Warfield on the Mysticism of Evelyn Underhill (Part Two) -- Union With The "Absolute"

In Part One, I set forth the background to Warfield’s stinging review of four books written by the then popular mystic Evelyn Underhill. Although Warfield’s “Review” was written in 1914, Underhill’s variety of mysticism (now called “spirituality”) is still very much alive today. As I noted in Part One, a subjective/mystical experience which she and others champion, “provides common ground for those seeking theological justification for religious `diversity and inclusion.’” It is often claimed that doctrine divides, but spirituality—such as a “conversion experience”—unites a broad segment of Americans, which includes many professing evangelicals. Those who are doctrinally ignorant, indifferent, or even hostile to a concrete set of beliefs, can find common ground through a vague and ill-defined “spirituality,” aligning with those with similar experiences. This revival of Underhill’s mysticism is what Michael Horton has identified as the “spiritual but not religious” phenomenon which is now widespread in America.

Warfield, whose job description at Princeton Theological Seminary (Professor of Polemic and Didactic Theology) requires him to pounce upon all perceived doctrinal error, acknowledges Underhill’s skill as a writer. She is good at what she does, which is why Warfield felt so compelled to devote significant attention to her work. He writes . . .

This volume is brilliantly written. All the resources of a trained literary art are expended upon it, and its pages are not only illuminated with numerous well-chosen extracts from the Mystical writers who are thus permitted to tell in their own quaint and often singularly impressive language exactly what they are, but are also gemmed with vivid phrases caught from the Mystics and used by Miss Underhill in her own composition with exquisite skill. Above all it is written with a verve and enthusiasm which impart to it an élan (as Miss Underhill would call it) that sweeps the reader well-nigh off his feet. (337)

Early on in his “Review,” Warfield points out that a definition of terms is very important—especially with an ill-defined subject (Mysticism) grounded in subjective religious experience. Here is where the trouble begins.

Formal definition of the term begins for us already in the Preface. “Broadly speaking,” we read there (p. x.), “I understand it to be the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order; whatever be the theological formula under which that order is understood.” This is “broadly speaking” indeed. By the final clause, Mysticism is at once separated from all “positive religions” whatever; and (as we are immediately told) it is made matter of indifference to the experience of “mystic union” in which it “attains its end,” whether that union is conceived to be with “the God of Christianity, the World-Soul of Pantheism, the Absolute of Philosophy” (p. x.). “Attempts to limit mystical truth—the direct apprehension of the Divine Substance—to the formulae of any one religion,” we are accordingly told later (p. 115), “are as futile as the attempt to identify a precious metal with the die which converts it into current coin.”

Mysticism of the sort advocated by Ms. Underhill cannot be limited to any formulas of “positive religion” (presumably one with any sort of authoritative doctrine). The image given us by Isaiah (in 6:1-13) of one such moment of “direct apprehension of the Divine substance” is vastly different from the type of mystical union spelled out by Underhill. She might find “union and harmony” when encountering what she assumes is “the divine substance,” but Isaiah was immediately overcome by the awareness of his sinfulness. This is but one of the things missing from Underhill’s supposed encounter with the divine.

As important as definitions are, Warfield notes, Underhill’s attempts to define her terms are far from clear or helpful.

It is upon the little word “innate,” however, that the hinge of the definition turns. Mysticism is “the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order.” In other words it is “natural” religion; and it is therefore that it is quite independent of all possible conceptions of that “only Reality,” which is here called “the transcendental order.” Let philosophers call it “the Absolute”; let theologians call it “God”; think of it as Personal Spirit, think of it as the impersonal ground of Being, think of it how you choose: the human spirit moves by its own intrinsic gravitation towards it, and this gravitation towards it is Mysticism. Obviously “Mysticism” is used here as but a name for the inherent native religiosity of the human spirit.

The “Absolute” supposedly encountered by Mrs. Underhill has much in common with the inscription on the infamous Athenian altar dedicated to an “unknown god,” as mentioned by Paul in Acts 17:23. A better term for the “religiosity of the human spirit,” might just be “the flesh,” identified by Paul in Romans 8:5-8.

Warfield notes Underhill’s efforts to define mysticism as “the science (or better the skill) of union with the Absolute.” Notice her challenge to those who merely talk without attaining.

Subsequent formal definitions advance us but little beyond this. Thus, for example, when at a later point Miss Underhill is again (as in the Preface) animadverting [disapproving] upon the loosenesses of the current usages of the term, she emerges with this crisp assertion (p. 86): “Mysticism, in its pure form, is the science of ultimates, the science of union with the Absolute, and nothing else.” She does indeed go on to declare that “the mystic is the person who attains to that union, not the person who talks about it”; that it is not a matter of “knowing about” but “Being” (she spells it with a big B); but she seems already to have closed that question by defining it as “science”—for “science” is “knowing about” ex vi verbi. When, among sciences, she declares Mysticism to be this particular science, namely, “the science of ultimates,” she seems to identify it with what we are accustomed to call Metaphysics; but that she can scarcely mean this is manifest from the parallel phrase which she immediately adjoins: “the science of union with the Absolute”—for certainly Metaphysics is not that. What is apparently meant to be asserted is that Mysticism is the systematized knowledge of “union with the Absolute”; or, since the emphasis is thrown on the practical side, perhaps we may say (as we speak of “pugilistic science”) that Mysticism is expertness, acquired skill in attaining “union with the Absolute.”

Talk about religious experience is cheap indeed. But how does one know that Underhill’s experience is not a fantasy, a calculated way to attract followers and sell books (it has happened before—Christian Books Which Fudged the Truth), or even something demonic? We have no way of knowing—we only have her word that she has experienced such a union. And since her testimony to that effect is patently unbiblical, there is no reason to believe her. Yet, describing her experience with a sense of élan has made her famous as well as a guide for those seeking something more than “knowing about” the Absolute—who, by the way, has revealed himself in Scripture as something other than “the Absolute,” or the “divine substance,” but as the Triune God who is revealed in his word and works, especially through the person and work of his Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

To be continued . . .