Commending the book for its many praiseworthy features we should, however, like to call attention to some points which invite discussion.
Author: A. Sharpe
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986402804
Page: 306
View: 529
In a recent volume titled: Mysticism: Its True Nature and Value, the Rev. A. B. Sharpe endeavors to explain the nature, object, origin and psychology of mystical knowledge and experience and to show at the same time that genuine Mysticism is one of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church, a fact which has not always been duly recognized. Commending the book for its many praiseworthy features we should, however, like to call attention to some points which invite discussion. With many, if not most, writers on the subject we are of the opinion that the soul in this life, even when it attains to the highest state of mystical contemplation, does not think or know without a species intelligibilis impressa. The need of a species expressa is absolutely evident, since the species expressa is nothing else but the act by which the intellect thinks. On the other hand we easily understand that in extraordinary contemplation, at least in its sublimest forms, God infuses a species intelligibilis without the concurrence of a phantasm, since God can suspend the operation of physical laws. We do not deny that God can, even in this life, as He actually does hereafter in the life of glory, make up as it were for the presence of the speeds impressa by the most intimate union of his own essence with the soul, which sufficiently determines the soul, raised as it is in such a case by the lumen gloriae, to elicit a vital act. What we do deny is that God thus actually unites himself to the soul in this life. We hold, on the contrary, first, that there is a species impressa, created and therefore distinct from God, and, secondly, that the soul does not enjoy the lumen gloriae in the state of mystical contemplation. The sayings of mystics may, we think, be satisfactorily explained by this theory, which is shared by Alvarez de Paz, a classic on mysticism, and also by Poulain. Many theologians assert, that even the visions of Moses and St. Paul are to be explained by the infusion of a sublime species, which may be technically called infusa in contradistinction to the species impressa caused by a phantasm. --The Fortnightly Review, Volume 18