Teresa of Avila

Tim Challies has been doing a series on false teachers. Of course, that's provocative. It rubs some people the wrong way. But, in principle, it's a useful series. 

However, he got himself into a bit of a bind in his post on Teresa of Avila:

http://reflectionandchoice.org/2014/05/15/having-standards-makes-you-a-troll/

There are two problems with his post:

i) He lifted his key supporting material whole cloth from a Wikipedia article, without attribution.

ii) However, I don't think that's the most serious problem. The deeper problem is not that he failed to credit his source, but the source itself. If he's going to critique Teresa of Avila, he needs to do better research. Wikipedia is not a serious resource for something like this.

iii) That doesn't mean Wikipedia is always bad. Problem is, Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable, so unless you're already knowledgeable about the subject, you're in no position to evaluate any particular Wikipedia entry. 

iv) That doesn't mean Wikipedia is useless. Sometimes you can follow up on the references given in the Wikipedia article. Indeed, it's prudent to double-check the references, when that's possible.

v) Some commenters have chided Challies for failing to read the primary sources. Teresa's actual writings. But I wouldn't say that's necessary. The problem is not with his reliance on secondary sources, but the quality of his secondary sources. (His post on Muhammad suffers from the same superficiality.) 

No doubt there are many excellent scholarly expositions and interpretations of her mystical experience. And to some extent it would be misleading to go straight to her books, for to properly understand the material you need some background information about 16C Spain, the Counter-Reformation, &c. 

Problem is that Challies thought he could wing it with minimal study. But he's a high-profile blogger and book reviewer for World Magazine. If he's going to post an assessment of someone as famous as Teresa of Avila, he must be prepared to make the necessary investment. 

Speaking for myself, when I read about Teresa's experiences, I can't help wondering if this doesn't reflect the sublimated frustration of a woman who lacked the normal emotional fulfillment of a wife and mother. This was her outlet. How much of this is a projection of her basic emotional deprivations? 

Frankly, it looks like he was using Teresa of Avila as a pretext to bash mysticism and lobby for cessationism. Once again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I'm highly dubious about cultivating mystical encounters. It's dangerous. You open yourself to who-knows-what. Be careful what you invite inside. It's easier to invite something than disinvite something.

But mysticism is a huge field. It's not something you can treat off-the-cuff. Here are some standard treatments:

Winfried Corduan, Mysticism: An Evangelical Option?

Nelson Pike, Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism

Joseph Maréchal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics