Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 116:462 (Apr 1959)
Article: The Limitations of Mysticism
Author: Robert G. Collmer

BSac 116:462 (Apr 59) p. 127

The Limitations of Mysticism

Robert G. Collmer

[Robert G. Collmer is Professor of English at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas.]

During the twentieth century the prestige of mysticism has been rising in the thought of the western world. John Dewey, in 1909, analyzing the influence of Darwinism on philosophy, stated that one effect of Darwin’s theories had been a “recrudescence of absolutistic philosophies; an assertion of a type of philosophic knowing distinct from that of the sciences, one which opens to us another kind of reality from that to which the sciences give access; an appeal through experience to something that essentially goes beyond experience. This reaction affects popular creeds and religious movements as well as technical philosophies.”1 Dewey prophesied that this new trend would become increasingly powerful. What Dewey was describing is best gathered under the traditional term “mysticism.” A few years before Dewey spoke on this subject, William James delivered his famous 1901–1902 Gifford Lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, which gave impetus to a tendency already existing for the scientific study of religious experience, especially the experience of persons reputed to be mystics. This study has led to respectful attention to the mystics, and in some circles adoption of the theories of the mystics. Dean William Inge after World War II said that he was “greatly encouraged by the undoubted tendency of able and independent thinkers to converge upon Christianity of the mystical type as the only hope for civilization.”2 He also offered an impressive list of writers who have analyzed aspects of the psychology of mysticism, including names like Evelyn Underhill, Baron von Hügel, Delacroix, Janet, Bremond, Bergson, William James, Starbuck, Leuba, Hocking, Rufus Jones, P. E. More, Pratt, and Royce.3

BSac 116:462 (Apr 59) p. 128

Many other indications point toward a revitalization of mysticism. Evelyn Underhill, in the preface to the twelfth (1930) edition of her masterpiece, Mysticism, observed, “The philosophic and theological landscape…with its increasing emphasis on Transcendence, its new friendliness to the concept of the Supernatural, is becoming ever more favourable to the metaphysical claims of the mystics.”4 She cited the “prompt welcome” given to the works of Rudolf Otto and Karl Barth as partial indications of an altering intellectual milieu, becoming willing to listen to the mystics. The fact that within twenty years twelve editions of Miss Underhill’s bo...