The Mystical Element of Religion: As Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends

by Friedrich von Hügel

— A Classic — Includes Active Table of Contents — Includes Religious Illustrations

Amongst the apparent enigmas of life, amongst the seemingly most radical and abiding of interior antinomies and conflicts experienced by the human race and by individuals, there is one which everything tends to make us feel and see with an ever-increasing keenness and clearness. More and more we want a strong and interior, a lasting yet voluntary bond of union between our own successive states of mind, and between what is abiding in ourselves and what is permanent within our fellow-men; and more and more we seem to see that mere Reasoning, Logic, Abstraction,—all that appears as the necessary instrument and expression of the Universal and Abiding,—does not move or win the will, either in ourselves or in others; and that what does thus move and win it, is Instinct, Intuition, Feeling, the Concrete and Contingent, all that seems to be of its very nature individual and evanescent. Reasoning appears but capable, at best, of co-ordinating, unifying, explaining the material furnished to it by experience of all kinds; at worst, of explaining it away; at best, of stimulating the purveyance of a fresh supply of such experience; at worst, of stopping such purveyance as much as may be. And yet the Reasoning would appear to be the transferable part in the process, but not to move; and the experience alone to have the moving power, but not to be transmissible.

Aeterna Press

Genres: Mysticism, Theology, Philosophy, Christianity, Religion

686 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

About the author

Friedrich von Hügel (born Friedrich Maria Aloys Franz Karl Freiherr von Hügel, usually known as Baron von Hügel; 5 May 1852 – 27 January 1925) was an influential Austrian Roman Catholic layman, religious writer, Modernist theologian and Christian apologist.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tome, but also a key work for understanding mysticism. Much disagreement and contention about what mysticism is (and whether it applies to any religion other than Christianity) is resolved in the lens of von Hügel's basic concept, that religion - in whatever tradition - contains three elements: the experiential (or mystical), the speculative (or theological), and the institutional (or traditional).

While the bulk of the tome is a study of St. Catherine of Genoa, its focus is on applying this lens to religious phenomena. The three elements of religion are taken as expressions of human faculties and development. Those familiar with Fowler's faith stages theory will find his model anticipated here - there are even passages that, it would appear, Fowler lifted from von Hügel's pages.

I have found this lens - adapted significantly - in Protestant discourse about the FOUR elements of religion: first the Bible, then tradition, reason and experience (in order of authority). The Bible, a component of tradition, is separated out. That's not von Hügel's approach. Nor does he privilege tradition over the other elements. Instead, he says the three elements each have a role in composing religion and a mature religious life.

[Jerry]

review text for 2095