Shh! It's the Quietists!

Is pure self-lessness really possible? Is anyone really 'pure in heart'? In commanding pure unselfishness, doesn't Christianity become the rankest of paradoxes, the absurdest of faiths?

Well, the Quietists of 17th Century Europe weren't happy to admit that complete disinterestedness was impossible. Rather, they claimed that disinterest was the essential condition which alone gives any action eternal worth. If heaven and hell are put forward as motives of right conduct, then selfishness has gained a toehold. Meister Eckhardt once said: 'He alone hath true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing'. Madame Guyon in the 17th Century wrote: 'We must suppress all desire, even the desire for the joys of Paradise'. So, the Quietists even spoke of wishing for one's own damnation, because this would be the truly self-less path. This is to make, of course, Judas the hero of the gospels...after all, it was he who really sacrificed everything and received nothing in return, not even ultimately his thirty pieces of silver...

The debate, in the end, was between two bishops, Fenelon and Bosseut. Fenelon explained that the Quietists set out to acquire disinterestedness by the methods of formalism, 'training themselves not to think of themselves, trying even to desire the pains of hell that they might stifle all longings for the joys of heaven.' (KE Kirk). Fenelon didn't want to go this far - a self-conscious ACT of self-abnegation is surely not very far from extreme egoism. For Fenelon, disinterestedness can only happen as a gift of God: the human subject's responsibility is only to contemplate as best he can, and leave the rest to God. Worship alone will disinfect our service from egotism, but not worship as self-examination. As Kirk says 'only by discharging the immediate duties honestly and without presumption shall we become disinterested, not by close scrutiny of our spiritual attainments'.