Mysticism:

Major Source: Charles Hodge

Enthusiasts	Those who exalted the inner state: mental excitement. The ancients regarded such as being possessed of a god. In theology it would apply to those who put this inner state over the authority of Scripture.
Mystics	Difficult to define, for it has been used in a great many, vague indefinite ways. In philosophy it would apply to those who would confuse God with the human soul: whether the emphasis is on the emotion, the reason, or the will. The Alexandrian school has been called mystical because of their emphasis upon the “Inner Light,” or the idea of “God Within.” Some make reason not a human faculty of the soul, but the voice of God in man. Some would call reason the “Logos.”
Types of Mysticism	1. Subjective Mysticism: Those who look for the voice of God within. In North America there have been three types: a. Modernism: God is in all of us. We need to listen to the child within. Older types called it reason; lately it is intuition. This might be called mysicism of the Father. b. Fundamentalistic Mysticism: I have Jesus within and He tells me what to do: This might be called the mysticsm of the Son. c. Charismatic Mysticsm: I am filled with the Holy Spirit and He tells me what to do. 2. Objective Mysticism: These find God in holy objects, places, and people. Orthodox and Catholic traditions are the major repository of these ideas, but it is found in animism and all pagan religions.
Evangelical Christianity	There is an element of what might be called mysticism in true Christianity, for we confess a continuous operation of God on the soul of the believer: illumination, holiness, and blessedness. In fact mysticism may be called a corruption and misinterpretation of the mystical element in true religion.
Feelings	One form of mysticism makes feeling the exclusive or predominant source of our knowledge; another form would say that the feelings are the way in which God makes truth known to the soul. Both distrust reason and the senses. Knowledge is obtained directly from God, and feelings are the channel. The feelings become the common ground of all mysticism.
Schleier-macher	Religion does not reside in the intelligence, the will, or active powers, but in the sensibility. We are part of a great whole, not individual, separate free agents. We are nothing in relation to the infinite Being. This is the essential part of all religion, from the most primitive to Christianity. Revelation is not the communication of new truth to the understanding, but the providential influences by which the religious life is awakened in the soul. Inspiration does not control the mental operations and utterances, but simply the intuition of eternal verities due to the excited state of the feelings. The Scriptures have no authority, but are of value only as they awaken in us the religious life experienced by the Apostles.
The Church History	Theosophists: object was knowledge; reason the means. Mystics Proper: object: life, purity, happiness; feelings the major means. Both relied upon the immediate communication of God with the soul.
Spiritual Illumination	Orthodoxy affirms that Scripture alone is not sufficient; there must illumination by the Holy Spirit, or else the Scripture appears to be foolishness. God does hold immediate intercourse with men, by His Spirit. But this differs from mysticism in the object: the mystic claims truth directly; the orthodox claim illumination to understand what has already been objectively revealed. The mystic also seeks this revelation without meditation on Scripture or study of Scripture, without prayer, or submission to God, but in passively “waiting” and suppressing all activity. Or Scripture is used as a means to new revelation. The effects are also different, in that the mystic is filled with his own thoughts and imaginations.
Leading of the Spirit	Evangelical Christians believe that their convictions as to truth and duty, their inward character and outward conduct are molded by the Spirit. The mystic thinks that he is filled with all truth and goodness, and in special emergencies is controlled by blind, irrational impulses.
Common Grace	Evangelicals believe that God is everywhere present in the world, guiding it to the end He has chosen; so His Spirit is everywhere present in the minds of men, restraining the excess of evil and exciting to good. The mystic sees an influence analogous to that granted to the prophets and apostles, involving both inspiration and revelation.

Copyright, C. W. Powell, New Geneva Seminary, Colorado Springs. 2004. Permission to copy in any form, electronic or written, must be obtained in writing from C. W. Powell, New Geneva Theological Seminary, Colorado Springs, CO.

