All thinkers
Mystic · Early modern
Miguel de Molinos
1628–1696 · Quietism
Condemned
Latin
Sixty-eight propositions condemned by Innocent XI in Coelestis Pastor (1687); he abjured and died in the prison of the Holy Office.
Spanish priest in Rome and a celebrated director of souls, Molinos's Spiritual Guide (1675) taught a “prayer of quiet” in which the soul annihilates its own activity, ceases to resist temptation or to make acts of virtue, and rests passively in God. Enormously popular and at first approved, it was found on examination to make the soul's abandonment an excuse for indifference to sin and to the sacraments.
Why he matters: His condemnation drew the line between true contemplation, which the Church honors in Teresa and John, and a passivity that abandons vigilance, effort and the moral law; every later discussion of acquired and infused contemplation refers to it.
Where to be careful
Among the condemned propositions: that the soul should not resist temptations; that acts of love, petition and thanksgiving are imperfections; that the contemplative should not think of Christ's humanity; that sins committed in the passive state are not sins. The whole system, not merely excesses, was condemned.
Reading
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The Spiritual GuideMiguel de Molinos (ed. Robert Baird, Classics of Western Spirituality) · The text itself, with the 68 condemned propositions in the appendix.
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Coelestis Pastor (1687), Denzinger §§ 2201–2269Innocent XI · What was condemned, article by article.
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Christian Perfection and ContemplationRéginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP · The orthodox doctrine of contemplation against which Quietism is measured.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
How is God related to the world?
Creation from nothing
Pantheism or emanation
Creation from nothing
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
Do natures and essences really exist?
Realism
Nominalism
Realism
God's essence and His energies
Absolute simplicity
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
How should we speak of God?
Apophatic (negative) way
Apophatic (negative) way
Cataphatic (analogical) way
How does creation speak of God?
A book of signs and vestiges
Natures studied in their own right
A book of signs and vestiges
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Fideism
Rationalism
Fideism
Where does knowledge begin?
Illumination and innate ideas
Senses and abstraction
Illumination and innate ideas
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
How should Scripture be read?
Fundamentalist literalism
Critical reductionism
Fundamentalist literalism
What is theology for?
A wisdom ordered to loving
A science ordered to knowing
A wisdom ordered to loving
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Is the body really you?
Dualism
Dualism
Body–soul unity
Are you free?
Determinism
Determinism
Free will
How fallen is human nature?
Basically good
Totally depraved
Basically good
Does nature desire God?
Natural desire for the vision of God
Pure nature
Natural desire for the vision of God
The body and its desires
Contempt for the flesh
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Person and community
Individualism
Individualism
Collectivism
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Is morality objective and knowable?
Natural law
Relativism
Natural law
Why is the good good?
Between
Divine command (voluntarism)
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Are some acts always wrong?
Between
Consequentialism
Intrinsically evil acts
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is conscience?
Autonomous conscience
Autonomous conscience
Conscience bound to truth
In doubtful cases
Laxism
Rigorism
Laxism
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
What is heaven's happiness, at its heart?
The will's love and enjoyment of God
The intellect's vision of God
The will's love and enjoyment of God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How does grace move the will?
Thomist (Bañezian)
Thomist (Bañezian)
Molinist
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
Who can be saved?
Strict exclusivism
Strict exclusivism
Indifferentism
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Hell and hope
All will be saved
The many are lost
All will be saved
Would the Word have become flesh had Adam not sinned?
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Christ came to redeem sinners
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Between
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
Where does authority come from?
Authority from God
Social contract
Authority from God
The nation and the Church
Nation does not matter
Nation or race first
Nation does not matter
May the state restrain false religion?
The confessional state: error has no rights
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Monarchy and hierarchy
Monarchy and hierarchy
Democracy and participation
May a Christian take up the sword?
Between
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Liturgical development
Between
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The procession of the Holy Spirit
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
From the Father through the Son
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Between
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
Between
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful