16th–17th centuries

Spiritualists and Quakers: The Freedom of the Spirit, the "Inner Word" and the "Inner Light"

Many sixteenth-century spiritualists held that the inspiration of the Spirit is above Scripture, and some that the written Word should be set aside for the Word that God speaks directly to the human spirit. Caspar Schwenckfeld proposed a "middle way" between Catholicism and Lutheranism: the Holy Spirit is free and bound neither by the church nor by Scripture; the Bible is infallible, but what matters is not study but receiving inspiration, and the sacraments cannot mediate the spiritual through the material. Sebastian Franck carried these views to their logical conclusion, and Juan de Valdés sought communion with God through meditation. In 1646 George Fox discovered the "inner light" – Christ living in the believer – and renounced the outward means of grace, though not Christian fellowship and social justice.