Thursday, October 05, 2006

Spiritual Illuminism

Thomas Dubay in "Deep Conversion, Deep Prayers" writes on "spiritual illuminism".....

"On the supernatural level this disease shows itself in the conviction that 'I have a special light from the Holy Spirit; you do not. Therefore I am right and you are wrong.' I like to call this form of the aberration the priveleged-pipeline-to-God idea. One can present to this person objective evidence from reason, Scripture, the teaching Church, brilliant theologians, and, once again, no dent is made on the illuminist's mind. The reaction is the same: 'I know better; you are wrong.'....It is clear that disagreements with an illuminist's spouse, relative, friend, coworker or parishioner will go nowhere until humility enters the picture-- and that requires conversion."

I assume that Dubay is talking here about opinions where there is not an objective right or wrong, situations where our reasoned judgement is required. Questions such as what is the best course of action here? What is God's will in this particular situation? How should our parish handle this? and so on... Do I think that there are some people who have nothing to teach me? Is my mental default position that I am always right? Sometimes, I'm afraid it is. May I always acknowledge that there is no one from whom I might not learn. And may I always remember to look to God and ask for answers, knowing that my own brain, my own wisdom, may own abilities to discern are pathetically limited.

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