown that as early as the twelfth century there are clear signs that this separation was already underway. A good example is a text by the twelfth-century theologian William of Saint-Thierry:

The sight for seeing God, the natural light of the soul therefore, created by the Author of nature, is charity. There are, however, two eyes in this sight, always throbbing by a sort of natural intensity to look toward the light that God is: love and reason. When one [of the two eyes] attempts to look without the other, it does not get far. When together they help one another, they can do much, that is, when they become the single eye of which the bridegroom in the Canticle says: “You have wounded my heart, O my friend, with one of your eyes.” In this they labour much, each in its own way, because one of them—reason—cannot see God except in what he is not, but love cannot rest except in what he is. What is it that reason can apprehend or discover in its every attempt, about which it is so bold to say: ‘this is my God?’ Reason is only able to discover what he is to the extent it discovers what he is not. Reason has its own set paths and straight ways by which it progresses. Love, however, advances more by its shortcomings and apprehends more by its ignorance. Reason, therefore, seems to advance through what God is not toward what God is. Love, putting aside what God is not, rejoices to loose itself in what he is. From him, love has come forth and it naturally aspires to its own beginning. Reason has the greater sobriety, love the greater happiness. Nevertheless, as I have said, when they help one another—when reason teaches love and love enlightens reason, and reason merges into the affectus of love and love lets itself be confined within the limits of reason—then they can do great things. But what is it they can do? Just as anyone who progresses in this cannot progress and learn this except through his own experience, so also it could not be communicated to an inexperienced person. As it is said in the Book of Wisdom: “In this joy the stranger should not meddle”.16

It is clear that William is well aware of the two aspects: on the one hand, the active seeking attitude—which he explicitly valorizes, and identifies with the human apophatic “work”—and on the other, the receptive attitude, in which the human person surrenders to the divine Other—here named as amor. The most important point is of course William’s plea to keep both together. Both are necessary for a real encounter with God, and they are completely complementary in William’s view. It is perhaps confusing that he gives this encounter the name “seeing God” (ad videndum…), which might lead us to identify it with contemplation or mysticism, as mentioned earlier. However, when we see that this “seeing of God” ideally consists of these two components, it is clear that William is thinking of a personal encounter rather than a mystical experience.

We may surmise that he felt the need to emphasize this precisely because he knew that the tendency to keep the two separate was present in Christian intellectual life. An interesting analysis of this was made by Thomas Michael Tomasic (Tomasic 1972). The author speaks here about the conflict between Peter Abelard and William of Saint-Thierry—that is, Bernard fades into the background. Rightly so, because it is indeed known that Bernard’s initiatives were inspired by the voice of William of Saint-Thierry. William urged Bernard to act.17 Bernard became the spokesman, because he was the well-known and respected abbot, who had previously been called in to help in countless conflicting matters. But his older friend William, who had also been abbot but had withdrawn as a simple monk to the small Cistercian monastery of Signy, was a trained theologian, and saw perfectly the deeper problem in Abelard’s position.

Thomas Michael Tomasic’s analysis highlights that this question in fact concerns the difference between the individual and the person. Following a biblical maxim, the starting point of William’s theological reflections is that the human person is “created in the image of God” (Gn 1. 26). According to William of Saint-Thierry, this clearly expresses the intentional and relational structure of the human person. The identity of the human person can only be established by the other.18

This condition does not only concern inter-human relationships, but holds true a fortiori with respect to our relationship with God. William develops this insight on the basis of the metaphors of the Song of Songs: the human person is the bride, and God is the Bridegroom. William has a particular preference for this metaphor because it expresses this intentional and relational structure. A bride can only be a bride if she has a bridegroom.

Evidently, we must understand this understanding of the “person” in the context of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, i.e., that God is three Persons, a fundamentally relational term. The Son is only a Son because he has a Father; the Father is only a Father because he has a Son. Furthermore, it goes to the heart of the Trinitarian mystery to say that the Son is never an isolated individual, but that his “being” is perpetually in the Father. The Son is begotten of the Father, and is thus an “other”, but he is never separated from the Father—a doctrine expressed in the theme of indwelling (in sinu Patris). In the Trinity, a person is never outside the relationship with the other; on the contrary, each of the Persons is eternally oriented to the other (William of Saint-Thierry 2007, p. 173). As Tomasic says, in William’s work:

we find that the divine essence is not realized in each Person taken in solipsistic aloneness or in a summary collectivity; rather essence means to be in another, that is in the mutuality of ‘another in self’ and ‘self in another’.