Mysticism in the Early and Medieval Church

Montanism	Montanus taught that the Paraclete would give new revelations; Tertullian systematized this teaching, and taught that continuing revelations were necessary for faith and duty, although faith was fixed and unchanging. Like mysticism, Montanism assumed that Scripture was not sufficient, but unlike mysticism, it was directed to the outward, not the inward, life. They excommunicated the church, and the church excommunicated them.
Dionysius, the Areopagite	Philosophical mysticism. Not possible to fix with any certainty who this man was, but he supposedly had great influence, and was condemned during the monothelite controversy. He was a Neo-Platonist who tried to recast Christianity in its mold.
Neo-Platonism	Being, without life or consciousness, is the ground and source of all things. This being is called God, without attributes and unknowable. The world proceeds from Being by emanation, as light from the Sun. There are many kinds--a hierarchy--of emanations. the first is mind, then soul, which is individualized in matter. Hence, all souls and intelligence are essentially one. The end of knowledge is the vision of God and rest, and is attained by passivity. We are a form or mode of God’s existence, and we find God in ourselves, and are consciously one with him when we permit ourselves to be absorbed into him, to be lost in God.
First Class of Medieval Theologians-Mystics	These exalted reason above authority, and refused to accept anything without reason. Science precedes faith. They were pantheistic and resembled Hegel. The goal was oneness with God, and this was obtained by reason. There was no conflict between reason and revelation.
Second Class Medieval	Faith precedes science. Truth is received by the authority of the church and scriptures. These were the most evangelical, but some of them sought oneness with God through introspection, meditation, intuition.
Third Class	Professed to hold to the doctrines of the church, but explained them away. Also tended to pantheism, as did all the others.
Pantheism	Duns Scotus was the most pronounced pantheist in the Middle Ages. Pantheism affected even the Beghards and the Lollards and corrupted them. They felt they were modes of God’s existence, that their feelings were an impulse of God, and that nothing they could do was wrong. Henry Eckart, a Dominican was influential, as was John Ruysbroek. Everything was a form of God, and all life is the life of God. There was no distinction between Creator and Creature, which is fatal to Christianity. “Our Father which art in Heaven...” is the address of Christians to the Deity.
Evangelical Mystics	St. Bernard; Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Gerson, Thomas a’ Kempis. These all sought union with God, not in the Scriptural, but the mystical sense of the word. The essence of mysticism: the union of the soul with God; not in covenant, but in essence.

Copyright, C. W. Powell, New Geneva Seminary, Colorado Springs. 2004. Permission to copy in any form, electronic or written, must be obtained in writing from C. W. Powell, New Geneva Theological Seminary, Colorado Springs, CO.

Mysticism at the Reformation

Private Judgment	This basic and extremely important principle of the Reformation was abused by the mystics. The Reformation taught that every man has a right to decide what God requires him to believe. But to some, private revelations came to be exalted over the Bible.
Heart Religion	The equally basic and extremely important principle was also abused. Some thought that externals were of no account: the Bible, the church, the ministry, or even outward conduct. They tended to undermine the unity of the body and the soul in the human person.
Popular Disorders	These accompanied the Reformation, but were not caused by it. Numerous associations and fellowships from the Middle Ages had taught pantheism and mysticism; when authority was relaxed, these broke forth in all types of excesses. Munzer and his followers thought themselves to be inspired and the true church. All who opposed them were heretics and ought to be destroyed.
Carlstadt	During Luther’s confinement at Wartburg, some thought they were led by an Inner Light to disorder and riot. Luther returned to Wittenberg to restore order. Carlstadt then left and joined himself to Schwenkfeld.
Schwenkfeld	Dualism: Creatures are out of God and have nothing to do with God. Men are made good by having the substance of God communicated to them. Christ’s body and soul were formed out of God’s substance, so was not really human, and has since been absorbed back into God. Faith does not come by hearing, but by having Christ within. This comes by abnegation, renunciation of the creature, contemplation, prayer. The Lord’s Supper: “My body is bread.” Redemption is purely subjective, wrought in the soul itself. We are justified by what Christ does in us, not by what he did on the cross. Guilt and expiation were ignored.
Later: Paracelsus, Weigel, Boehme others.	Boehme inspired Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge. He was mild, gentle, devout. Three times he believed that he had received communications of divine light which he was compelled to give to others. Trinity: the account of the development of the universe out of God and its relation to him.
Quietism	Germany: mysticism, pietism; England: Quakerism; France: Jansenism and Mysticism; Spain and Italy: Quietism. All involved a return to a “religion of the heart.” They were more faithful to Scripture than others had been. End: Union with God, but not in orthodox terms: matter of feeling, not understood nor explained. All activity was suspended, perfect quietude of soul. Lost in God. Scripture, prayer, sacraments are all of the lower life; the soul should rise above al these. All conscious, self-activity must be suspended in order to reach this perfect state, a state of ecstasy. There must be complete submission, even the willingness to be damned if God willed. In this state of perfect love, sin was impossible.

Objections to Mysticism

No Foundation in Scripture	Luke 16:29; Luke 24:25-32
Contrary to Scripture	Mark 16:15,16; Rom. 10:14; I Cor. 1:21
Contrary to Experience	Those without the Word are without hope and without God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Proverbs 2.
No Criterion to Judge Inward Experiences	Irresistible conviction is not enough. We are called to test and try the spirits by the doctrine of Christ.
Mysticism Productive of Evil	By the fruits you will know them. Man is never excused from the responsibility to seek for wisdom and knowledge, to search the scriptures, to take advice and counsel, to observe the sacraments at proper times and places, and to heed the good instruction of the church and her ministers.
Radical Individualism or complete immersion in the group.	If God speaks directly to me, then I do not need the ministry, the scriptures, or even the fellowship and communion of other believers. The Bible no longer is my final authority. It is no longer necessary for me to consult the Bible in communion with and along with other believers, profiting from the ministry and history of the church. At best the Bible becomes an aid to my mystic exercises, or at worst it is set aside completely in favor of my own “revelations.” In the case of what might be called collectivist mysticism, there is a loss of individuality and complete immersion into group consciousness.