INDIFFERENCE. — In the ascetical sense, it is the habitual disposition of the will by which it does not prefer one thing to another until it knows what the will of God is. Indifference is rooted in the appreciation that, spiritually and with regard to one’s own perfection, everything is nothing if it does not correspond to the dispositions of the divine will concerning oneself.
Indifference has no place where the divine will is already known, since in such a case indifference must give way to readiness and dedication in embracing and carrying out the divine will that has been manifested. Thus, for example, one cannot be indifferent with regard to things commanded or prohibited by God in the Decalogue, or imposed by the duties of one’s state. Indifference is exercised, in fact, in those things which, considered objectively, have no necessary connection with the ultimate end.
Indifference is necessary for anyone who aspires to a perfect life. It leads the soul to a great freedom of spirit. Whether a thing pleases it or not according to feeling, it does not allow these impressions to direct the orientation of its life, but solely the love of God, which dominates the love of creatures. Loving creatures only in God and for God, it cuts off disordered inclinations and unreasonable attachments to things, persons, places, and offices, seeing them all solely from the standpoint of their value for eternal life and preparing itself to choose them under this aspect. Hence indifference is praised by ascetics (v. PATARIA), as a sign of a magnanimous heart, ready to make use of creatures only insofar as they lead to the ultimate end, whereas the passion (v.), to which all moral deviations are attributed.
Indifference understood in this way is an element of conformity to the will of God, for carrying out which it perfectly disposes the soul, while preparing abandonment (v.); and it self-denial (v.) and mortification have been acquired to a high degree.
It is a characteristic virtue of Ignatian asceticism: « Opus est ut simus indifferentes ad omnia creata, quoad concessum est libertati nostræ et non prohibitum » (Ignazio di L., Exercitia spir., edited by F. Cervós, [*Monumenta historica S. I.*, 2nd series], Madrid 1919, p. 253; cf. p. 1230).
Indifference was falsely interpreted, especially in the 17th quietism (v.). Innocent XI condemned among the errors of Molinos the conception of a donation of free will to God, whereby the soul « non deve più curarsi di alcuna cosa, né dell'Inferno, né del Paradiso; né deve aver desiderio della propria perfezione, né delle virtù, né della propria santità, né della propria salvezza, di cui deve purgare la speranza » (Denz-U, 1233 ff.), and Innocent XII condemned by the brief Cum alias of 12 March 1699 the doctrine according to which anyone in the state of holy indifference should no longer have voluntary and deliberate desires for his own interest (Denz-U, 1330). It is erroneous to suppose that genuine indifference requires that the soul should no longer desire its own salvation, as its own salvation, as eternal liberation, as the reward of its merits, or as its own interest (Denz-U, 1332).