It calls for serious study of the faith so that the enlightened mind can lead us to the knowledge of God and the teachings of Christ. This involves vigils, prayers, retreats and divine reading of Scripture leading to kind and compassionate acts in love to neighbour. The active aspect of spiritual theology deals with overcoming the obstacles like the eight deadly thoughts or seven deadly sins. If we continue to open ourselves to God, sooner or later we will find that things we once did we now gladly relinquish, and that many things we once feared to do we now do gladly.” “To those who have come to dwell in God, God is patient and kind. The remedy to overcome these obstacles is to focus our attention on divine things. In the 6th Century, Gregory the Great revised them and called them instead the seven deadly sins – pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, covetousness and sloth. They were codified by a monastic scholar by the name of Evagrius. They are traditionally known as the eight deadly thoughts. The hindrances in our spiritual journey as taught by the desert fathers and mothers of the 4th Century are common and basic: food and drink, sexual desires, material goods, the need to compare ourselves with others, resentment, failure, success and self-centredness. What is more important is to turn towards a spiritual perspective of life that could satisfy both the heart and the head. People turn to Christianity because they need help, they want justice, they desire mercy and forgiveness. More importantly, it is the change of direction in a person’s life. It is life-changing and the experience is not necessarily a dramatic one. A thinking, properly educated person is convinced that conversion is more than an emotional experience. There are different experiences of conversion and it is more than just an emotional one. The entrance to the path of our spiritual journey is through conversion. Every person can lead a spiritual life in the church and in the community. Love of God and love of neighbour lead us to the ultimate destination, which is the vision of God where we are fully present to God and God is fully present to us. The important consideration is that spiritual life is connected with daily life and actions in the world. When we do so we are fulfilling the two great commandments, and our will becomes one with God’s will. The goal of spiritual life is loving God and loving our neighbour. And the third is the direct contemplation of God or meditation in silence when God meets us face to face. The second is the indirect contemplation of God discerning God’s presence in the whole created universe, human relationships and the Bible. The first is the active life or practice of overcoming evil thoughts and actions. The purpose of the book is “to offer help to those people who cannot find what they are looking for in academic theology as it is practised today, and for whom neither church worship nor the major activities of church life provide enough explicit spiritual guidance”.Īllen outlines three stages of the spiritual journey. This splendid guide to the classic spiritual way offers spirituality with substance and theology with soul.” One of his peers commented that he “excels in joining what we too often keep separate: doctrine and life, philosophy and poetry, head and heart. THIS book is an insightful analysis of spirituality which helps readers to know what is meant by awareness of God and the way of achieving it.ĭiogenes Allen, the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary, an influential theologian and an author of several books on spiritual life, draws from the Christian spiritual tradition – the early Church fathers and Christian mystics, both men and women. Spiritual Theology: The Theology of Yesterday for Spiritual Help Today
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