What is the Role of the Mystic in Study?

The Lord be with you!

At seminary I feel the question “What is the Role of the Mystic in Study?” in almost every class in some way.I will try to comment on this more over the weekend but here are two quotes to stimulate some dicussion: I NEED YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS!

“A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian.” – Evagrius of Pontus

“[God is] the inscrutable One out of reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name.” – Pseudo-Dionysius (whoever he may be)

There comes a point where our devotional and even academic life must go beyond the logic of modernism and allow God to encounter us holistically… that is if we’re interesting in encountering God.

One more quote:

“The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats on an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion… To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” – GK Chesterton

Grace and Peace