The relevance of spirituality/mysticism for theological work

Contributions of Edith Stein’s thought

Abstract

This research investigates the relevance of spirituality and mysticism for systematic theology and vice versa. That reciprocal relationship is a question that accompanies the entire history of theology and, in the middle of the last century, it occupied in a prominent way the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner, both obligatory references. Nor was it absent from the reflection of Latin American liberation theologians, although questions about the theological method seem to have eclipsed the timely reception of the deeply spiritual and mystical dimension of liberation. This reflection seeks to open a new perspective based on the reception of what turned out to be the last studies of the phenomenologist Edith Stein (+1942), specifically on Dionysius the Areopagite (Wege der Gotteserkentniss, ed. 1946) and John of the Cross (Kreuzeswissenschaft, ed. 1950). This first approach yields a result that can be summarized in three major fundamental reasons for the reciprocal relevance between spirituality and systematic theological work: kenotic, trinitarian and eschatological relevance, rich horizons of the essential identity of Christian theological thinking.