James Leo Garrett Jr. and the Southwestern Theological Tradition
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 65, No. 1 - Fall 2022
Editor: David S. Dockery
By Jason M. Baxter. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021, 208pp., $22.99
The notion of mysticism has a muddy, and often misunderstood, relationship to the Christian faith. From a full embrace to flat-out rejection, and everywhere in between, Christians have disagreed on its place—let alone its definition—in Christian spirituality. Complex and complicated, the idea of mysticism is difficult to define among even accomplished scholars of the field. Jason Baxter, associate professor of the arts and humanities at Wyoming Catholic College, seeks to address the confusion and propose a way to understand and appreciate Christian mysticism. He does so by exploring key works of Christian literature to understand how such authors described their experiences with God, collating that experience to bring forth a common idea of mysticism and how it can still function in Christian spirituality today. His task is great, and he provides numerous insights along the way, though the result may still leave readers feeling no less confused on how mysticism helps (or hurts) Christian faith and spirituality.
Baxter views his task in primarily literary terms, meaning, his exploration of mysticism began in the reading and teaching of literature. Thus, this text arose out of efforts to address his students’ questions on the subject. Baxter begins by tracing the modern exis- tential crisis in the twentieth century via numerous literary figures such as Shūsaku Endō and Thomas Merton. It is no coincidence that the rise of a “secular world” has displaced many and left many wondering if there is not more to life than what we merely experience in our physical world. Indeed, our time is “weird” in the sense that it is utterly different that any era proceeding it. Baxter does well to identify this crisis and observe why the recovery of mysticism, or something akin to it, might be a necessary effort. After his assessment of numerous twentieth-century voices, Baxter steps further back in time to understand the connections between mysticism among pre-Christian religion and philosophy. The primary player in this discussion is Plato and his philosophical descendants, namely the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Porphyry. The concept of the “One,” arising from Plato’s cosmology and given distinct and mystical shape by Plotinus, was the destination of soul unencumbered by worldly desire.
From Plato, Baxter draws a direct line to Augustine and the “inward turn” presented by the bishop of Hippo in his Confessions. Baxter notes that, while certainly influenced by the Platonic tradition preceding him, Augustine “departs from the Platonic account in important ways” (p. 67). The inner turn of Augustine is to discover the God who was always there. It is an inward turn that moves back towards God. The ascent of the soul lauded by Platonists must be reckoned with the descent of Christ affirmed by Christians. No possibility of connection with God exists apart from God making such connection possible in the first place. Baxter highlights the role of love in the mystic experience of Augustine, one where love for God and the joy of knowing Love itself was integral for greater heights of spiritual ecstasy. This experience of love, however, is always tempered by the reality of sin and the impossibility of the full divine gaze this side of eternity. Hence, any such mystical experience is but a glance into the infinite beauty of God for Augustine.
From here, Baxter flips the coin to the other side of Christian mysticism to explore the unknowability of God, presented by voices such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa, and Meister Eckhart. This is the mysticism of casting aside worldly desires and pursuits to experience God directly. For someone like Gregory, the pursuit of virtue was integral to one’s knowing and experiencing of God. For Dionysius the experience of God came through the via negativa–the recognition that God is completely other and to experience God was to remove preconceived notions and knowledge of who he is. Eckhart similarly emphasized the utter transcendence of God, and like his predecessors Gregory and Dionysius, emphasized the limitations of language to adequately describe God. All three focused on the role of nature in mediating our knowledge and experience of God. Baxter then moves to focus upon the Desert Fathers tradition, with its emphasis on spiritual warfare and contemplation. Evagrius of Pontus is a prominent voice in this tradition, and later monastic voices such as Hugh of St. Victor and Francis of Assisi were significantly influenced by earlier such mystics. This mysticism recognized our disconnect from God, from oneself, and from creation. Only in detachment from creation, can one truly appreciate creation for what it is, an opportunity to contemplate and experience God. This natural contemplation flourished in the east, according to Baxter, and was all but neglected in the West until the later Western monasticism of the Victorine and Franciscan traditions. Mystic experience of God for these individuals included the necessary practice of asceticism to shed one’s desires.
Baxter concludes with an emphasis on lectio divina as a means of mystical reading and a guide to experience God through Scripture. He highlights the work of the Carthusian monks Guigo and Hugh of Balma, as well as the hermeneutical stylings of Meister Eckhart as models approaching this method of reading Scripture. The “participatory” nature of pre-modern Christian readings of Scripture represented in the tradition of lectio divina, according to Baxter, is an important element in regaining the “wildness of scriptural promises” (p. 151). The text concludes with brief sketches of four additional medieval figures who exemplify the Christian mystic tradition, specifically with a focus upon the love of God. These figures represent the flourishing of the mystic tradition leading up to the modern era, and thus provide readers with concluding figures who show the “wildness of spiritual life” as Baxter has described it. Baxter does well to show how these individuals, and the others discussed in the text, maintain a distinct Christian character as opposed to non-Christian (mainly neo-Platonic) notions of mystic encounter with the One.
An Introduction to Christian Mysticism introduces pivotal Christian mystics, and their influences, to many who may be unfamiliar to the discussion. The text misses its intended goal in providing a more thorough biblical and theological reflection to the topic. I agree that the experience of God grows as the “fruit of love and virtue and patience and diligence in prayer and discipleship” (p. 8), but if this is the definition of mysticism then every Christian is called to be a mystic. Missing is a robust biblical and theological foundation to define the term and its practice. Mysticism is akin to sanctification in the terms provided. While Scripture and theology are not absent, Baxter’s emphasis is on the individual figures and movements represented in the mystic tradition. Additionally, the assumption is that the exploration of mysticism resides chiefly in classical and medieval figures, rather than potential candidates in the Reformation and early modern periods. Tom Schwanda and others have made a case for reading the Puritans and early evangelicals such as Johnathan Edwards as mystics, albeit in a manner dependent upon theological foundations reared in the Reformation. While the “wildness” of Christian spirituality is promoted, the text is more commentary upon mystic figures and their thought rather than how such figures can help modern Christians correct what might be seen as dry and “heady” Christian spirituality. It is true that the notion of mystery is challenged by our modern secular culture, but is a recovery of mysticism the answer? If mysticism is the key to recovering the wildness of Christian spiritual life, Baxter would have done well to help readers understand how the mystic tradition helps solve our modern dilemma. Indeed, it seems that a recovery of the basic notion of the grandeur of the triune God, his beauty and redemptive work, and the implications of our union with Christ for our experience and knowledge of God are more foundational for addressing the secular crisis we face today. As one sympathetic to a mediated and nuanced recovery of mystic voices within the Christian tradition, I was hoping that Baxter would give us more tangible suggestions for readers. Thus, the book’s value lays in starting the conversation for those who are interested in the topic but might not be a “go to” manual or guide for how Christian mysticism addresses our secular world today.
