DT1138 wrote:In fairness, have you heard of Lutheran Scholasticism? Between Lutheran Scholasticism and Calvinism, much of Protestant Orthodoxy was stripped of the mystical and experiential.
One victim of the Reformation was mysticism. Both in Catholic and Protestant circles, mysticism came under intense scrutiny and suspicion. It only really flourished in dissenter sects like the Quietists or Quakers. Catholics in particular feared Quietism because it offered a way to achieve a feeling of knowledge of God without the hierarchy's sacramental system, and Protestants disliked it because it de-emphasized the Bible (indeed, the Quakers hold experience above the Bible in authority).
Mysticism gets confused with occultism and esoterica. Mystical theology is not working magic or summoning spirits for aid or any of the stuff that occupies the attention of the occultist. The two words seem to hint at the same things but they are very different.
Yes I've read and study Protestant scholasticism. They were so hypercritical with proving to the Catholics that they could carry the ball on scholasticism that they became super rigid. I agree that mystical theology suffered in the reformation. I'm not great fan of the reformation. Although I do see it as necessary and I think Luther is to be lauded for certain ideas, he made up for it by allowing his followers to murder Anabaptist and by calling for wholesale slaughter of the German peasantry and by being totally sold out to the Duke. I probalby have that title wrong but you know who I mean.
True mystical experience continued though the reformation and few noble figures emerge such as Johnathan Law.