MYSTICAL UNION IN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
MYSTICAL UNION IN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the so-often discussed problem of the core of religions, of whatseems to link them rather than to separate them. Thus, after having presented thecharacteristics of unitive mysticism and its language at a phenomenological level, weturn to mystical union in the three major monotheistic religions of the world.Judaism, Christianity and even Islam have all developed the idea of a personal God,this ideal representing religion at its best. In the monotheistic faiths the God ofcreation, revelation, and redemption is not a static and indifferent First Principle buta loving and all-knowing God, who creates humans whose likeness to Him consistsprecisely in their ability to know and to love. However, the variations found inJudaism, Christianity, and Islam on this topic are too multiple to be easilycharacterized. That’s why it is difficult to appreciate the dynamics of union unlessone addresses the relation between unitive expressions and the roles of love andknowledge. Union, whether conceived of as the uniting of God and human or in adeeper way as some form of identity with God, has been a key feature of the mysticaltraditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Most mystics claim that both knowingand loving are necessary in the way to God, but many mystics stress the superiorityof love, often expressed in highly erotic ways, whereas others conceive of union asattaining mental identity with the Divine Intellect. They make use of a variety ofimages and symbols, as well as distinctive expressions and forms of technicaldiscourse, in their attempts to suggest through language what lies beyond language:the ‘ineffable’ God.Keywords: mystical

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