John of the Cross, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Pantheism would make the soul God by nature, and such a soul would need no transforming. My whole teaching is the transforming, and the nights exist because the soul is not yet what it is called to become. What I say is that the soul is God by participation, and I say it in the same breath as the qualification: it seems to be God rather than itself, and is indeed God by participation, yet it keeps its own natural substance as distinct from God as before.1
The window shows how both hold. The sun strikes a pane; if the pane is stained, the light cannot pass through it or make it like itself. If it is clean, the rays so fill it that it seems one with them and gives forth their light, and yet it is still glass. This depends on the window and not on the sun, which is why the soul must first be cleansed of every stain of the creature, by keeping its will perfectly one with God's will.2
The union is not a thing to be understood, tasted or imagined. It asks only that pureness and love which is complete detachment from all things for God alone.3 What the soul becomes is real, and I do not soften it. Its understanding is no longer moved by its natural light but by the supernatural light of God, so that in the union its understanding and God's are one.
Its will loves with divine affection, moved by the Holy Spirit, and its appetite is now only an appetite for God. Yet the same page holds the limit: the substance of the soul is not the substance of God, since it cannot be substantially converted into Him.4 What is one is the operation, because the will of the two is one. The soul does in God, through God, what He does in it through Himself, as the glass casts back the splendours of the sun that shines on it, though in a more exalted manner, since the will enters into it.5
At the height of it the soul breathes in God the very breath of the Holy Spirit that God breathes in it. This is no strange boast, for the Son prayed that those given to Him might do by participation in the Trinity what He does by nature. The Son has by nature what we have by grace, and He merited it for us.6 That is the gulf between this and absorption.
Absorption has one party left at the end, where here the soul loves and is loved, which takes two. Of the clear and manifest degree of this, I say that it belongs to the life to come; in this life it is a shadow of God, not perfect as it will be in heaven.5
In the spiritual marriage the soul is transformed in God by love and is God by participation: its understanding is moved by God's light, its will by God's love, and the Holy Spirit breathes in it as He breathes between the Father and the Son.7 It remains a creature with its own natural substance, as the window remains glass while the sun fills it and the log remains wood while it is fire.
The union is not of essence but of likeness and love, given by grace through the Son, who has by nature what the soul has by participation.8910
The soul seems to be God rather than itself, and indeed is God by participation, though in reality preserving its own natural substance as distinct from God as it did beforeThe Ascent of Mount Carmel
the sun cannot shine throughout nor transform it perfectly into itself, as it would have done, had it been clean and unsullied. This depends not on the sun but on the windowThe Ascent of Mount Carmel
the fitting disposition for this union is, not that the soul should understand, taste, feel, or imagine anything on the subject of the nature of God, or any other thing whatever, but only that pureness and love which is perfect resignation, and complete detachment from all things for God alone.The Ascent of Mount Carmel
And the substance of this soul, though it is not the substance of God, since it cannot be substantially converted into Him, yet, being united with Him as it here is, and absorbed in Him, is God by participation in GodThe Living Flame of Love, second redaction
it does in God through God what He does in it through Himself, in the manner in which He does it; for the will of the two is one. And thus the operation of God and of the soul is one.The Living Flame of Love, second redaction
'that they may do by participation in Us what I do naturally, namely, breathe the Holy Ghost.'A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
For the understanding, which before this union understood naturally with the force and vigour of its natural light by the life of the corporal senses, is now moved and informed by another, higher principle of the supernatural light of God, the senses being set aside; and thus it has been changed into divine, because by the union its understanding and God's are all one.The Living Flame of Love, second redaction
For as our Lord saith, 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot _ enter into the kingdom of God.' He who shall not have been born again of the Holy Ghost shall not see the kingdom of God, which is the state of perfection. To be born again of the Holy Ghost in this life perfectly, is to be a soul -most like unto God in purity without any stain of imperfection.The Ascent of Mount Carmel
That is, ' That weight of glory to which Thou didst predestine me, O my Bridegroom, in the day of Thy eternity, when it was Thy good pleasure to decree my creation, Thou wilt then give me in my day of my betrothal and of my nuptials, in my day of the joy of my heart, when, released from the burden of the flesh, led into the deep caverns of Thy bridal chamber and gloriously transformed in Thee, we drink the wine of…A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
For this reason shall this union be called the union of likeness, as the other is essential or substantial union; this latter one is natural, the other is supernatural, which takes effect when two wills, the will of God and the will of the soul, are conformed together, neither desiring aught repugnant to the other.The Ascent of Mount Carmel
The language that delights readers of mysticism and alarms its theologians; the texts state the claim and the qualification in the same sentence.