God, Teresa and Luther. Is there such a thing as passive faith?

Resumen

The fundamental theme of the love of God, understood here in both its dimensions from God to man and vice-versa, is an area of  Christian Spirituality that has confounded generations upon generations of mystics. Through this study, we propose to analyse this  very theme through the prisms of Teresa of Jesus and Martin Luther. Specifically, we are interested in seeing how the same  perspective and, to some extent, the same idea – their both having been struck deeply by the love of God –, led them down two  completely different paths. While both remained focused on the primacy of God’s initiative as the ultimate measure of God’s love for  us, Teresa was to remain focused on the other as our guarantee of remaining active in divine love and compassion, while Luther was  to close in on the primacy of passive faith, a dangerous quality, as holy as it may be, when overly emphasised.