(Tomasic 1972, p. 65)

Boethius’ famous definition—individua substantia rationalis naturae (Boethius 1847, p. 1354)—is useless in this respect. Indeed, natura is not a defining category because the Incarnation reveals that “person” transcends the limitation of divergent natures. And individua is also besides the question since a person is defined by relationship, not by indivisibility.19 Thus, relationships are not of the order of accidents. On the contrary, relationality is the very “being” of God. William expresses this in his Aenigma fidei by saying that there is “no divisible distinction” between the Persons in the Trinity, but neither is there “fusion of the Persons”.20

It is to this relationality of the Persons in the Trinity that the relational structure of the human person corresponds. This evidently has far-reaching consequences for the way in which the human person relates to God: to be a person is to be known and to have the inherent possibility of knowing as one is known (Tomasic 1972)—namely in a reciprocal relationship.

It irritated William greatly that these reflections were absent from Abelard’s thought. Indeed, Abelard has a radically individualist conception of person. To him, “person” is synonymous with “individual” (per-se-una). From this perspective, relationships are secondary. An individual is, first and foremost, a separate being, and only in a second instance he or she develops relationships with others (or not).

Abelard does not conceive of relationality as being the foundational category of existence. Rather, the basic category is an individuality that coincides with itself, and this conception would influence his theological method. Indeed, from this perspective, God is not the one who becomes known by entering into the already present relationship with him, but rather becomes an “object” of human reflection and speculation. This is the core of the opposition between William and Peter Abelard. This twelfth-century discussion is thus about the question: is a human being fundamentally a person, i.e., essentially a relationship with another, or fundamentally an individual, i.e., essentially an isolated “self” that only engages in relationships in a secondary degree? William radically chooses the former, whereas Abelard opts for the latter.

This obviously has far-reaching consequences on the theological method, for the way in which people think about seeking and finding the truth. Abelard understands this as a distant, logical reflection “about” God (speculatio), and so in this way the content can also be passed on from the master to the student. For William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard, one can only know God through intimate, personal contact with God. The deepest knowledge arises in a personal encounter, and can therefore never be distant or noncommittal.

This fact has already evolved four hundred years later in such a way that the one “eye” is given absolute preference, as we have seen in the history of Balthasar Alvarez, and the necessity that Teresa felt to allow the possibility of the other “eye” (such as she had experienced it in her own life).

5. The Project of Integration of Both by John of Ruusbroec

It is now remarkable that in the course of the history of Christian thought there have been interesting attempts to integrate these two dimensions—while respecting the individuality of each—so that the activity of the searching reason and the receptivity of contemplation are not mutually opposed, but can be present together. It is then not about “action or contemplation” and not even about “action next to contemplation” but about “contemplation in action”.

A thorough and systematic elaboration of this can be found in the Brabant theologian Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381). It is crucial for his position that he situates, on the one hand, the activity and, on the other hand, the receptivity of the human person in the relationship with God on a different level. Therefore, they are not mutually exclusive.

This unity has a double aspect: an active aspect (werkelijc) on the one hand, and an “essential” aspect (weselijc) on the other. The first is the principle of the natural activity of the faculties, but also of their mystical activity under the impulse of the divine Persons:

We find a triple unity in all people naturally, and in good people also supernaturally. The first and the highest unity is in God; for all creatures hang in this unity with their being, life and subsistence; and if they should be cut off in this way from God, they would fall into nothingness and be annihilated. This unity is in us essentially by nature, whether we are good or evil, and it renders us neither holy nor blessed without our effort. We possess this unity in ourselves, and in fact, above ourselves, as a principle and support of our being and our life. A second union, or unity, is also in us by nature, that is, the unity of the higher faculties, where they take their natural origin as to their activity: in the unity of the spirit or of the mind. This is the same unity which is hanging in God, but in the latter instance we understand it as active, and in the former as essential. Nevertheless, the spirit is totally within each unity, according to the entirety of its substance. We possess this unity in ourselves, above sensory perception, and from it come memory and intellect and will and every faculty of spiritual activity. [...] The third unity which is in us by nature is the domain of the bodily faculties in the unity of the heart, the beginning and origin of bodily life. The soul possesses this unity in the body and in the natural vigor of the heart; and from it flow all bodily activity and the five senses. [...] And this is natural in all mankind.21

Ruusbroec also defines unity of spirit as “potential understanding” (moghenlijke verstane, Ruusbroec 1981, p. 507), namely in its fundamental receptivity to God’s activity. Incidentally, the latter entails the flourishing and the real life of the faculties of the soul. Indeed, the wesen “hangs” in the uncreated Word, and it is there that it experiences its deepest enjoyment, namely in sharing the Trinitarian life, and finding fundamental rest in that life (which cannot be reached by any creaturely activity):

This love [= the Holy Spirit] actively and enjoyably encompasses and pervades the Father, the Son and everything that is living in both of them with such great richness and joy that all creatures must eternally keep silent about it. For the incomprehensible marvel which resides in this love eternally transcends all creatures’ understanding. But where one understands and savors this marvel without astonishment, there the spirit is above itself and [is] one with the Spirit of God, and it tastes and sees, without measure, even as God, the richness which itself is in the unity of the living ground where it possesses itself according to the mode of its uncreatedness.22

