A theology of grace in Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle

Spiritual Life, Fall 2003 by Zuger, Susan

The soul must go inside itself and let God show it how it has secretly used this gift to build up its own esteem. Only then can it emerge to share this gift with the world in a holy and humble way. This is why it is not good to store up riches on this earth. The soul cannot help but take pride in the things it believes are of its own doing. It does not see that all these riches are actually keeping it from seeing the truth about itself. It is easy to delude oneself into believing that it is responsible for the goodness it sees in itself. All things that falsely build it up or give it a false sense of faith must be laid before God. The soul must allow God to rid it of its secret need for these things. It is nothing without God.

Teresa tells the soul not to be discouraged as it begins to deal with the grace of self-knowledge. She insists that this is indeed the work of God and that the necessary knowledge of God will accompany this self-knowledge. She explains:

The soul must sometimes emerge from self-knowledge and soar aloft in meditation upon the greatness and the majesty of its God.... We shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we seek to know God: let us think of His greatness and then come back to our own baseness; by looking at His purity we shall see our foulness; by meditating upon His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.18

Humility is a key component in Teresa's doctrine of grace. Because she believes that with the grace given in self-knowledge one cannot help but be graced with true humility as well, she uses the words self-knowledge and humility interchangeably throughout her work. She says, "So long as we are on this earth, nothing matters more to us than humility."19 She says it can never be neglected: "Humility must always be doing its work. ...without humility all will be lost."20 Teresa exhorts the soul to be satisfied with the safe, level road of humility.

Teresa's Theology of Grace

By the end of her first chapter, Teresa has laid the groundwork for her theology of grace. She has outlined what one must do to receive God's grace. She says that the soul must be willing to labor, be resolute, and prepare itself with diligence to bring its will into conformity with the will of God. It is clear that Teresa believes that the only way to gain this grace is through prayer. It is in this prayer and meditation that the soul will receive the grace that will allow it to be transformed.

Teresa says that the door of entry into the castle is prayer and that this prayer must be accompanied by meditation. Prayer must be reflective, not merely uttering what one has learned by heart. It is not enough to simply pay lip service to God:

If a person does not think [about] Whom he is addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is asking and of Whom he is asking it, I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he be constantly moving his lips.21

If the soul wants only what is the will of God, it will have all that it desires. Teresa says, the more "perfectly one practices this, the more one will receive of the Lord and the greater one's progress will be." We do not have to "dabble in things of which we have no knowledge or understanding." Our entire welfare is in conforming to God's will. If we want the "Lord to do our will" and lead us as we want, our building will have no "firm foundation."22