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*** SHOW NOTES (not a transcript) ***
Lead: What is mysticism? Is it biblical? And how might we help others with this idea?
Intro: Hey, welcome to day six of the recording-from-the-road roadshow and I am so busted. If you had asked me not that long ago if I was a mystic, I’d have said yes. Now that answer would be no or have a big fat asterisk.
Sponsor: (none)
Bible segment (read along with The Bible Project):
Passage: Proverbs 19-21
Translation: ESV (English Standard Version)
Words: ~1477
Apologetics/reflections segment:
Mysticism (bold emphases mine)…
The view that it is possible to gain experiential knowledge of that which transcends the limits of human reason and sensory perception. When associated with a religious tradition (as is usually the case), the mystic holds that it is possible to gain an awareness of God or ultimate reality through certain kinds of experiences, which are often claimed to be ineffable. Theists interpret such experiences as making possible a special intimacy or oneness with God but deny the monistic claim that in such experiences the mystic becomes aware of an identity with God.(1)
Or…
Defined as “piety in so far as primary importance is attached to inner religious experience, to religion as occurring in the soul” (T. Andrae), or as “the sense of the presence of a being or reality through other means than the ordinary perceptive processes or the reason” (J. B. Pratt). W. James lists four characteristics of the mystical experience: ineffability, a noetic quality, transience, and passivity. In some cases the mystical experience leads to a sense of unification with the divine (unio mystica) or of loosing oneself into “the void” or “the infinite.” In others there is an experience of intimate fellowship with God that leaves personality intact. Accompanying phenomena include visions, auditions, trances, and states of ecstasy.
Whether or not there is mysticism in the Bible is mainly a matter of definition. The personal concept of God in biblical religion does not allow for a sense of unification, which is more characteristic of pantheistic religions.(2)
So, here are my questions for you to ponder:
Does God speak? If so, how? What does He say about how He communicates with us?
Does God ever ask us to ‘turn ourselves loose into the void’ or otherwise become person-less?
Is there ever a time when we are “one with God” or He is “one with Creation?”
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Psalm 4
Translation: ESV (English Standard Version)
Words: ~131
Take action:
Watch The Bible Project’s videos (plural!) on Proverbs (below) if you haven’t already.
Love you!
-R
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources
(1) C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 78.
(2) Helmer Ringgren, “Mysticism,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 945.