Jan van Ruusbroec in Beijing(vervolg)

Abstract

In this article, a number of questions are discussed which were raised by the participants of the meeting about Ruusbroec and Christian Mystical Experience at the University of Beijing (Ons Geestelijk Erf 72 (1998) 203-216). First, it is argued that, although no language is adequate to describe and to interpret mystical experience, nevertheless the Christian interpretation seems to be coherent with one of the fundamental characteristics of this experience, namely that it is an experience of love. The Christian interpretation, therefore, should not be considered as a merely arbitrary addition. Next, the complexity of the mystical experience is shown. This complexity is the reason that oppositions such as activity and passivity, with means and without means, being lost in God and the activity of the person, are, in Ruusbroec's view, complementary poles of one and the same reality of love. Thirdly, according to Ruusbroec, the place of Christ in the Christian mystical experience is never a secondary one. There is no meeting with God beyond the meeting with Christ, although there is an experience of the love-union of the Father and the Son. The suffering, crucified Christ never becomes superfluous: the fruitive experience of the love union presupposes a life-communion with the Son who completely gives himself (actively) to the Father and (passively) surrenders himself in love.