The Appeal Of Christian 'Mysticism'

For as skeptical as I am, my inclination is and always has been toward a more 'mystical' bent. There is something natural about this, paradoxical as it may seem. When we come up against the limits of our knowledge it is a mystery yet it is the mystery that continues us pushing to understand and expand. This isn't escapist in nature as much as it is experiential. It could be my temperament (and me projecting) but so much of the 'modern' Church seems to be more interested in being right than reflecting the experience of Who Christ is or, worse, it conflates material prosperity with being blessed.

I suppose that's why the emphasis on the Holy Spirit and the miraculous, from healings to the electric bill being paid on time, that a 'dead' church is one in which this type of activity does not go on so we tend to equate a 'living' Church with one that is, for lack of a better term, entertaining.

Perhaps it is my skeptical nature (skeptical more of our own perceptions than the propositions of truth being expressed in the faith) but this to me does not seem to be a faith that sustains and, if not careful, could be a faith that leaves us looking for the next big thing. For every healing there are many who are not healed; for every miraculous financial blessing there are multitudes who are not financially 'blessed' in such a fashion. Lack of faith? Not yet time? What of those who die waiting for such a miracle or have lost their faith because God didn't come through? 

NDEs? Why do they tend toward the same experience? Are they culturally framed? In many ways, they sound like a psychedelic experience, tapping into the limits of our brains. They cause me to question more than they excite me. We all want certainty, surety that there is a God and that death does not have the final say.

So the mysticism focus is a different kind of knowing. It is not, or is more than, intellectual knowledge or certainty. That is a part of it but that has more to do with bringing the mind into submission and allowing it to be a vehicle - or at least not in the way - to 'experience' the divine mysteries, when we are silent and our interior is able to expand to embrace said mystery.

I continue coming back to these words:

"I have hardly begun to think of the Unity before the Trinity bathes me in its splendour: I have hardly begun to think of the Trinity before the Unity seizes hold of me again. When one of the Three presents himself to me, I think it is the whole, so full to overflowing is my vision, so far beyond me does he reach. There is no room left in my mind, it is too limited to understand even one. When I combine the Three in one single thought, I see only one great flame without being able to subdivide or analyse the single light. Gregory Nazianzen, (On Baptism, 41, from The Roots Of Christian Mysticism, p. 66)"

Or another translation:

"When I first know the one I am also illumined from all sides by the three; when I first distinguish the three I am also carried back to the one. When I picture one of the three i consider this the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part has escaped me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to grant something greater than the rest. When i bring the three together in contemplation, I see one torch and am unable to divide or measure the united light." Gregory Nazianzen, On Baptism, 41, from Festal Orations, p. 137)

Or this one: 

"When I speak of God, be struck from all sides by the lightning flash of one light and also three; three in regard to the individualities, that is hypostases, if one prefers to call them this, or persons...but if one speaks of the essence, that is the divinity. For they are divided undividedly, if i may speak thus, and united in division. For the divinity is one in three, and the three are one, in whom divinity is, or, to speak more precisely, who are the divinity." Gregory Nazianzen, On The Baptism of Christ, 11, from Festal Orations, p. 87) 

Eyes glaze over, mind becomes annoyed or enraged. That makes no sense is the initial response to such intellectual gymnastics. But I find rest in this dance. It is active and alive, not a static intellectual category or mental construct in which we find comfort or control. It is living, like energy, and is never still. If it were still, it would be an idol, we'd own it and sell it and it would not change us.  

Hank Haanegraaf & Eastern Orthodoxy

Fascinated by Hank's journey. Used to listen to him, often annoyingly so, when he was the "Bible Answer Man" so when I saw he was confirmed into the EO Church I was quite amazed. Jarislav Pelikan as well. 

So of course there are debates and attacks and defenses as to his move and the arguments against EO. One that stood out, however, was from the daughter of Walter Martin. She stated that the EO do not look to the Bible as the final authority.

If you've spent any time studying what it is the EO believe you'll find that is not accurate. What they do believe is that the interpretation of the Bible is what is key and that interpretation is through the lived and share experience of The Church.

I tend toward the EO idea that as the Bible itself was formed within Tradition then the common idea of 'Bible alone' as sole authority loses its footing. The books chosen were developed within Tradition and the writings within those books were developed orally within a Tradition and the use of these books even today occur within Traditions. Even outside of the RC and EO church, mainstream denominations develop a Tradition and beyond this the non-traditional churches all develop their own tradition within which to support a body of believers.

So if the 'Bible only' is all that matters, the challenge is understanding why so many denominations and why it is that there are so many different interpretations of the same book.

I think the strength of Tradition isn't so much that it is on equal weight as the Bible (I think that is a false dichotomy) but that the Bible is the anchor against which Tradition is based. If a Tradition is in conflict with Scripture I don't believe that Tradition will stand without 'Tradition' to safeguard Biblical interpretation the risk is ever present for the individual to become the interpreter which, taken to a logical conclusion, makes the individual god.

As for those who criticize the bureaucratic nature of the Church (usually stereotyped as the Catholic Church), the non-denominational variety running amok today will inevitably become institutionalized. It is the natural trajectory of the doings of men. What was once liberating and free ultimately becomes structured and this structure is bureaucratic in nature or it is a free-for-all. We are not the Spirit and therefore must lean on the Spirit to guide us which means that in order to do this boundaries are needed. Those boundaries are the structure(s) of the Church.

It's already been done once, though obviously we are fallible men so our history of said Church is a testament to this, and anyone who thinks we are free from it happening again are missing the larger historical picture of how it developed in the first place. The debates going on about 'doctrine' today, though in a new cultural context, are little different than those of the first few centuries.