The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The Inner Light: Quakers

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I’d like to gather your thoughts on the concept of the “Inner Light” as it pertains to… well, anything really… your life, universalism, theology in general, the bible… Whatever comes to you, whatever it makes you feel or think.

I am very convinced of the Inner Light, that we all have something within us… perhaps this is how God is able to save us all? I do see the light of God in others and when I can’t, I try very hard to find it. I think sometimes it gets buried in our sin… But it’s always there, shining, forever.

Some author I’m very fond of (can’t remember if it was Chesterton or Lewis, probably Chesterton) thought that Christ had come precisely to destroy the doctrine of the “Inner Light”. In the sense he was talking about, I’m sure that’s true; but I’m doubtful that what he was writing about (although specifically referring to the Quakers) is what the Quakers really mean.

If they mean (as I expect) that we are all enlightened by the light Who is coming into the world (per John 1 etc.) and that God (as Christ and as the Holy Spirit) is the chief witness to all of us (per Rom 10 etc.), then I wholly agree. If they mean that we are all God Himself (which is what whichever author I’m thinking of took them to mean, for whatever reason), then I very much disagree. I doubt they mean or meant that; but I can also see how it might be slid into by inept application of the other doctrine.

So, I dunno. {shrug} :slight_smile: I don’t know enough about the Quakers (or various branches of them perhaps) to talk much about them at all. But I do agree with trying to help people connect, as themselves, with the light Who is already acting toward that goal Himself. (If I didn’t agree with that, I either would be opting on a theology rather different from trinitarian theism, or else I’d be opting to not cooperate with God! :open_mouth: )

My understanding of the Quaker view on the inner light is that it is the capacity to listen directly to God and to experience His presence, something available to every individual. For the original Quakers, this equated to something like an end time theology, with the second coming being this great spiritual revolution – they were very keen on Jeremiah 31:33, ‘But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.’

When it became clear that they had disagreements and weren’t all about to break into a new age of perfect unity, there had to be a bit of a reshuffle, and consequently there are three major schools of thought concerning the role of the inner light:

-Evangelical quakers – the inner light is our guide to the correct interpretation of scripture
-Conservative quakers – the inner light is of primary importance, but tends to corroborate/be corroborated by scripture (which is presumably also inspired by the inner light) so large deviations should be seen as worrying.
-Liberal quakers – the inner light is of primary importance, and what is revealed to the individual directly from God carries more weight than any accepted beliefs, scriptures included – the scriptures being a collection of revelation from the inner light up to a certain point, as it were. This can lead to hugely varied theology from emphatically Christian Quakers to a more multi-religious view to even a non-theistic view. It tends not to cause the splits it would elsewhere because of the silent form of worship and rejection of a creed.

Personally, as I have always seen prayer as 99.99% listening, the idea of the inner light seems pretty natural. I see a couple of main problems…

-For those with a religious world view that includes the presence of demonic influences, you would have to be very cautious where your ‘light’ was coming from.
-Both with and outside this world view, possible psychological influences become a problem. This is especially problematic if you come at Quaker prayer from an atheistic point of view, and see no reason to offer any credence to the belief that God is present.

However, the above two considerations can effectively shackle us from any belief in a personal God (and, the more we dwell on them, the more terrified we become of resting faith in anything at all). To transfer authority away from your own personal communication with God to wisdom from other sources that you believe to have come from God is only to stretch out the problem. You must at some point decide where to take your authority from. That’s just my response. The Quaker response would be largely based in the sense of corporate assessment of any ‘leadings’ – if you’re on your own, you should probably think again. The idea of a Quaker meet is that a consensus will develop and all present will feel the truth of any ministry given. The arguments I can see for the primary position of the ‘inner light’ concept are:

-A faith rooted in firm experience will be one of love and worship in a way that one rooted in instruction cannot be. If I obey something I have been taught like an equation, it is difficult to feel this deserves glory or to willingly sacrifice anything for it.
-It prevents dogmatic assent and insists on an active philosophical life.
-It places God at the centre and avoids the danger of transferring worship to other sources.

The problems, besides those listed above…
-A belief in the inner light begs the question why some, despite commitment and desire, never experience such an overwhelming certainty of God’s presence.
-Levels of disagreement among those who all claim to have experienced God… this is not an issue for Liberal Quakers, who are ironically dogmatic about what I’ve heard described as the ‘absolute perhaps’ – that is, that the total otherness of God means that any revelation will be meaningful for the mind able to receive it but cannot paint the whole picture or establish a binding creed.

Once again, both these questions are actually applicable to prayer life as a whole. The inner light seems to me to be the logical conclusion of a faith in a personal God, and any problems we see in it are really magnifications of problems that have to be confronted anyway. I would certainly view a suitable cautious inner-kight based faith as a very healthy, inquisitive, active and involved faith.

/Long winded response :laughing:

But a great long-winded response! :smiley: Thanks!