God, Teresa and Luther : is there such a thing as passive faith?

Abstract

Teresa of Jesus (1515-1582) could not have described her relationship with God any better than in her poem “Vuestra soy” (‘I am Thine’). In it, she so eloquently brings together three major aspects of her spirituality: God’s steadfast love which accompanies the soul’s “days of light and darkness through”, which is received through grace by the soul and disposes herself to say, “Sweetest Spouse Thou art / I have given myself to Thee”, and which, in turn, has the soul outstretch her arms in humble acceptance of those around her, “send me where Thou’d’st have me be”.2 Teresa’s love for God overflows into her concrete love for others. On the contrary, Martin Luther (1483-1546), although is willing to accept the possibility of the union of the soul with Christ, there is little agreement on what this union actually entails. According to some, this is the actual “indwelling of Christ [which] occurs subsequent to justification, as the power of God to transform the life of the Christian”, whilst others “fail to describe Christ’s presence as more than an experience of God” which means that union for them is only “the power of Christ on the believer’s heart, not the indwelling of Christ’s person in faith”.3 Despite such lack of clarity, it has been suggested that for the early Luther “the Christian is justified in receiving the righteousness of God through the indwelling of Christ. In union with Christ, the Christian then turns in love to her neighbour”.4 Such common belief of the possibility of the union of the soul with God or, more precisely, Christ (whatever this might then lead to) seems to put Teresa and Luther on a par. Both Teresa and – at least the early – Luther seem to understand justification or sanctification as a lived relationship with God which is concretely acted out in love for Christ and neighbour. Although it could be argued that the later Luther for whatever reason seemed to have lost this connection between faith and morality, Teresa certainly remained a daughter of the Church in giving equal importance to faith and what consequences this had on one’s moral life. She knows that faith alone is not enough to please God – not even after mystical marriage – for this must always be accompanied by one’s choices of cooperating in the working of one’s salvation. [excerpt]