Division of States
This article takes up the latter sense, according to the various classes of souls who aspire to perfection in this life. The Catholic Church Fathers and theologians distinguish three stages or states of perfection. These are the states of beginners, the state of progress, and the state of the perfect. These states are also designated "ways", because they are the ways of God by which souls are guided.
Hence, there is the division of the spiritual life adopted since the time of the Pseudo-Dionysius into the "purgative way", the "illuminative way", and the "unitive way".
Among the condemned propositions of Miguel de Molinos, the author of the Quietist "Spiritual Guide" was the following:
- "These three kinds of way, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive, are the greatest absurdity in Mystical Theology".
Various descriptions of these three ways are given by theologians.
Read more about this topic: State (theology)
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“For in the division of the nations of the whole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord’s portion: whom, being his firstborn, he nourisheth with discipline, and giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him. Therefore all their works are as the sun before him, and his eyes are continually upon their ways.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 17:17-9.
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)