MYSTICISM
Mysticism is
a system of belief that attempts to perceive spiritual reality apart from
objective, verifiable facts. It seeks
truth through feelings, intuition, and other internal senses. Objective data is usually discounted, so
mysticism derives its authority from within.
Spontaneous feeling becomes more significant than objective fact. Intuition outweighs reason. An internal awareness supersedes external
reality.
Charismatic Chaos, Zondervan, 1992, p. 35.
Mysticism is
the belief that spiritual reality is perceived apart from the human intellect
and natural senses. It looks for truth internally, weighing feelings,
intuition, and other internal sensations more heavily than objective,
observable, external data. Mysticism ultimately derives its authority from a
self-actualized, self-authenticated light rising from within. Its source of
truth is spontaneous feeling rather than objective fact. The most extreme and
complex forms of mysticism are found in Hinduism and its western reflection,
New Age philosophy.
John MacArthur
Resurrecting
and Old Heresy from Our Sufficiency in Christ, 1991, Crossway Books, a division
of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. p. 32.
Mysticism is
the idea that direct knowledge of God or ultimate reality is achieved through
personal, subjective intuition or experience apart from, or even contrary to
historical fact or objective divine revelation.
John MacArthur
The
Quest for Something More from Our Sufficiency in Christ, 1991, Crossway Books,
a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. p. 181.
Modern
mysticism embraces a concept of faith that in effect rejects reality and
rationality altogether. Waging war on reason and truth, it is thus in direct
conflict with Christ and Scripture. It has taken hold rapidly because it
promises what so many people are seeking: something more, something better,
something richer, something easier – something fast and easy to substitute for
a life of careful, disciplined obedience to the Word of Christ. And because so
many lack certainty that their sufficiency is in Christ, mysticism has caught
many Christians unaware. It has thus swept much of the church into a dangerous
netherworld of confusion and false teaching.
John MacArthur
The
Quest for Something More from Our Sufficiency in Christ, 1991, Crossway Books,
a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. p. 182.
When we speak
of spiritual union or mystical union with Christ, we must be careful not to
fall into heretical forms of mysticism.
In Eastern forms of mysticism the religious goal is a kind of unity (unio) with the deity by which the individual is so absorbed
by the ‘ultimate one’ that personal identity is obliterated. In Christian mystical union, the self is not
lost or erased by being merged with some oversoul or
universal essence.
R.C. Sproul
The Purpose of God, An
Exposition of Ephesians, Christian Focus Publications, 1994, p. 90.
Increasingly
our world is short on thinking and long on experience. Mix this with inner
turmoil and a desperate need for answers from some higher source, along with
the infiltration of eastern religions, and you can easily see why the mystical
aspects of our culture are so predominant. Our generation would certainly far
rather load all of their information in a computer and forget the agony on
thinking, especially thinking biblically.
Jim Elliff
Led by the Spirit, Joshua Press, 1999, p. 34-35, http://www.solascriptura.ca/shop/store.php?crn=215.
A mystical
experience is primarily an emotive event, rather than a cognitive one… Its
predominant qualities have more to do with emotional intensity, or “feeling
tone,” than with facts evaluated and understood rationally. Although this is
true, it alone is a woefully inadequate way of describing the mystical
experience. The force of the experience is often so overwhelming that the
person having it finds his entire life changed by it. Mere emotions cannot
effect such transformations.
Arthur Johnson
Faith
Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism, Moody, 1988, p. 20-23.
The mystic
rarely questions the goodness and value of his experience. Consequently, if he
describes it as giving him information, he rarely questions the truth of his
newly gained “knowledge.” It is this claim that mystical experiences are “ways
of knowing” truth that is vital to understanding many religious movements we
see today.
Arthur Johnson
Faith
Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism, Moody, 1988, p. 20-23.