4 Problems with Free-Spirit Theology

Marguerite Porete was a French mystic born in the thirteenth century. She was part of the Beguines, a voluntary, informal, semi-monastic community not unlike the new monasticism popping up in some urban centers. Marguerite, though unknown to almost all contemporary Christians, was influential and controversial in her day. She was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310, and her views were later condemned at the Council of Vienne in 1312.

What got her in trouble was The Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite’s exploration on what she calls the seven states of grace. In the fifth and sixth states (the seventh can be reached only after death), the human soul is so united to God that it disappears. Our wills are completely replaced by the divine will, such that we are no longer capable of sinning. All our thoughts, feelings, and desires get swallowed up in the divine. We do not even wish for the comforts of God because we are already one with God.

No healthy Christian ever moves past sermons, Scripture, prayer, sacraments, and the organized church.

The liberated soul, according to Marguerite, can freely give in to nature because nature now is so well ordered that it would not demand anything contrary to God’s will. In her estimation, her heart was so united with God’s heart that she had to follow only her own desires.

With such a mystical view of the Christian life, it’s not surprising Marguerite had little patience for the institutional church. She taught a rigid two-tier ecclesiology. On one side (and these were her titles) was Holy Church the Little — a fading institution of non-liberated souls, guided by reason, relying on sermons and sacraments. On the other side was Holy Church the Great — a body of liberated souls freed from organizational shackles, governed by love, relying on contemplation. Her book was written for the enlightened ones set free from Holy Church the Little into Holy Church the Great.

Why reintroduce this long-forgotten, little-known French mystic? Because the same ideas that got her labeled a heretic are alive and well in the twenty-first-century church. Let me mention four problems with her free-spirit theology that seem particularly relevant to our situation today. Keep reading