enter the Kingdom of Heaven. While Luther had a well-known antipathy to mystics, it is also true that there is the foundation of mystical life in his theology of the heart, particularly in his early thought. Perhaps through mysticism on can gain grace to stand with God.Bonaventure emphasized the total dependence of all things upon God, and he wrote guides to mystic contemplation. There are certain common fallacies current about mysticism: that mystics are not “practical” and that they are revolutionary. On the contrary, many of the greatest mystics have been both intensely active as well as submissive to authority of whatever sort. Mysticism does not promote solitary thinking. Nor is the “solitary thinker” necessarily, or even usually, a mystic. Mysticism mainly states that God is all around us in nature in and in us. There is no need for a church and system to be close with God or to be one with him.There are two general tendencies in the speculation of mystics—to regard God as outside the soul, which rises to its God by successive stages, or to regard God as dwelling within the soul and to be found by delving deeper into one's own reality. The idea of transcendence, as held most firmly by mystics, is the kernel of the ancient mystical Page 3system, Neoplatonism, and of Gnosticism. Their explanation of the connection between God and humans by emanation is epoch-making in the philosophy of contemplation. In the plain language of old-fashioned theology "man's sin is stamped upon man's universe." One can see a false world because we live a sham life. According to mysticism the average people do not know themselves; hence do not know the true character of their senses and instincts; hence attribute wrong values to their suggestions and declarations concerning our relation to the world. This lucid apprehension of the True is what mysticism means when it speak of the Illumination, which results from a faithfu...