In this sense, Ruusbroec describes then the ideal of the fully mature spiritual person:

And therefore, if we want to experience and feel that God has taken possession of our inmost being, and we of Him in return, then we must be imageless in our inward turning and our love into God must be so heavy that it passes through all createdness, and neither seeks nor finds rest anywhere but in God alone. Then our bare understanding is penetrated by simple truth, as the air by the sun. And all our inmost being is penetrated by the love of God, as iron by the fire. And thus we find the realm of God within us. And out of this realm we are moved to justice and to all virtues. For love cannot be idle, but the Spirit of God moves heart and senses and all the faculties of the soul and drives us out into every exercise of virtue, and makes of us a spiritual tabernacle (…). And It draws us back in, and makes us intend God’s honor in all things. And thus we become a worthy offering to God with all our works. And this is how we become virtuous and fixed in every exercise of virtue. Where we rest and enjoy in the simplicity, and possess all good in our superessential love, there we are always essentially indwelling, one and fixed above all things. And this we always experience with simple going-in in imageless, essential love. There we feel rest and enjoyment without end.23

Here, we see the ideal of contemplative-in-action in full. Ruusbroec often calls this “the life of the common (ghemeyne) person”. Crucial to this deepest dimension is the mutual belonging of God and the human person, a belonging that is not indirect, through the other creatures, but direct. This mutual personal belonging of God and the human person also implies an indwelling, for which Ruusbroec here uses the image of fire (God) penetrating iron (human), an image that he also uses in other works, and which has an old tradition, dating back to Origen. Ruusbroec calls this “the kingdom of God in us”.

And that is exactly what causes active life (“from this realm of God we are moved to righteousness and all virtues”). The active life that springs from “the kingdom of God in us” is essentially a self-giving (“so we become, together with our works, a worthy sacrifice to God”), just as the innermost is also an attachment to the Other. In other words, these are simply two aspects of the same reality.

It is of course important that we see that this is not about successive stages, but about a single structure. The “inside”—i.e., the mutual fundamental belonging of God and the human person—is the source and origin of what happens on the “outside” in human activities. This innermost aspect of the relationship with God is of course not an activity in itself, but a way of “being”, which is why Ruusbroec calls it “rest”. Thus, for Ruusbroec, the combination of action and contemplation has everything to do with a certain way of “being” of the human person—completely given to God as the Other, and completely belonging to Him—which is a source of activity, in accordance with that self-giving.

If we now apply this insight to our subject of “theology” and “contemplation” (or “mysticism”), we see that in Ruusbroec’s view a harmonious complementarity between the two is possible. The first—the intellectual quest of theology—is at the level of human activity. The second—the receptivity of contemplation—is on a more inner level, of the human person’s belonging to God, where God can make Himself known directly. These levels are not mutually exclusive, as Ruusbroec points out, quite the contrary. Moreover, one level can stimulate the other: the contemplation of “resting in God” can stimulate activity and increase its quality.

6. Conclusions

These historical explorations have given us some orientations as to the relevance of mystical theology to today’s theology.

First of all, the separation of mystical literature and theology is several centuries old. When in the sixteenth century Teresa of Avila wanted to describe this mystical dimension from her own life to theologically educated readers, she feared that she would not be understood—and rightly so, as we learn from the life story of her contemporary Balthasar Alvarez. The difficulty lies in the conviction that the contemplative, receptive attitude of the mystical dimension on the one hand and the searching, investigating activity of theology on the other are mutually exclusive. The first must then be understood as irrational and emotional subjectivism, in which the contemplative person is guided by his or her own impressions.

We then saw that there are older examples of a harmonic merging of these two dimensions. The twelfth-century Guigo sketches a model in which the two dimensions are clearly distinct, but not separated at all, neither in opposition. In the same twelfth century, however, signals can already be seen that the active dimension of theological reason and the receptive, contemplative dimension in surrendering to God are in danger of becoming separated from each other.

Ruusbroec develops an analysis in which it is clear that these dimensions concern a different “level” in the human person, and therefore do not have to be mutually exclusive. After all, the contemplative does not concern the “level” of human faculties, but a more fundamental level of being, namely of the creature’s direct contact with the Creator. The latter does not hinder the activity of reason in the least, and the contemplative experience of God’s presence at this level can even stimulate reason.

In this perspective, it seems useful to think of the coherence of theology and mysticism from a relational model of encounter—namely the encounter of God and the human person—in which each can be active in his own way towards the other. In this encounter, different ways are then possible for the human person to get to know God: by actively seeking and also by receiving what the divine Other wishes to make known of himself, as Thomas Aquinas suggests. The directions which John of the Cross gives in this regard can be helpful in seeing when one can meaningfully transition from one to the other.