Tussen aktivisme en quiëtisme: Johannes Ruysbroeck, Andrew Murray en die dialektiese aard van die apostoliese mistiek

Abstract

To Evelyn Underhill the greatest mystics are possessed of a vision and experience of God embracing at once the infinite and the intimate aspects of spiritual Reality; illuminating those religious concepts which are, as it were, an artistic reconstruction of the Transcendent, and at the same time having contact with the vast region above and beyond reason. For Ruysbroeck, as for St. Augustine, God is both near and far; and the paradox of transcendent-immanent Reality is a self-evident and inexpressible truth. Ruysbroeck moves between hushed adoration and closest communion, between divine ignorance of the intellect lifted up into God and the divine certitude of the heart in which He dwells; and give us by turns a subjective and psychological, and objective and metaphysical, reading of spiritual experience. Ruysbroeck’s mysticism includes both the concept of that Abyss of Pure Being where all distinctions are transcended, and the distinctively Christian and incarnational experience of loving communion with and through the Person of Christ. For him the way of contemplation goes from the heart of man to the Essence of God. The dialectical nature of God is transcended through Love. In similar vein the dialectical opposites of restful contemplation and the fruitful active life is overcome by Love ? the transformation of the human will from self-will to love-will ? a transformation driving the soul to address the needs of others in the world. Andrew Murray’s mystical spirituality exhibits core-elements of Ruysbroeck’s theology. Murray departs from the irresistible attraction of Christ drawing and holding us like a magnet. Love is the power moving God to draw the human soul. Each application of His blood, each time that He causes the soul to experience its power, is a fresh outflowing of His wonderful love. Desire is the secret power that moves the whole world of living men, and directs the cause of each. God Himself is the unchangeable One, and His blessed rest can never be disturbed, by what is done either by Himself or by others. Murray appeals to believers to retire frequently with Christ into the inner chamber of the heart, where the gentle voice of the Spirit is only heard if all be still. There the light of the father’s love will rise upon them. The secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation from all around us, is an image of a help to, that inner spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God’s tabernacle, where our spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible, in the spiritual “Holiest” place of God’s presence. The transformation of the soul to active involvement to address the needs of fellow-human beings, is the outflow of the transcendence of the dialectical tensions between the soul’s rest in Christ and the callings to involvement in God’s creation.