Contemplative Ethics: Intimacy, Amor Mundi and Dignification in Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila

Accounts within the Christian mystical tradition of moral behavior in the lives of the great mystics are manifold, among them the suffering gentleness of Francis who tended to beggars, lepers, and the crippled; the speculative incisiveness of Meister Eckhart who demarcated the importance of helping those in need from the practice of mystical piety; and the verdant voice of Catherine of Siena who shamed men and popes by speaking about the suffering of the masses. Yet many studies on the relationship of mysticism and ethics repeat the often-stated idea that mystics display an unfortunate tendency to antinomianism, amoral behavior, or ethical apathy.¹

The dissonance perceived to exist between mysticism and ethics is due in part to the definitions of mysticism employed, and to modern, academic appropriation. Scholars of mysticism have tended to adopt the essentialist, universalist definitions first posed by William James and others, associating mysticism with highly subjective personal encounters, ecstatic states of consciousness, and transient, ineffable experiences of nonordinary reality, to the neglect of the whole of the mystic's life of faith. A number of recent studies have critiqued this correlation of mysticism with extraordinary psychological states, and the privatization of the spiritual that emerges from it, as a philosophical construction that disregards or is blind to the overriding evidence of ethical concern in the lives and thought of the masters of religious history.²

Further, the field of contemporary Christian ethics focuses almost exclusively on the social dimension of moral conduct, and less on the mystical consciousness that may propel it; it is also based on an onto-theological assumption critiqued by many postmodernists, and on a post-enlightenment preoccupation with the individualized, autonomous self. Yet, the intrinsic unity of the spiritual and moral life was central to the patristic and medieval periods, and was even retained to a large extent in the Christian West until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when moral theology developed as a separate discipline distinct from dogmatic theology.

While in the history of Christian theology ethical thought often has been concerned with obligations, responsibilities, and acts, at the same time there exists another tradition within Christian moral thought that arises out of the contemplative life of prayer.³ Here, ethics comes from within, from the interior life of virtues in relationship with the world, yielding the fruits of responsibilities and deeds. It is from this mystical orientation that some of the greatest ethical precepts have been given form, and it is from them that we find a specific kind of ethical consciousness—an ethics of perfection—that emphasizes the attainment of deification, and is closely associated with the nascent monastic communities. Born out of constant prayer and reflection on divinity, this ethic of perfection was founded on the promise first established in Iranaeus of Lyons' famous phrase, later repeated by St. Athanasius: "God became man so that man might become God."⁴

Imitation of and participation in Christ's divinity was the foundation of moral perfection, for it was only through the development of selflessness and ardor for God that one could become deified, divine-like. While primarily focused on the inner life of prayer and virtue, the monks were exhorted to practice perfection in order to mirror the divine in the world. The whole of the monastic charism was to participate in Christ's life to the extent that one became a living example of God's presence in human affairs. The quest for inner perfection was for the sake of outer theosis, love for the world and an ethical concern for the spiritual integrity of others.⁵ Although this ethic of perfection did not address explicit social concerns—a unique development of modern culture—it was nonetheless directed toward similar obligations and goals. It was an ethical code of conduct that marked the life of the...